AMD's fastest Phenom X4 9850 desktop CPU tested, Intel points and giggles like brat

Today's benchmark day for AMD's fastest desktop processor -- the Phenom X4 9850. Free of the nasty TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer) bug, the stage is now set for a head-to-head with Intel's best. While it's a significant step forward for AMD, the 9850 proc hardly compares with Intel's best quad-core desktop CPUs. Nevertheless, as PCPer says, "any enthusiast or gamer looking for a ~$240 processor is going to have a fantastic experience with the 9850." We're just happy to see AMD back on track and ready to compete. Now get to it AMD, faster clock speeds and 45-nm processes please? Intel needs someone banging at the door to keep Moore's Law from becoming Moore's Recommendation.

Update: Oh, by the way, the 2.5GHz X4 9850 is now shipping.

Read -- PC Perspective
Read -- Hot Hardware
Read -- X4 950 now available

[Karl Viklund @ Mar 27th 2008 5:53AM]

I'm a big AMD fan and I will continue to support AMD. The last Intel CPU I bought was a Pentium4 2.4 GHz. After that I have been AMD all the way. Intel is leasing in performance now but remember it was the opposite for a few years. Intel is a HUGE company and can throw an enormous amount of resources and money to develop new CPUs. Much more the AMD can ever dram of. Intel is also dominating the market for CPUs totally. So I support AMD. Just thinking of Intel and how they are trying to crush AMD makes me sick.

[Mark @ Mar 27th 2008 6:22AM]

You're loyalty is sweet, but also stupid. As a consumer you shouldn't subscribe to brand loyalty, but should be evaluating each product on a price vs performance basis. I've had a AMD K6-2, T-Bird 1.2ghz, XP 2400+, XP 2600+, Athlon x64 3400+, which were all great processors at purchase, and were at a reasonable price. AMD have fallen off the bandwagon however, so I moved to Intel. If AMD get their shit together, I'll move back, but not before.

Brand loyalty is straight out silly. Do yourself a favour and get what's best at the time of purchase. Don't be a sucker.

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 6:41AM]

Mark's right, your loyalty is 'sweet' but utterly misguided.

If people continue to buy AMD just because they're not Intel as opposed to choosing their processors based on merit alone, then it just means that AMD will be slower in getting their arses into gear and actually competing with Intel.
If people stop buying AMD, then they'll have to sort themselves out. Well, that or die a slow and deserved death.

[theycallmeMartin @ Mar 27th 2008 6:52AM]

Brand loyalism could actualy bee a good thing, to some extent. We consumers have the power to say what is OK for a company to do and not to do. For example if you have a company A and a company B, company A have the better product but uses foul play and "ugly" methods. Wich company's product would you buy ?

I know neither Intel or AMD use fair play, but Intel is probably the least fair.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Mar 27th 2008 6:55AM]

@Iain

I generally buy AMD for their better Linux support. And also because AMD, as second in market, generally has better offers.

Intel has better quality. But now with upgrade cycle of two years - when you need to replace mobo - make the whole point of Intel advantage moot.

Formula didn't changed in years: Intel is more expensive, have better quality; AMD is cheaper, but still provides sufficient performance for the buck.

Loyalty is quite silly - if it is about a product. To product there are only two metrics: whether you can afford it and whether it does the job for you. Rest is rubbish.

[Jake @ Mar 27th 2008 7:13AM]

@ihar

From what I see performance/$$ Intel is the cheaper option and the best choice currently.

As everyone has said brand loyalty is silly with brands this huge. If you're supporting your local breadmaker then it's not so bad :)

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 7:17AM]

@theblokesupposedlyknownasMartin: how are Intel any less fair than AMD?
They're both companies whose sole aim is to make money.


@Philips: of course, Intel will not be ideal for everyone but for most people, at this point in time, you have to wonder why they would want to buy AMD.
Ok, yeah, they're a bit cheaper but this Phenom isn't that much cheaper than the low-end Intel quads and it's only just about hanging in there. If you go down the AMD range to try and save money, the performance drops off dramatically - there is such a thing as false economy, saving a bit of money now but costing yourself more in the future (when you have to upgrade your under-powered AMD CPU earlier than you would a slightly more expensive Intel one).

[Leon Ngo @ Mar 27th 2008 7:57AM]

I just get whatever faster and cheaper. When it comes to pc therms, it all aboout the spec (^_^)

[Chip @ Mar 27th 2008 9:12AM]

Loyalty is misguided? Silly?
Why can't someone cast his economic vote AGAINST a cpu monopoly? Do you Intel switchers really want to pay much higher CPU prices once AMD is gone?
As with any economic segment, competition always makes things better for the consumer...quality, cost, inovation, etc. Some people might want to maintain those in the CPU market rather than wear a "My rig is faster than your rig" T-shirt.

[nh @ Mar 27th 2008 9:41AM]

Why is Karl Viklund low ranked for considering something other than performance/cost? It's a perfectly reasonable position: not everybody is a capitalist whore.

It's almost like you people have forgotten the situation a few years ago when there was NO choice. Intel did what they wanted, holding back releases, since there was no commercial need to release their best efforts, and charging what the hell they liked.

Supporting the little guy is often good, it aids competition and keeps them in business so they are there when you need them. People are very quick to criticise monopolies, but they didn't get there on their own. It's that same attitude that pushes jobs abroad and funds unethical governments.

If you follow your capitalist performance/cost metric you would always shop online and never at your local store, which would go out of business. Then what happens when you need inkjet supplies for your report that's due in 1 hour?

So my point is: support who you like, there's more to life than counting pennies.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about the operations of either company. I just like the fact that there's a choice. (And for the record: I'm a Core 2 man)

[Andy @ Mar 27th 2008 11:02AM]

Loyalty is misguided? Did you see what happened to Blu-ray player prices when HDDVD bowed out? Loyalty to AMD may save us all some big bucks in the long run.

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 11:04AM]

Because AMD are doing such a great job forcing down Intel's prices just now...

[Bufsabre @ Mar 27th 2008 11:06AM]

@jake

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1106&model2=874&chart=444

i dont know, toms hardware lists price to performance and that top is pretty green, and to me when you consider that my 90$ amd 4800+ is only outscored by 190 in pc mark by my friends 190$ c2d, and the fact that my motherboard was 90$ and his was 140$ i think i won. i also consider the mobo in this factor and intel motherboards have no innovation, produce more heat, use tons more electricity, and cost a ton more

[patrick @ Mar 27th 2008 11:38AM]

what a boneheaded thing to say.

competition isn't good for the consumer? what should intel be trying to do, if not beat amd, have a picnic with 'em?

[Jack @ Mar 27th 2008 12:58PM]

please keep buying AMD, as it means my intel chips are cheaper :)

[CosterMonger @ Mar 27th 2008 1:01PM]

@Bufsabre

well said, AMD does own the bargain bin.

[rodcadneo @ Mar 27th 2008 5:55AM]

good news
love that sentence: Intel needs someone banging at the door to keep Moore's Law from becoming Moore's Recommendation. hehe

[rodcadneo @ Mar 27th 2008 6:14AM]

benchmark your brains wé ird0

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Mar 27th 2008 7:01AM]

More's Law looked always stupid. As developer I know first-hand that frequency means sh*t to performance.

Hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper. More and more of features gets implemented in hardware (think GPU) rather than in software (think CPU).

To me and for most of what I was doing in the past years 300MHz was sufficient. For multimedia one needs more of horse power, yet CPUs can't do it without hardware support anyway. With hardware acceleration factored in, CPUs do not need that much horse power then. Well, except of running Supreme Commander of course... ;)

[G_White @ Mar 27th 2008 8:02AM]

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors placed on an IC will double every two years. Why is that stupid? And what does frequency have to do with it?

[Chebwa @ Mar 27th 2008 8:27AM]

@Ihar `Philips` Filipau

Heavy Drinking + Engadget = WTF

[laokoon2600 @ Mar 27th 2008 5:56AM]

AMD needs the "bulldozer" core ASAP!

[Bobs @ Mar 27th 2008 7:03AM]

No, they need the killdozer, and take it out on intel's HQ

[AutoTom @ Mar 27th 2008 6:07AM]

i think this is great, looking at the numbers.. this is good enough for any die-hard AMD fan to go AMD, i sure would... but i went q6600 3 months ago... ohhh.... dang

[Dustin Frazier @ Mar 27th 2008 6:18AM]

They can diffuse it in Germany all they want....still got a bomb on their hands.

[michas_pi @ Mar 27th 2008 7:38AM]

I see what you did there.

[Ted @ Mar 27th 2008 9:17AM]

I don't.
I'm a bit slow in the mornings :'(

[Matt @ Mar 27th 2008 9:44AM]

diffuse almost = defuse.

[CB17 @ Mar 27th 2008 6:34AM]

From looking at the benchmarks, it doesn't look like Engadget is doing the new Phenoms justice. It seems like clock for clock they're on par or better than their Core 2 counterparts.

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 6:48AM]

For the most part, the Q9300 owned the night. It generally outpaced the old Q6600 quad core and the new Phenom quad core in most of our tests. In a clock-for-clock test, we would declare the Q9300 the winner with the Q6600 as the runner up.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/amd_s_new_x4_quad_core

[CB17 @ Mar 27th 2008 6:51AM]

Still pretty close though considering the processor is brand new and even more so when you take in to account price.

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 7:05AM]

They don't completely blow the AMD out of the water, no but it's still very much in Intel's favour.
As for price, you can definitely get the Q6600 for less than that and since the Phenom is brand new, you're unlikely to be seeing it at the price listed any time soon.

Of course the big point though is that this is the top-of-the-range Phenom struggling to keep up with Intel's bottom-of-the-range offerings, one of which is even out of date now.

[LordZargon @ Mar 27th 2008 6:38AM]

"Now get to it AMD, faster clock speeds"

Clock speeds don't matter (that much). Performance is not dictated by them. That's why Intel stopped with naming their processors based on their clockspeed and why AMD came to the front all those years ago boasting faster CPUs with lower clock speeds. Sure they can help, but its not what defines its performance.

[Edho @ Mar 27th 2008 8:17AM]

Clock speed is one that affects performance (esp between processors with same architecture).

[Iain @ Mar 27th 2008 11:03AM]

No, clock speed isn't the be all and end all but the days of slower AMD processors out-performing faster Intels are long gone.
In fact, recently, the opposite has been true.

So, unless AMD produces something faster, they're never going to get out of the basement performance-wise.

[Bufsabre @ Mar 27th 2008 11:28AM]

amd needs to increase their hyper transport speeds and their cache sizes to run again with intel in the speed department but intel needs to remover their head from their ass to run with amd in the price department, and maybe produce some motherboards with some innovation

[DiscoCat5 @ Mar 27th 2008 8:18AM]

Well i would love to have bought a nice mid to high range AMD cpu an coupled it with a nice mid to high end AMD graphics card and had it work smooth as with vista 64bit. but in reality i bought a q6600 and an 8800gt. there was simply no competition with price and performance being my main stipulations. its all well and good that they created a "proper" quad core, but they are way to late to the party and still generaly beaten by intel. i would love to have an AMD sticker on the front of my case, but as im sure many people have done, i bought a cheapish good quality q6600, i just hope that next time i go to upgrade my pc (not for a long tiem) AMD have something to offer. a step in the right direction, and a joruney of a htousand miles starts with just that step, many more to go.

[Feldwebel Wolfenstool @ Mar 27th 2008 8:29AM]

Don't INTEL upgrades generally require you to replace the mobo and ram as well? AMD seems to have a better upgradability. Being the highspeed KING is meaningless to me, if I have to pay out 50% more cash, just for a lousy 10%...No-one can afford a Buick Grand National, so they buy a Chev instead...

[Wwhat @ Mar 28th 2008 12:31AM]

Yeah it's not like you have to change mobo with AMD do you.. oh wait.
They are both the same on that front, to run a phenom at full blast you need an AM2+ socket, that means a new mobo, and the same for intel, you can run the new generation on old 775 but for full speed you need the chipsets with new functions like the x38/x48, which also require new DDR3 RAM andsoforth, they both don't seem to look ahead and just keep demanding new motherboards every year while at the same time they keep raising the price of those, and already motherboards are more expensive than the damn CPU and even beefy graphics cards.
But of course that's only an issue if you go for the fastest setup I guess.

[AC @ Mar 27th 2008 8:30AM]

FYI - TLB = Translation lookaside buffer

[Gh3tt0 Child @ Mar 27th 2008 8:44AM]

im more of an intel fan though.

[BK @ Mar 27th 2008 9:35AM]

Surely you guys meant "Translation Lookaside Buffer", instead of "Transaction Lookaside Buffer" you so explicitly clarified for your readers.

[TMM @ Mar 27th 2008 9:38AM]

I don't get it:

"any enthusiast or gamer looking for a ~$240 processor is going to have a fantastic experience with the 9850."

But the Core 2 Quad Q6600 beats 9850, though it runs at 100 Mhz less and you can get it for just a little over 200$. So why should I get an AMD again?
Because I'm stubborn?

I think Intel is doinggreat right now and the positions shifted 180°.
Some time ago AMD was faster with lower clock speed ... and now I don't even see light on the horizon for AMD, which now seems to be the new Cyrix, or VIA?

And as already said in other posts: don't be stubborn and stick to a company out of some crazy principles: buy the better product.

[CosterMonger @ Mar 27th 2008 12:56PM]

C2D E8400 owns both in terms of gaming

[sayid @ Mar 27th 2008 9:55AM]

I hate you all. Take the fanboyism and shove it up your ass.

[Dagwood @ Mar 27th 2008 10:19AM]

When you consider the platform, it is good deal. I am in the market for a quad core processor. The 770-790fx motherboard platform allows from PCI-E 2.0 at half the price of a comparable intel motherboard.

pci-e 2.0 may not be needed, but its the most future proof solution. The only reason to get a quad core is because you are looking to the future. Dual cores crush quads in most applications currently. Once the software adjusts for quads, it will be a different story.

I may go with intel in the end, but I still have a few months. AMD just put themselves back in the running.

[graphicsking33 @ Mar 27th 2008 11:06AM]

You are missing one very important point here. 95% of the market are mainstreamers. Mainstreamers buy systems or build systems with integrated graphics. AMD wins on games and HD video when paired to the 780G chipset when compared to ANY Intel CPU plus the crappy G35 chipset.

The proof is here:
Intel BluRay:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V741rSx3-5U
Intel Games:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd0Of4PnpQk

Try to dispel this!

[melvz @ Mar 27th 2008 11:06AM]

Still... a Phenom isn't that PHENOMINAL after all! more of a crap!

[kal326 @ Mar 27th 2008 11:39AM]

Oh well Im already getting "a fantastic experience with" a Q6600 and I only payed $199.99 for it. Then I see today that the rest of the Intel 45nm quads are FINALLY shipping.

[John Stracke @ Mar 27th 2008 6:08PM]

Same here—I just bought mine on Monday. I would've liked to go with AMD, but the TLB bug was a showstopper. So, a Q6600, a new motherboard, 4 gigs of RAM, and a new video card (my old one was a GeForce MX from 2002), for a little under $500.

And, frankly, I like Intel a lot better than I used to these days, because they release so much stuff as open source. When I needed a new laptop in the fall of 2006, that's what decided me: the only way to get a laptop with WiFi that was well-supported on Linux was to get one with an Intel 3945 or 4695 (since Intel maintains the drivers), which meant an Intel CPU.

(Intel does other stuff, too, not just drivers for their hardware; I'm using their computer vision package in a project for work.)

With Intel pulling ahead in performance, and getting ready to release CPUs based on a switched fabric like HyperTransport, I think AMD is going to have to scramble pretty hard to catch up. I hope they do, but I'm not too confident.