AMD Phenom II processor bought, benchmarked, coveted

AMD, a company not exactly known for meeting its own deadlines, seemed to be trying to avoid news of painful delays for the Phenom II by simply not letting anyone say when the thing would be available. Now the chip is apparently in the hands of one lucky gamer at the HardOCP forums, Table21, who was kind enough to run it through its paces. The Phenom II 940 running at 3GHz scored a 4,091 on 3DMark06 and, once OC'd up to 3.85GHz, delivered a score of 5,086. It's rather too early to draw any conclusions from these numbers, and we don't know what he paid for the thing, but that performance does fall well behind Intel's Core i7 Extreme that was similarly benchmarked last month, scoring 6,608 at the same clock speed. That's quite a gap -- but nothing a little liquid nitrogen won't fix.

[Via PC Perspective]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 23rd 2008 2:32PM]

O really? For everyone thinking that AM2 is cheaper than LGA 1366.

If you have to switch platforms or upgrade from an older platform, AMD does not save you much money. Plus your performance is less.
Going Intel Core i7 is NOT 2 to 3 times more expensive than AMD.

If I were buying an AM2+ mobo this is what I would get. $249.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131292
Or maybe this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130160

Now say I buy a new Phenom (current gen) Phenom 9950 = $199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103291

Total about $450.

Core i7 System:
Asus P6T Mobo $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359

Core i7 920: $299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Total about $550.

Now which system is faster? For an extra hundred bucks, I would go Intel.

Personal preference, but you are simply on a better more advanced platform than an AMD AM2+ mobo with DDR2.
The Intel system in my opinion would last you much longer than the AMD.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 23rd 2008 3:39PM]

i have never bought a motherboard for over $120 and never plan to. $250 for a motherboard is ludicrous. you're Asus's bitch for buying that expensive ass motherboard. it doesn't take a fucking $250 motherboard to run Crysis. Do you think the entire fucking world spends $250 on motherboards? jesus christ.

if only everyone was as wealthy as you, young one.

[darkNiGHTS Posted Dec 23rd 2008 10:03PM]

I think you missed the article that we're all looking at above. The new Phenom processors are FASTER than the old ones.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 23rd 2008 5:07PM]

A bit crass, but when you're right you're right.

@ Millard

All you have to do is look at current gen stuff, people are STILL rocking P35 mobos over newer and vastly more expensive mobos. Why? Because they work just as well. Even after that you forgot to mention the huge price difference in memory for each system. Even when the AM3 boards come out they will still be dual channel instead of triple channel.

[Macbeth Posted Dec 24th 2008 3:34AM]

Oh my god, your a bona fide retard. You cherry pick some of the most expensive AMD stuff and set it up against the cheapest Core i7 cpu/mobo combo you can find, and to further things you conveniently left out RAM, that alone would cause the skewed intel cost to balloon. Flagship mobo vs a barebone mobo, pffft again retard.

going for parity

ASUS Rampage 2 $400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131352

the ram
~$85 for 8gbof cas4 ddr2 vs ~$220 for 6gb of cas7 ddr3

4-5 extra fps or 30 less off my load times for $385, no thank you.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 25th 2008 8:58PM]

I wrote what I thought about this over at http://19incheswide.com/2008/12/23/feeling-sorry-for-amd/

A quick summary of it unless you want to read it. I thinkt aht AMD did a better job on their CPUs. I also think that gaming bench marks and benchmarks that do not do multi-threading will really allow an AMD to shine. imo.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 23rd 2008 11:24PM]

Um, U Phenom II Haters!!!! If you people think this chip is not the sh@t U are out of your mine!!!! The test from this chip is a "bad chip" and NOT the soon to release one. You can not compare this chip with ANYTHING until the real chips come out and ONLY then you can talk your smack.

Table21 is testing this chip on a motherboard that is NOT even ready for this chip!!! He is on a AM2+ WITH A SOUTH BRIDGE OF 600!!! One of the weakest motherboard for this chip.

So, say that if this chip was on a "$150" 790GX/FX MB WITH A 750 SOUTH BRIDGE, it will give that Crapp-In-Tel I7 a slap in the A$$ for being soo pricey for no reason....

Also, the January release Deneb runs on DDR2 Memory, I7 runs on DDR3!!! 4+GHZ on a board thats not ready for a Phenom II and on DDR2??

@ Millard, You will be a dummy for buying a board like that as it's NOT needed unless you like to be bent over and I7 "920" don't count, It already lost!!!

$150 "or less" Mb + $275-$300 Deneb 940= Kicking I7's A$$
Over priced whore!!!

Enough said!!!!!

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2008 9:52AM]

just give me the cache

[gfos Posted Dec 24th 2008 3:07PM]

I don't know whats going on in other countries but in greece (where i live) phenoms II are already out
phenom 940 goes for 300 euros

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2008 10:01PM]

the phenom II it's supposed to arrive up to 5ghz if using liquid-nitrogen cooling, plus when seeing requirements for games or software to run in a pc, amd processors are at average 0.5ghz less requesting than intel processors, this meaning that they're better designed to run demandaing applications without going to the limits. and wen comparing the pre-order prices of the phenom II($300-$375), to the prices pf the i core 7($1000-$1250), you will definitely like the phenom II a lot more than the i core 7

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 16th 2009 6:26PM]

Let's not forget that the $299 i7 is outperformed by the $199 Phenom (2.66 vs 3.00 GHz) and uses DDR2 RAM at $19.99 for a 2x2GB package compared to the i7's $74.99 for 2x2GB, and motherboards at $269.99 for a midrange compared to $139.99 for a midrange Phenom mobo. And let's not get into how the i7 Extreme is only 200MHz faster for about $879.99 more than the Phenom Black Edition.