AMD finally launches Phenom II and its Dragon desktop platform

It was a struggle getting it "officially" out the door, and the reviews are already lackluster, but AMD's 45nm, quad-core Phenom II has finally arrived. It's available in two flavors, the 2.8GHz X4 920 and the 3.0GHz X4 940 Black Edition, going for $235 and $275, respectively. AMD's naturally touting the ostensible cost savings of the chips -- they're supposed to split the difference between Intel's Core 2 Quad and Core i7 processor -- but in reality they seems to trail Intel's offerings pretty soundly on the price / performance curve. The accompanying Dragon platform includes a Phenom II proc, 4800-series Radeon HD graphics and a 790-series motherboard, all of which should combine for low power consumption -- up to 40 percent compared to Phenom processors. Where the Phenom II definitely wins is the fact that some AMD folks will be able to drop in the chip to existing motherboards, but otherwise it looks like value hounds and performance junkies aren't being served by this new chip -- at least until unreasonable overclocking activities make all the pain go away.

Read - AMD PR
Read - PC World review
Read - HotHardware review

[collegekid13 @ Jan 8th 2009 2:56AM]

so will these mean a price cut for my tri-core i'ma looking at

[Paul Mensah @ Jan 8th 2009 2:59AM]

ME = AMD Shareholder .............. Me = Proud

[Christian Martin @ Jan 8th 2009 11:23AM]

ME AM SOLOMON GRUNDIE.

[Joseph @ Jan 8th 2009 2:29PM]

you forgot the /. should be /me =

[David Grey @ Jan 8th 2009 3:10AM]

Cool, think I'll buy some AMD shares too!

[Blitz @ Jan 8th 2009 3:13AM]

The massive tsunami of posts is making me blind and mesmerized at the same time. Keep it comin


Hehe

[John Davies @ Jan 8th 2009 3:17AM]

Change the front news already; reviews are coming in and AMD IS BACK!!!!!!.....

"For the price, the Phenom II is a killer processor."

"On top of that, there were several benchmarks that the Phenom II 940 even beat out the newest Intel Core i7 920."

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenomii940/

[thedesolate1 @ Jan 8th 2009 3:35AM]

The only thing AMD is killing is me... oh almighty AMD gods why hath thou forsaken us? This is your answer to core i7?

[fieldcar @ Jan 8th 2009 10:23AM]

@thedesolate1: You would spend $1200 on a processor? I think AMD is realistic, and competes where most people's price points are. I think anything more than $400 for a processor is insane. Until I start growing money on tree's I will enjoy the sub $300 processors AMD is supplying.

[thedesolate1 @ Jan 8th 2009 12:04PM]

Hey I think this is amd's closest offer to compete with intel to date and I am not trying to put it all the way down. But my concerns are more about price/performance. If you go by the tom's hardware review you are paying 85 more bucks for just a 10% increase in performance compared to the Q6600 and perhaps a little less power consumption. This doesnt even take overclocking into account. I know in the top of the line cpu world that isnt alot because the "extreme: intel processors cost $100's more for marginal performance gains once you hit $1,000 but this is more for the average power user who doesnt have or isnt willing to drop a G on a cpu. Listen I love AMD but you have to be realistic about this. Okay fine you dont have to buy a board and ram when compared to the lowest end core i7 processor but the current AMD boards are going to reach their plateau sooner or later and you wont have room to work with to upgrade the CPU. Core i7 is more future proof. Especially the way the economy is and with intel's earnings falling 500 million below estimates I think that they will focus more on the current boards to save money rather then force people to buy a new mobo soon.

[tekd @ Jan 9th 2009 12:17PM]

Thing about price is that Intel is just going to drop all their Core2Quad prices now that they have i7 as their high end, thus killing any justification for buying the Phenom II (in a new computer anyway).

Pointing out that it beats the i7 920 in some obscure benchmark is pretty silly when it loses the vast majority of benchmarks to both i7 and higher end quad-core Core2's.

Their only real hope is that all the Phenoms are great overclockers. If that's the case they might have some saving grace.

[MichaelS @ Jan 8th 2009 3:18AM]

Yes this is what I've been waiting for, though I hoped the prices to be lower, i.e. $199 for the 2.8ghz and maybe $249 for the 3.0ghz I think even at 3.0ghz for $275 it's too close to the price point of the low entry intel core 17 at $299 and I'm sure the core i7 still beats out the new Phenom X2.

[LucasDurant @ Jan 8th 2009 3:34AM]

I'm pretty sure you are wrong sir..

[Junemas @ Jan 8th 2009 3:42AM]

I'll admit I was wrong, and have seen the comparisons and the Phenom X2 940 in the majority of cases is on par or beats of the low entry core i7, I was getting the phenom x2 regardless because it's a cheaper build then going with the core i7's, no expensive low latency DDR3 Ram, no need to buy a $300 compatible mother board, with the Phenom X2 4 gigs 1066mhz ram, ati 4850 and my mother board of choice the ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe and I have myself a great Dragon desktop.

[Ravi @ Jan 8th 2009 3:44AM]

More results here..
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-ii-940,2114.html#xtor=RSS-182

[ethana2 @ Jan 8th 2009 3:46AM]

I'm glad to see that AMD is at least back in the game, for the time being.

[chris @ Jan 8th 2009 5:47AM]

new Dell XPS 625 with new AMD Phenom and AMD Athlon processors.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-xps-625%20?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

[Blaine Oliver @ Jan 8th 2009 4:17PM]

Oooh gimmie! :)

[Michael @ Jan 8th 2009 4:01AM]

I miss AMD. I remember when all I used to buy was AMD.

[Jake B @ Jan 8th 2009 4:37AM]

Agreed. They used to offer product that was up to par with Intel in terms of quality and performance for a much much cheaper price. Ah I remember the days, building desktop computers in High School with the AMD XP. Glorious.

[Reikon @ Jan 8th 2009 4:16AM]

Anandtech has a favorable review: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3492

[ed. @ Jan 8th 2009 5:30AM]

Looks like AMD could be back in the game, especially for those upgrading or working to a budget.

It's got the OCC Gold Award, Tom's "seldom-granted Recommended Buy award" and AnandTech is calling it "AMD's return to the competition.

[Piro @ Jan 8th 2009 6:11AM]

Oh thank you Newegg...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

[WhyFi @ Jan 8th 2009 6:46AM]

Ordered. I've been waitin' to replace my 5000 BE for close to a year, now...

[TexRob @ Jan 8th 2009 8:23AM]

Get ready to scream fanboy at me.

I think it's interesting that more and more companies are realizing the beauty of combining hardware to achieve things not possible with a pure component based world. I will even give you that Apple didn't do it first, early video game consoles did (yes, pre Lisa). You can get new levels of performance and power savings when you integrate your components together to work specifically with each other. I think this new idea from AMD is a good one, and it's benefits them as well as the consumer.

[Dummy00001 @ Jan 8th 2009 8:31AM]

just look at the power consumption... wow.... unfortunately power consumption benchmark was only one the phenoms had won :(

it's not even up to par with older core 2 quad CPUs.

price would sure drop very soon, yet, for next gaming rig it seems i have to go with i7.

P.S. AMD fanboi in me is crying quietly in darkest corner of the soul...

[CosterMonger @ Jan 8th 2009 12:07PM]

but they done it! they've finally beat the Q6600!
... wait, what do you mean Intel gone up two generations since then! ... oh well back to the drawing board

[tom @ Jan 8th 2009 8:40AM]

get the phuck outta here

[MonkeysFly @ Jan 8th 2009 9:09AM]

Dang, you guys really are snobs.

[mrmojoz @ Jan 8th 2009 10:01AM]

I know the "person" who posted this "news" didn't bother to read the reviews, but I suggest actually looking at the info before passing judgement. These are great chips for the money.

[Luffy @ Jan 8th 2009 11:16AM]

"And the reviews are already lackluster"

Wait, what reviews have you been reading?

Out of the 4 reviews I've read today, they all gave recommended buys.

[Kyle Wright @ Jan 8th 2009 3:58PM]

I agree with you. Engadget seems to be AMD haters, as the reviews contradict their "lackluster" report. Tomshardware (you know, guys who actually know a thing or two about building a system) say, "As a result of its exceptional energy efficiency advances and an affordable price/performance ratio, AMD Phenom II X4 deserves our seldom-granted Recommended Buy award."

[Christian Martin @ Jan 8th 2009 11:23AM]

Looks promising. I'm considering a MB/proc upgrade soon, as my MB is maxed and showing its age, and may just give AMD another shot after all this time. I'd like to see how Intel counters this release though.

[Jake@AMD @ Jan 8th 2009 1:14PM]

Fieldcar - You’re exactly right. You can experience high-end performance with Dragon platform technology from AMD, all while spending as little as $1,200 U.S. dollars less than competitive offerings. And guess what? When similarly configured (except of course for memory, since the AMD platformtechnology allows you to continue to use DDR2 memory), both platforms run the PC games like Crysis at elite performance levels, and deliver comparable Crysis benchmark frame rates.

[superhobo @ Jan 8th 2009 1:23PM]

BAH

You journalists make it look like it was completely useless crap. It might not beat i7 at the highest levels, but other wise its quite good, thank you, and I would buy it if was going to buy a new PC.
So there.

[tekd @ Jan 9th 2009 12:29PM]

But uhh...it doesn't even beat Core 2 at the highest levels. Yes it beats the Q6600...but then again the Q6600 is 2 generations old.
Processors like the Q9450, Q9550 and just about every QX series CPU are faster in pretty much every single game benchmark. And if you don't play games, most other CPU intensive tasks like encoding are also dominated by Intel processors.
I mean it's impressive in comparison to the dismal failure that was Phenom, but this thing is only good until Intel decides to drop the price of it's Q9xxx processors, which they're very likely to do. What's AMD going to do if Intel starts dumping the Q9xxx series in the $150 range?

[Joseph @ Jan 8th 2009 2:35PM]

blah blah blah blah MAC blah blah blah blah

[Chavez @ Jan 12th 2009 1:39PM]

Not bad. Not outstanding but good. If I was buying now, I would strongly consider a Phenom II system because I like supporting competition when the underdog is able to deliver a decent product.

However, most likely I'll be building a new system at the start of the summer, so we'll see where things are at then since it could swing in either AMD or Intel's favor when the price cuts start hitting.

[ashok pai @ Jan 14th 2009 10:10PM]

the review of the new set of chips are positive according to Toms hardware though:

"As a result of its exceptional energy efficiency advances and an affordable price/performance ratio, AMD Phenom II X4 deserves our seldom-granted Recommended Buy award."