Just when you though you'd had your fill of insanely detailed benchmarks of processors you may or may not have ever heard of, AMD's new Phenom II X4 955 and 945 hit the scene to get those overclockers all in a tizzy. The top of the line is the 955 "Black Edition" at 3.2GHz, while the 945 plays with a petty 3GHz. And the verdict? They're clearly AMD's fastest so far, but that might not be fast enough. AMD offers great value, but only really matches Intel's Core 2 offerings on performance -- Core i7 is still out in front. There is the fact that
Phenom II offers a nice upgrade path for certain people who already do the AMD thing and are looking to upgrade, along with "enthusiasts" who are "enthused" by easy-access overclocking, but overall it looks like AMD is still playing catch-up with Intel.
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posted Apr 23rd 2009 4:06PM
diffused in germany
made in malaysia
and?
that's why they aren't as fast as intel
Well not really, if you look at a similar priced CPU from Intel then AMD's is faster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites
Assembly Test Sites
* Cavite, Philippines
* Pudong, China
* Chengdu, China
* Penang, Malaysia
* Kulim, Malaysia
* San Jose, Costa Rica
* Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
There's that Malaysia place again.
stimulate our economy, don't buy AMD. ;-)
@Joseph:
AMD is based in California.
pwn3d
I'm not sure this phenom 2 offers more bang for buck than the core 2 duo.
I bought a E7400 for $99 that easily overclocked to 3.8ghz.
I would probably go Phenom II over i7 though... the i7s are just ridiculously overpriced. Of course, I'd go Xeon over either if it weren't for prohibitive server RAM costs....
to the idiot named scott...
intel also has a factory in malaysia
@dreamer
They have two.
@yakapo
amd cpus run much faster at lower clock speeds than intel cpus
@yakapo
You see the "X4" after the Phenom II? Aka 4 cores, and you're comparing it to a Core 2 Duo? lolwut?
AMD needs to be on par with Intel again
More price cuts this way :)
Oh yay, the fastest AMD is almost on par with what Intel released 2-3 years ago? Good job AMD!
Cheaper doesn't make them better.
yes it does
@sintricate
Try telling that to the netbook crowd that sees them on the Home Shopping Network (HSN).
Sorry for the delay, I was out doing non computerish stuff.
@ Chuckles
Now lets go back and actually read the review and you will clearly see that it was only 3 to 9% behind the i7 920. It was also ahead of the Core 2 (Duo and Quad) by a good margin. Considering it is $245 and the i7 920 is $295 right now, that is pretty damn competitive to me. Yes it falls below the $500 i7 940, but it is half the price and only 15% behind. And no desktop processor will compete with the i7 965 extreme which is why it is $1000+. So for us normal folk, this is a great processor.
And for the one guy who will say something @ me who actually has that $1000+ monster of a processor in his computer......since you got money to burn, let me hold $445 for my Phenom II upgrades.
what the heck is does diffused in Germany mean?
Oh heck I'll answer it for everyone-apparently the wafer is made at a fab in Germany then shipped all the way to Malaysia for packaging.
We are eternally indebted to you. What would we have done had you not enlightened us?
spelling, grammar etc.
@superhobo I only answered it because I was going to ask here with a post and had it all typed up, but then realized that I might as well go find out and post it since I'm sure a buncha other people were wondering what it meant after the post above mine mentioned it. Don't be a smartass.
*sigh* I remember the days when AMD was on top with the 64bit processors when Intel was still on P4.What happened to you AMD? What happened?
We're waiting for just the right moment to come back...
Wait for it... wait for it... nooooot yet.... almost there...
P4 was a revolution.
You could overclock them to 9GHz.
They were just probably lucky during that time... these days... they just full of blunders..
I know, upsetting. I remember when ATi were on top as well!
Today's current crop of high end processors offer way more performance that I need. I know that is not the case for everybody, and some people just HAVE to own the fastest CPU they can get their hands on. But for me, price/performance/cool running (quiet) is the balance that I look for. And if you take everything into consideration, including the motherboard, then Intel and AMD are pretty close. My last two builds were AMD, but my next one will probably be Intel because I want the Nvidia chip set with Linux accelerated graphics for my next XBMC powered HTPC.
I don't understand why you would want an NVIDIA chipset. They're good and all but why make them your only choice :) Does XBMC require NVIDIA?
ATI have great drivers on the linux side nowadays, my AMD 780g chipset motherboard with ATI 3200 on board ran linux, desktop composition etc. without a hitch and catalyst control center is well implemented too :)
Same here glen, the Intel+Nvidia are a better combination for the HTPC level currently.
@Aaronage, XMBC linux editions recently included the required code to allow hardware decoding of H.264 content through nvidia gpu's, which means that a low-power intel cpu and onboard nvidia gpu can produce flawless 1080p playback. No such luck for ATI gpu decoding yet afaik
Man, what the hell happened. I built my gaming rig back in 2005 when AMD was hands-down the way to go with screaming FX-60s. Shortly after, Core 2 came out and trashed everything that runs on the AM2 platform. Now we've got AM3 and LGA1366 but AMD's product is still lagging way behind. Brand loyalty really sucks when you're running this low....
Then stop having brand loyalty. Buy the best if you want the best; AMD will surely take notice.
You're a gamer right? So if you buy a Phenom II 955 you're getting a CPU that costs a whole chunk less and runs as well as similar Core i7s in games :P In some cases better at high resolutions :)
Intel fanboys.
who? the facts?
Yeah, because benchmarks and real world results can be biased.
It's awesome for the price.
and you don't need a mobo upgrade ;)
Actually, I just put together an AMD Phenom II - based system this week! What really attracted me was the price/performance ratio. Sure I could get a faster processor from Intel, but at a *significantly* higher cost and higher wattage.
The Phenom II line of chips are really quite amazing.
http://yipcanjo.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/gettin-jiggy-with-the-new-home-pc/
I actually did too, a Phenom II XM 940 Quad 3.0GHz and am very happy with it! Hauls ass! and paired up with 8GB 1066MHz ram and a 1GB DDR3 gaming GPU, should be god for a few weeks ;-) Couldn't beat the price in an Intel similar spec build, AMD will certainly trump Inter soon, why? they have to, that's Why! ;-)
AMD gets more unnecessary hate than the Zune. Desktop-wise, they don't have the ultra-high end, but everything else is comparable or better than Intel, especially on price to performance. They've always excelled with server chips (by comparison, when making a new core AMD releases the Opteron first then the desktop versions while Intel seems to go the other way around). Their biggest achilles heal is mobile (ie - the fastest growing market) where they're still lagging behind due to heat issues, and the fact that since no one's building their own laptops, they're only available through OEMs, most of whom pass on them all together, and the ones that do support them (like HP) rarely offer any models that don't also have an Intel option. Hopefully with a little work, the Athlon Neo will come into it's own and fill the market between Atom and Turion/C2D.
Overall, yeah they need to step things up in R&D, but the ATI merger is still hitting them in the pocket and their smaller marketshare means they just don't have the revenue stream intel does for them to reinvest back into development. The only way they're gonna get better is if people don't just give up on them.
Fully agreed.
when you can get an i7 for $250 let me know. that's when I might buy one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
Maybe a little more, but the jump in performance is much, much greater than the difference in cost. Could however spend 250 on a previous generation and still get amazing performance.
But then you have to pay a lot more for the motherboard too, The AMD stuff is cheaper across the board.
@Damo
Initially the intel motherboards were all expensive high end boards but that's not the case anymore. Admittedly not as cheap as an older AMD board is going to be, but if you're building a new system I doubt many people are going to buy an old AM2 socket board anyway-it wouldn't be very future-proof.
And the i7 920 has been as cheap as $199 before:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1273119
So budget i7 is a reality now.
@tekd, am3 is backwards compatible w/ am2/+ so I can put any am3 cpu in my am2/+ mobo. What was that you said about future proof?