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.
Read - HotHardware
Read - Neoseeker
Read - PC Perspective
Read - Tech Report
Read - TechSpot
Read - EXTREME Overclocking
posted April 23rd 2009 4:06PM
I will be the first to admit I'm an early adopter, and it's bitten me a few times, except when it comes to buying AMD chips. This includes the Phenom X4 9600 Agena I got in December. For a while I thought it was the chip just running bad, turned out to be a shoddy power supply...upped the output on the PSU, got a cleaner line going in, and I've not seen the slightest decline in stability or output, though it never crashed, (even on Vista 64, I know, right?). I've even got the machine running 14degrees cooler since there isn't as much strain on the newer PSU. Will it outrun an Intel? Beats me, the last Intel chip I ran was a p4 1.3Ghz...after that was the thunderbird, the the A64 Clawhammer, now this. I know that AMD is taking a bad wrap cuz they "aren't catching up to Intel" or whatever, but they make a damn good CPU, and that's all it takes for me to stick with them.
They compete quite well performance and price wise with Intel Core Duo and Quads, just not I7 which is a whole nother leap in price and performance.
Forget about R&D to compete with the i7, AMD needs to invest in some good marketing and PR. Most people just associate computer processors with Intel. Anything else is just generic, like RC Cola. They might see AMD and Intel in a store and, despite Intel being more expensive, will chose the Intel rather than some "off brand" processor. This is a crying shame since it is this uninformed market group that AMD should be reaping $$$ from. Intel generally is better(performance/price) only on the higher end, where your average consumer has no need to be. Everyday joe (Joe the Plumber, if you will) usually has no need from a chip such as a i7. A cheap Phenom should be more than enough for people that a) do not play the latest games, b) do not do heavy multimedia editing (resizing pictures of your niece's 4th bday doesn't count).
So AMD, get yourself known. Start being the competitively priced "everybody's" cpu that you are!!
Exactly :D I've been saying this to people for yonks now, they quickly assume that they sell the inferior product because they know little else about the company. AMD's online marketing through YouTube and the like looks amateurish, it doesn't help the brand at all.
Intel has great marketing and business tactics, if they played it like AMD they would have been up shit creek in the NetBurst days :P Had an Athlon XP box to fix not too long ago, a 1.8GHz system. I benched it against a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 486 and the Athlon came out on top :D
All the marketing in the world won't change the perception that intel's chips are faster if intel really has the faster chips. Intel's already been taking it pretty easy on AMD considering how little they're actually pushing their yields-the amount of clockspeed headroom they have is insane.
Here's the best Phenom II overclocks:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=213248
The HIGHEST stable result was 4.2Ghz under phase cooling.
That's somewhat problematic when newer E0 stepped Core 2's can hit that on air, and i7 can easily exceed that on water. And overclockers might not be the common consumer but they're the ones who give intel and AMD their images when people ask their geek friends about chips.
Most people I know do know that AMD makes chips-AMD chips are in a ton of computers at the store. But I can't say that the image is particularly great right now.
Intel got big really fast because of all their contracts with peeps (ie dell)...mo money = mo betta engineers.
Ive always been hardcore AMD and always will be (hopefully)....if you don't support them now..they can't ever get better.
AMD really needs to switch over to LGA next gen. I almost killed myself when I bent the pins on my new phenom II while applying thermal paste (supid, I know. at least I now know to apply the paste while its in the mobo. luckily, I was able to fix them with a credit card)
Wow...
Here's a tip, don't build a computer if you don't know what you're doing. You put the thermal paste on before you put it in the mobo? No offense man, but that's the dumbest thing I might have possibly read about a home built machine, so dumb in fact I'm leaning towards thinking you're lying just to dis on AMD.
Why switch, it just puts the pins on the motherboard, which you can still bend. Granted, it is far less likely to be bent while installing the chip, but they can be bent non-the-less. I watched my friend drop his Core 2 duo while trying to install it. He bent a bunch pins and I couldn't even laugh. His $89 chip was fine, but his $129 board was SOL
Gimme Athlon X4 already!
"@Joseph: AMD is based in California."
@ Joseph: since when is Intel american? Isnt it in Israel? lol!
The new AMD chip makes me rethink buying an i7 920. Its cheaper than AMD's new offering, and it still outperforms it, thats for sure.
I what dimension are you in where the i7's are cheaper than the Phenom II 955? Are the boards cheaper too, and if these are true then Jesus must have returned in your dimension. Tell J.C. that he still owes me 6 pence for that donkey and with interest and inflation since we last saw each other that will be $1 billion dollars.
For gaming, a high end processor like a core i7 really isn't needed if the builder is on a budget. People are better off spending their money on a decent graphics card like a 4870. This is when buying an AMD can be a smart choice.
I just love AMD. My 780g chipset works like a charm, in fact every AMD product I have ever had.
Anandtech Also has it's in depth review
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3551
For anyone that thinks it competes with Core 2 Duo must be stupid. This processor beats all the Intel Q series processor thats four cores people. Not only that this new series uses DDR3 which makes a huge difference.
Exception of just a gaming computer rig, Phenom II 945,955 can't compete with the i7 920+ series. But you got to admit AMD is starting to do some good stuff again. With the OC program and the Dragon Platform for people who use ATI 48** series video card will see some very nice performance. For the price and bang for buck on gaming computer its a A+.
Why always that fan boy talk. The fact is that Intel fan boy should be happy with a new faster processor of AMD and visa versa.
If AMD would still have a 1Ghz Athlon single core as top line processor what do you think that Intel would ask for its i7 line?
Intel has to lower it´s prices each time AMD get closer and AMD will sell their processors cheap as long as they don´t surpass the top offering of Intel. Both Intel as AMD offer cpu´s that are more than capable for the fast majority of people and the upcoming windows 7 can run fine on even the current "budget" lines of either two brands.
I bought a 955 yesterday. My latest build is the amd/ati path and has been so inexpensive to keep up to date. I love it!
price to performance , more bang for the buck. i save a ton of money where the 955 actually comes edgy close to the I7 920, it even beats the core 2 quad quite significantly, guys and gals lets try to actually understand the benchmarks. paying $500 to $1000.00 for a processor is quite moronic to me specially in this dire times we are in.
don't act like you have the money to pay for those highly expensive intel processors. In truth AMD is the way to go. $245 for a Phenom 2 955 at just 12% behind the $500.00 I7 940. hmm 12 percent wow really? i'll take the savings any day the 12 percent is not really significant in any real day to day tasks what's a few seconds anyway.
again AMD more bang for the buck. In most benchmarks the Phenom II x4 955BE surpassed the Intel Q9450. it should put up a decent fight against the Core i7 920 as well.