Categories:

Overclocking – Hitting the Limit at 2.70 GHz

01:20 - Wednesday 23 January 2008 by Bert Toepelt
Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: phenom, 9600, black, edition
Categories: Hardware

Table of content:
10 – Overclocking – Hitting the Lim...
  1. 1 – AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition
  2. 2 – B2 Stepping – TLB Bug is Still Around
  3. 3 – B2 Stepping – TLB Bug is Still Around (Cont'd)
  4. 4 – Phenom 9600 Black Edition
  5. 5 – Overclocking – AMD’s OverDrive Badly Supported
  6. 6 – Overclocking – Newer Versions from other Sources?
  7. 7 – Overclocking – AMD OverDrive not yet Mature
  8. 8 – Overclocking – AMD OverDrive not yet Mature (Cont’d.)
  9. 9 – Overlocking by 13.04% - 2.60 GHz
  10. 10 – Overclocking – Hitting the Limit at 2.70 GHz
  11. 11 – Overclocking – Hitting the Limit at 2.70 GHz (Cont’d.)
  12. 12 – Only 12.5% more Performance
  13. 13 – Slower than Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600
  14. 14 – Power Consumption – 21 Watts when Idle
  15. 15 – Power Consumption – 150 Watts when Overclocked
  16. 16 – Test Setup
  17. 17 – Software Configuration
  18. 18 – Benchmarks and Settings
  19. 19 – 3D-Games - UT2004, Prey
  20. 20 – 3D-Games - Quake 4, Warhammer
  21. 21 – 3D-Games -Supreme Commander, Serious Sam 2
  22. 22 – 3D-Rendering - Cinema 4D, 3D-Studio Max
  23. 23 – Applications - AVG, WinRAR
  24. 24 – Applications - Photoshop, PDF
  25. 25 – Applications - Deep Fritz
  26. 26 – Audio Encoding - iTunes, Lame
  27. 27 – Synthetic - Sandra CPU
  28. 28 – Synthetic - Sandra Memory
  29. 29 – Synthetic - Sandra Multimedia
  30. 30 – Synthetic - PC-Mark
  31. 31 – Synthetic - 3DMark06
  32. 32 – Video Encoding - Xvid, Pinnacle Studio
  33. 33 – Video Encoding - Premiere, Mainconcept
  34. 34 – Video Encoding - HDTV, DivX
  35. 35 – Video Encoding - CloneDVD
  36. 36 – Conclusion – AMD’s Phenom 9600 can’t Beat Intel’s Q6600

Overclocking – Hitting the Limit at 2.70 GHz

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We attempted to increase the CPU’s frequency from 2.60 GHz to 2.70 GHz while retaining the default core voltage of 1.250 V. Since the Phenom lets you choose half multiplier steps, we tried raising the clock speed by 100 MHz using the 13.5x multiplier. However, the system instantly became unstable. Therefore we increased the core voltage step by step until the CPU became stable once more. Only after we had reached a core voltage of 1.400 V (+ 0.150 V) could we convince the system to complete the Prime 95 torture test without incident. Overclocking any further to 2.80 GHz proved completely impossible, despite further voltage increases.

Phenom 9600 BlackEdition

In our opinion, 1.400 Volts is too high for everyday operation for a 65nm Phenom, as the risk of damaging the CPU is too high.

It is obvious that we should not expect any high-frequency models as long as the Phenom uses the B2 stepping. On the other hand, there are B2-Phenoms that are able to reach 3.00 GHz, as we saw at the Phenom launch event. There is no rule by which you can determine a CPU’s potential. Overclocking the Phenom processor is a matter of luck and by no means as sure a bet as it is with the Core 2 processors of AMD’s rival Intel.


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Talkback
mi1ez 23/01/2008 03:09
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mi1ez

Oh dear...
This has certainly done them no more favours...

Therlian 23/01/2008 03:31
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Therlian

This is an embarrassment for AMD. It's actually worse that they released the Black Edition of this processor because it shows that even with all the tricks, AMD is currently not even posing as competition for Intel. I don't know what AMD will be able to do to keep going; it seems like no matter what they try they are still way behind Intel.

At least when Intel was beating AMD in performance in the early days of the P2, at least AMD was still a viable option because of their price/performance ratio.

I hope they come up with something though; I don't want Intel to be the only product and raise their prices.

darthpoik 24/01/2008 11:40
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darthpoik

Poor AMD. I liked you a lot but Intel are truly kicking your butts. Hopefully this is just a Rocky feint and they will be back with a vengence soon

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