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B2 Stepping – TLB Bug is Still Around (Cont'd)

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

Table of content:
3 – B2 Stepping – TLB Bug is Still...
  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

B2 Stepping – TLB Bug is Still Around (Cont'd)

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Since the introduction of the quad-core line, many shops have continued to list the Phenom 9700 with its clock speed of 2.4 GHz – despite the fact that AMD will only ship this model once the revised B3 stepping is ready for prime time.

Using a setting in the BIOS, it is possible to deactivate the translation of the program addresses by the CPU in the L3 cache, effectively preventing the TLB bug from striking. While this does cost a bit of performance, it makes the CPU 100% crash proof. Many motherboard companies offer new BIOS versions that include this new feature. Gigabyte, for example, plays it safe with its newest BIOS revision, turning the TLB erratum fix on. We would recommend disabling this feature again after updating to a new BIOS, or your Phenom processor will take a performance hit.

AMD plans to release the error-free B3 stepping in mid-April, which will allow for higher clock speeds. Once this happens, the Phenom 9900, a 2.60 GHz part, will be the first of this new line of faster Phenom CPUs.

Phenom 9600 BlackEdition

MSI also sent us a BIOS version containing the TLB bug option. Lastly, AMD’s OverDrive tool also sports an option to circumvent the TLB bug.


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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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