AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked : The Phenom II And AMD's Dragon Platform
Source: Tom's Hardware DE – Keywords: phenom, ii, 940
The Phenom II And AMD's Dragon Platform
It's way past high-time that AMD launched a counter-strike to the flurry of compelling Intel CPUs that've been launched since Phenom first got off of the ground. The switch over to 45 nm manufacturing seemingly took a lot longer than the company originally planned, but alongside a new CPU with smaller transistor elements, this release introduces some brand-new technology.
The improvements are manifest in a revised transistor count. Phenom II boasts roughly 758 million transistors, up from right around 450 million. As with its predecessor, the original Phenom, Phenom II drops into nearly every Socket AM2 motherboard. This gives the Phenom II broad appeal to the upgrade crowd, many of whom have long sought improved performance for their AMD systems.
How do Phenom II configurations look to the enthusiast crowd? As it happens, the Phenom II starts right where the previous generation left off. The incoming flagship—the Phenom II X4 940—employs a naming convention that goes straight after the company's principle competitor, running at 3.0 GHz. The fastest Phenom, the X4 9950 Black Edition, was set to operate with a 2.6 GHz clock. Overclockers soon learned that this also represented something near the upper limit of the chips range, and could only get more out of it with the introduction of Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) on the SB750 southbridge, which helped extend scalability up another few hundred megahertz. The Phenom II represents an end to such limits: even at 3 GHz this chip still has lots of headroom, as we will show with the results from our Munich lab.
AMD fired its first 45 nm salvo a few weeks back with its server-oriented Opteron models, which enjoy a much larger market share than the company’s desktop processors. In the interim, 45 nm chip yields have increased enough to permit AMD to supply the desktop market as well. With is new, smaller core re-design (code-named "Deneb"), AMD not only pulled off a die-shrink maneuver, but it also achieved some drastic improvements in energy consumption and module switching tactics.
Since the introduction of the first-generation Phenoms (alongside the Spider platform), graphics card performance has also experienced a sharp spike upwards. The platform AMD is replacing Spider with consists of the Phenom II and the latest Radeon HD 4800-series graphics cards. The mascot for the so-called “Dragon” platform is, naturally, an aggressive-looking, red-eyed silver dragon.
The original Phenom processors quickly ran into performance limitations because of high energy consumption. Simply by switching from 65 nm to 45 nm, energy consumption at the individual transistor level decreases sharply. To pump a first-generation 2.5 GHz Phenom up to 2.6 GHz, AMD also had to raise its maximum power consumption rating from 125 W (TDP) to 140 W. By itself, this was enough to disqualify that chip from use in many favorite AM2 motherboards. But with its 45 nm technology, AMD gives Phenom II a fresh start and bolsters the chip's attractiveness with improvements in several other important areas. Here’s the bottom line: in terms of speed, energy consumption, clock rates and overclockability, AMD has taken a huge step with the Phenom II.
| Model | Clock Speed | L3 Cache | Code Name | Manufacturing Node | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition | 3.00 GHz | 6 MB | Deneb | 45 nm | |
| Phenom II X4 920 | 2.80 GHz | 6 MB | Deneb | 45 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition | 2.60 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition | 2.50 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9850 | 2.50 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9750 | 2.40 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9650 | 2.30 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9550 | 2.20 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
| Phenom X4 9350 | 2.00 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm | |
To start, AMD is offering two 45 nm Desktop CPUs: the Phenom II X4 920 at 2.8 GHz, and the Phenom II X4 940 at 3.0 GHz.
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A fantastic result for AMD on the same core. Well done! Looking a lot more competitive now, all you need to do is price it right...
If they could only do it in 32nm... That would be fantastic...
where's the £ prices? this is a .co.uk?
Go on to Overclockers.co.uk
they have them around 210-250
AMD releases a brand-new processor which can barely compete with a two year old 65nm processor and you slap a "Recommended Buy" sticker on it.
COME ON... I'm not an Intel fan but you need to be pushing AMD rather them making allowences for them. They can and must do so much better than this, Intel is not far off its next Tick, which will probably leave AMD barely competing with processors 3 cycles old.
COME ON AMD BRING OUT SOMETHING WORTH A RECOMMENDED BUY AWARD
Some one obviously missed the power/performance, cost/performance and upgradability aspects of the new AMD offering VS intel.....
I agree Power / Performance is better than a 2 generation old model but doesn't match current or last generation models.
The only reason why Price / Performance is so good is AMD is having to discount its processors. They should be able to charge $999+ for a brand new top of the line processor, not having to discount it down to < $250.
Look I want AMD to be winning on price / performance charging $999+ and power / performance vs current generation processors the problem is articles like this keep letting them get away with being YEARS, not months, not weeks YEAR behind.
Come on AMD catch-up or preferable over-take, introduce some competition and get Intel back on their toes, the whole market will improve as a result.
I have to agree with KlamathBFG. I would love AMD to be kicking Intel's ass right now. They really NEED to be doing this before it all goes down the pan for them. Intel is all over AMD right now with both desktop and netbook processors.
At least their ATI arm are performing well!
I can't help feel they have only just caught up with the year old intel Q6600! :- (
Wow, they just barely beat my trusty Q6600.
i think will see amazing change with new 880G chipset
The ONLY time to judge AMD is when the AM3 boards come out and a direct comparison to intel can be made.
I maybe a fanboy, but I think (and hope) AMD will surprise one or two dissenters..... AMD - if you're reading this, i'd appreciate rewarding my optimism (i work in the NHS - overworked underpaid and waiting waiting waiting for those AM3 boards and chips to come out!!!!)
TMJ
One critism i have of the tests is Phemon 2 is AMDs fastest and latest cpu, but they compared the Phemon 2 more to the 1 year old Intel Q6600, instead of comparing it more to the latest i7 or Intel QX9770.
When you put AMDs fastest cpu next to Intels fastest socket 775 cpu (QX9770) or the i7, the QX9770s and i7s beat it easily.
I feel if the Q6600 was overclocked to 2.8ghz to 3.0ghz (same speed as the Phemon 2) it would beat it.
This new 880 chipset..wonder what any onboard video performance will be like.
Some one obviously missed the power/performance, cost/performance and upgradability aspects of the new AMD offering VS intel.....
..and the great advances made in chipsets and GPU hardware. Not bad for a company that's trying to stay afloat, and one that has nowhere near the resources of Intel. There's also good overclocking results with this chip.
Scary to think but the Q6600 is actually two years old, it was released on the 7th January 2007.
Toms own review of the first quad core (slightly faster model)
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/kent [...] -1883.html was on the 2nd November 2006, 2 years & 2 months ago.
I'm with TMJ though I hope AM3 & the increased bandwidth of DDR3 combined with all that new cache will make enough of a difference that they can compete with the die shink models released Q1 last year (the QX9775 being the faster model released in that batch).
Can't wait to see the review COME ON AMD!!!
Amd did a good job with Phenom II. But it would have bin better if they could have launched it 3-5 months ago. anyway it is here now and it proves to be a great CPU for its price.
I also read that the RS880 which is planned for 2nd Q will bring even more preformance boost the SB750 boards.
I hope we will see that one too soon. it should not be that much away from now. just a few short months. But im not going to wait for 4Q until i buy my computer. that just is too long and then again there will be better products out by 1Q 2010. but waiting for RV870 seems worth it. 40nm should deliver better powerconsumption and more shaders and better clocks i hope it will be a vast increase in preformance
AMD releases a brand-new processor which can barely compete with a two year old 65nm processor and you slap a "Recommended Buy" sticker on it.COME ON...
The Q6600 is no match for AMD hardware in the server and super-computer stakes, thanks to AMD's native quad-core architecture, hyper-transport links and drop-in compatibility. These things also result in lower power consumption when you take into account overall power draw. Out of 10 of the world's fastest super-computers, 7 of them use AMD hardware (including the top two).
As for the Intel i7 finally catching up, that platform demands DDR 3 memory and also brings with it compatibility and cost issues.
So I really don't think AMD is behind on this. You have a company that has nowhere near the resources of it's competitor, and yet it can produce 45nm processors with a revised core (expensive and time-consuming), are very good on power, that overclock very well by all accounts, and can be installed in current hardware in a matter of minutes. You also have a platform (spider), that offers all of the latest performance features yet draws incredibly low power. AMD is also investing in future technologies like cloud computing.
..not bad for a company that - like many others - is simply trying to stay afloat in these hard economic times
In 2003 Concorde was 27 years old yet it was the fastest passenger plane ever made, none of the "newer" planes can ever catch Concorde.
Same principle applies to the Q6600, it may be "old" but the "new" Phenom II 3 ghz version can only be over clocked to 3.6ghz, where as the "old" Q6600 runs at 2.4ghz but can be overclocked to 3.6ghz, at 3.6ghz its still faster per clock cycle than the Phenom II.
Intels QX9770 is what the Phenom II should be compared against as both are "top of the range" cpus, in standard form the QX9970 will out run the Phenom II, in over clocked form the Phenom II might as well go to sleep.
Overall the Phenom II is a good cpu, if i just want to upgrade my CPU and motherboard but still use DDR2 ram i would consider the Phenom II if it was miles faster than the QX9770.
THe phenom II looks pretty good, I'd probably say wait for the ddr3 supported Phenom II ^^ I'm waiting till 2011 which is when amd finally release their new chipset, and cpu ^^ the phenom II I feel was really only released to show that they still could make a fast cpu at an affordable price while they finish working on the new one which is also no longer a 45 nm processor and will be purely ddr3.