A Little Bit Better: The Revised Phenom II X4 965 BE CPU
The new revision of the Phenom II X4 965 is not major news by any stretch of the imagination. With the exact same clock speeds and core features as the previous revision, this new CPU will offer exactly the same performance. So, if you would like to refresh your memory, we suggest reading our Phenom II X4 965 launch article. In addition, the Core i5-750 CPU was launched recently and is priced similarly to the Phenom II X4 965, so you might want to see how it performs in relation to the Phenom II X4 in this article.
Today, we'll be discussing what makes the new Phenom II X4 965 different from the previous stepping. The newest stepping offers three changes of note:
- Maximum power usage has been lowered from 140 watts TDP to 125 watts TDP
- C1E power switching management has been moved into the hardware, rather than being BIOS-based
- The CPU's memory controller will now officially support "heavy" load DDR3-1333, four DDR3 DIMMs at the same time
None of these features are game-changers, of course. Of the three, the lower maximum power usage is the most significant, as it theoretically opens up AMD's flagship processor to upgraders who have boards that support a maximum 125 watts TDP.
According to AMD, this new revision will have hardware control of C1E power switching which should equate to faster switching of power states. We've found that Phenom II's are pretty good at switching power states with the Cool'n'Quiet feature, so this C1E enhancement should offer largely theoretical advantages. Similarly, official support for "heavy" load DDR3-1333 with four DIMMs may already be a non-issue if your motherboard has good RAM support. Our older Phenom II X4 965 BE sample handled four DDR3 DIMMs at 1333 MT/s just fine on our Asus M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard, even after extensive stress testing. Perhaps this feature will be more meaningful on low-end boards that don't support fast memory as well as our test bed does.
How do we identify which CPU is the original and which is the new revision? By the Ordering Part Number, or OPN. The OPN of the original 140W Phenom II X4 965 is HDZ965FBK4DGI. The OPN of the new 125W Phenom II X4 965 is HDZ965FBK4DGM. This identification number can be seen directly on the CPU:
Here's what CPU-Z has to say about the original and new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition CPUs. Note that the only difference is the revision and stepping: the older CPU shows up as the RB-C2 revision, while the new version is identified as the RB-C3 revision.
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bit-tech got a much worse chip!
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/c [...] 3-review/2
I think your article raises an important point about the reasons why people aren't jumping on the Intel bandwagon, because it's not all about performance.
I don't think the AMD products perform badly, either. Considering the Athlon II architecture's retail price plus the fact it's a generation behind the i7 range, I think it does quite well. Couple it with a suitable, low-cost motherboard with stable, fast blue-ray and game acceleration, and it starts to look rosy. Contemplate the ability to use some of your old bits lying around and it looks very hard to turn it down.
And looking to the future..is it wise to follow Intel's path, considering the performance gains to be had from GPGPU technology? I don't think it is..I think it's akin to putting all of one's eggs in one basket, so to speak. On the GPGPU front, who is in a better position to cater for future needs: Intel or AMD? What kind of GPU technology could Intel offer, should companies like nVidia stop giving their support?
AMD is still competing on longevity and price, and the performance is so good for general consumer use..does it matter whether i7 is faster? You go with AMD you know you can upgrade and replace with relative ease..you go with Intel and it's like worrying about whether or not DRDRAM is all it's cracked up to be; the clients I built Intel rigs resented the fact they needed new sockets, memory etc to get better performance.
More than one way to skin a cat, I think AMD knows this, and Intel doesn't care much because it's still basing it's products purely on prestige status and brand loyalty.
Budget or home computing = AMD
Premium or professional computing = Intel
Simple, reliable formula and if AMD actually advertised this fact they'd make a killing - you don't need to outperform to outcompete.
Office or cubicle computing? AMD probably, or the new Atoms.
The article makes a valid point, I upgrade usually upgrade my computer for €2-400 two times every year (x-mas and summer vacation).
The recent upgrade history has been.
summer 09: new mobo €100, new fans €40, new external harddrive €130
Xmas 08: new router €100, 8gb of memory €140
summer 08: new cpu €140, cpucoling €80, harddrive €100, chassi €80, monitor €200
If I expect to use a unit for twice the time i spend twice the amount on it. Routers are one thing where it's worth spending on, the same goes for chassi, PSU monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. If I going to use a motherboard for a year I buy asrock, gigabit. If I expect to have two or more asus is the shit
AMD's found a niche: cheap yet powerful, quad-core computing coupled with a realisable motherboard technology. If Core 2 Quad is good enough for you, then so is Athlon II x4..and at a significantly lower price.
What can Intel do? Sure, it can match performance..but if matches this price (which I think is a bargain), it's going to undercut it's own products by a huge margin.
Quad-Core Considerations..
AMD Athlon II x 4 620 (2.66GHz, 95W) ... £72
Intel Core 2 Quad (2.66GHz, 95W) ... £135
Intel i5 750 (2.66GHz, 95W) ... £152
..factor into that, the possibility you may be using an AMD-based motherboard already (say, AM2+ or AM3). You've just significantly lowered your upgrade costs and in a lot of cases you won't even need a new PSU.
In this instance..would you be willing to reformat and re-install everything for the sake of a Core 2 Quad, when you can get similar (or better performance)? I wouldn't. I wouldn't touch i5 or i7, either (the latter only if I was running CAD). If you wanted to transcode video using NVIDIA CUDA or ATI Stream you'd simply use the money you saved and get a fast card and maybe a new PSU. Also maybe a bigger, faster hard drive. For a machine that is probably going to spend a lot of it's time just browsing or doing reports..I really can't see a weakness at all.
"you don't need to out-perform to outcompete." I agree..AMD couldn't hit Intel head-on so, they flanked them..and I reckon it's having quite an impact. I think the saving grace was not only the refined Athlon core (producing the Athlon II architecture), but the fact a lot of things were already integrated into the CPU logic, such as Hyper-Transport and memory controller. It was a good design from the start, a better one by design that borrowed principles from much bigger, faster technology and as a result it has scaled incredibly well across multiple cores. Even today the Athlon architecture is proving it's worth so hopefully if history does repeat itself, when AMD brings out something next-gen it will be just that. It isn't promising the world with these little Athlon II chips, either, which I think is notable.
Bravooooooooooooooooooooooooo AMD - ATI Radeon . Love it You Guys ! GG
bit-tech got a much worse chip!http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/c [...] 3-review/2
I notice they didn't throw in any Core 2 Quad's in that review..I wonder why:
Well what would one expect from a chip that's a generation ahead? The Phenom II is good to go against Core 2 Quad..and then some. So, if these tests that seem to be oh-so eager to demonstrate the greatness of Intel, are eager to try and downgrade the performance characteristic of Phenom II then by default they're also saying that Core 2 Quad is as bad..most people don't own Core-i5, or i7.
The Core2 architecture is probably a little faster than the Phenom II/Athlon II despite not having the MMU on-die but a lot of benchmarks do seem to be tailored towards Intel, plus AMD doesn't currently have SSE4 on any of their processors (ignore SSE4a). Also, the cache system is radically different; AMD goes for exclusive whilst Intel doesn't. Could it be that continuing to go exclusive is harming AMD, or are they simply trying to maximise the cache they have for the heaviest multitasking environments?
For god's sake, increase the htt speed on these processors. Every single review of an AMD BE i've just seen multi increases. You people are "professionals" and yet you dont do such a basic thing. You can squeeze much more performance out of theseif you overclock them properly.
AMD no longer in South africa....FAIL...
all I can say is , I have a £45.00 AMD x2 chip that runs lovely at 3.3 ghz and it never gets bogged down , the whole system cost's under £270.00 ...beat that intel
not sure the fusion idea for integrated on-die cpu and graphics is a good plan - typically i'll upgrade a graphics card 2-3 times in a cpu cycle which means the target audience is going to be casual home users and corporate environments - two areas intel has a pretty tight stranglehold on thanks to advertising, perception of quality (and underhand exlcusivity deals with major suppliers (dell, hp etc))
today, i get my new C3 965BE, replacing my x2 7750BE. im hoping the increase in performance im expecting lives up to my expectations!
fingers crossed!