1st benchmarks with Deneb

rypt · 25 Nov 2008 at 08:25

kppanic said:
I love how you were able to dismiss yamahaha's factual description of Intel's efficient i7 design by merely saying "oh they were good I am sure AMD have a trick up their sleeve.". That's pure skill.

I simply said "I'm not SURE if Intel will have the lead"

Perfect_Chaos · 25 Nov 2008 at 19:12

Crashgate3 said:
Rather than the 3GHz Deneb vs an i7 940, it'll come down to the basic Deneb chip clocked as far as it'll go on air vs the i7 920 clocked as far as it'll go on air.

Not just that for me, if the Deneb can outmatch highly clocked 920's in games at the same or lower clockspeed then that would influence which setup i get most.

However if the Deneb turns out to be a bit of a dud, ill just end up going to the 920.

Emlyn_Dewar · 25 Nov 2008 at 19:17

I'll buy the Deneb regardless of it's performance in comparison to the i7, AM2+ version of course!

gareth170 · 25 Nov 2008 at 21:10

Pneumonic said:
So anyone know if there are going to be some nice new AM2 boards comming out for deneb? I have been having a look around and cant seem to find anything thats "high end"

all the am2+ motherboards will support the deneb am2+ and am3 versions

Bleek · 27 Nov 2008 at 10:45

I'd be happy with a Deneb in the late 3GHz on air especially as it'll slip neatly in to my current AM2+ setup.
At 20-30% quicker than my Brisbane clock for clock, it'll be a no brainer.

Justintime · 27 Nov 2008 at 10:59

Crossing my fingers that AMD comes out with something good

jonneymendoza · 27 Nov 2008 at 11:00

Pneumonic said:
indeed both are 45nm, the little info we have on overclocking suggest deneb will be a good 4ghz on air maybe and higher on water... with the extreme denebs priced at $300 ish.. can only be good if everything holds true

until we get some real and more benchmarks is all a bit of guesstimation.. but AMD look like they might have some good CPU thats got to be good news whoever you are.. lets not start bashing until we see some real results

i heard these cpu's are trying to compete with core 2, not i7. here's hoping it does compete with i7 so that this january, i7 will be cheaper

im no fanboy of either however i have stuck by INTEL in my whole life BUT i want competition. i want to have options to choose a product and not be forced to choose one product. PLus competiton REDUCE prices and at this time of our lives where recession in the uk is about to happen, we need every penny we can get in saving

Final8y · 27 Nov 2008 at 11:27

jonneymendoza said:
i heard these cpu's are trying to compete with core 2, not i7. here's hoping it does compete with i7 so that this january, i7 will be cheaper

im no fanboy of either however i have stuck by INTEL in my whole life BUT i want competition. i want to have options to choose a product and not be forced to choose one product. PLus competiton REDUCE prices and at this time of our lives where recession in the uk is about to happen, we need every penny we can get in saving

I think at best it may compete at the mid i7.

Wizardskills · 27 Nov 2008 at 11:37

Well here are some benchmarks of the AMD 'Shanghai' Opteron which i belive is the server version of the deneb (correct me if i am wrong)

http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-251980.html

Looks like that is slighlty behind the Intel CPU's

.

Also found this

AMD also mentions it will be releasing new processors for the desktop PC market in Q1 2009; the platform is codenamed Dragon. This new platform is said to optimize performance by combining the performance of the new 45 nm AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core processors with the AMD 700 Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD,6595.html

Anyone else know of this "Dragon" platform?

drunkenmaster · 27 Nov 2008 at 11:54

dragon's just a name for a group of products, if it will be based on the new ddr3 setup I don't know but is quite likely. Its not important though.

I forget the benchmarks I saw of shagnai vs i7 server version, it was close but behind, but its, for a server setup, a very expensive product, the i7. It beats the c2d server chips from what I recall, destroys them on power usage(largely due to the fbdimms being used which are uber power hungry) so is pretty cheap to use. intel also don't have 4 way stuff out for a few months, and 8 way out for a year so AMD should dominate both area's in the short term and should compete very very close on power/performance, which is what datacentre's really care about frankly and should be cheaper, again a consideration.

With desktop, its going to be hard pressed to match completely with the i7 in sythetic benchmarks purely because sythetic benchmarks mostly pose unrealistic usage and will max out the bandwidth, triple bandwidth is going to be very hard to compete with in some area's. But again this would be amd's strategy, they are still going value, and triple channel means realistically needing to buy 6gigs of mem, its silly for people to invest in 6gb's of even cheap ddr2 when ddr3 is being pushed and 6gigs of ddr3 is not cheap.

The fact the chip is close, and will be indentical in many area's is a big plus, aswell as the massive increase in ATi card sales, it will mean say Dell can smack ati cards in their intel rigs, or offer ati cards in a amd rig with a discount for going the dragon platform and buying it all together.

But also remember, this is the first chip thats had a year being sorted while they knew they were getting massive cash investment(the takeover started talks over a year ago now) so they are only just moving into the "we have cash, we'll have fab's, lets make chips how we want to" phase. Phenom 2 is what they wanted for phenom but had to sacrifice size for yeilds and with size went performance. ITs a very good chip considering they went from a good design, to a butchered cut down version and back. Hopefully the next few releases will now be designed to simply be the best they can make, rather than have fab limitations hold back the design.

Wizardskills · 27 Nov 2008 at 12:17

Yeah, good points drunkenmaster. Lets just hope the black edition isnt lol £££, if it is cheap then i will be very tempted in getting one over an i7 extreme.

wolvers · 27 Nov 2008 at 13:02

Final8y said:
I think at best it may compete at the mid i7.

I'd eat my hat if that happens! If you're right though, those on AM2 already will be laughing at us on 775 when it comes to upgrades.

I reckon the AM3 chips will compete with i7 but these won't. They'll be a good upgrade for peeps on AM2 already though and it seems as though they'll get a bit more overclocking fun out of them.

gareth170 · 27 Nov 2008 at 14:34

wolvers69 said:
I'd eat my hat if that happens! If you're right though, those on AM2 already will be laughing at us on 775 when it comes to upgrades.

I reckon the AM3 chips will compete with i7 but these won't. They'll be a good upgrade for peeps on AM2 already though and it seems as though they'll get a bit more overclocking fun out of them.

but the am3 chips only as 1 differents from the am2+ version that is the ddr2 and ddr3 memory controllers everything else is the same. also the am3 chips will still work in a am2+ motherboard.

wolvers · 27 Nov 2008 at 15:23

gareth170 said:
but the am3 chips only as 1 differents from the am2+ version that is the ddr2 and ddr3 memory controllers everything else is the same. also the am3 chips will still work in a am2+ motherboard.

So the AM3 chips will also run with DDR2? :confused:

Anyway, surely there's got to be more to AM3 than just a DDR3 upgrade? That wouldn't be enough of an incentive to upgrade to AM3 from AM2 for me if I was on AMD.

Pneumonic · 27 Nov 2008 at 15:27

HighlandeR said:
Good question, looks like we will have to wait for AM3 motherboards in Jan... while the current AM2+ boards are gonna be phenom II ready for now, there are some SLI/Crossfire boards out there around £120-180 already.

OC3D have some reviews up now for MSI and Gigabyte boards

gareth170 · 27 Nov 2008 at 15:31

wolvers69 said:
So the AM3 chips will also run with DDR2?

Anyway, surely there's got to be more to AM3 than just a DDR3 upgrade? That wouldn't be enough of an incentive to upgrade to AM3 from AM2 for me if I was on AMD.

yes the AM3 chips will also run with DDR2.. the am3 chips as both ddr2 and ddr3 memory controllers ..

AMD has confirmed that AM3 processors will work on AM2 motherboards. However, AM2 processors will not work on AM3 motherboards because AM2 processors lack the DDR3 memory controller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM3

wolvers · 27 Nov 2008 at 16:24

Then there must be more to the AM3 chips than just the DDR3 controller then otherwise what would be the point in having DDR2 support? AM2 owners would have no reason to buy one.

gareth170 · 27 Nov 2008 at 16:33

wolvers69 said:
Then there must be more to the AM3 chips than just the DDR3 controller then otherwise what would be the point in having DDR2 support? AM2 owners would have no reason to buy one.

well from what i've read is the am3 HT is the same as AM2+ and the fsb. so i really can't see different other than the ddr3.

also one other different is the number of pins, am3 as 938pins, am2+ as 940pins, but that doesn't matter.

http://event.asus.com/mb/AM3_CPU_Support/

wolvers · 28 Nov 2008 at 13:10

gareth170 said:
well from what i've read is the am3 HT is the same as AM2+ and the fsb. so i really can't see different other than the ddr3.

That would be really bizarre. My money's on some kind of architecture or fab process improvement then.

ukbrainstew · 30 Nov 2008 at 09:37

Yamahahahahaha said:
It's at least in the same ballpark as i7, which is good.

I fear the much more efficient and flexible i7 will completely dominate though.

Given the price difference of the platform as a whole, its very impressive its managing to come anywhere close to i7 at all imo. An AM2+ motherboard + 4GB of DDR2 can be had for a pittance but there's no similarly low cost entry point for i7. If Deneb ii has the touted headroom then I can see this being very popular with enthusiasts. At the very least it looks like AMD are competitive again, which is excellent news at the very least.