Phenom, good sometimes, not so good others

[drunkenmaster]

So far mixed bag, quite a few reviews.

anandtechs reviews against a penryn and kentsfield

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=11

but seems to get it wrong IMHO.

there are things like, old school apps they've benched with for years to do encoding. the only newer encoding review, the x264 one, its basically clock for clock performance for all results which is great. in the older stuff its slower, but its still very fast, more than fast enough for anyone but someone who encoded 24/7. but anandtech kept saying that intel won because their chips were priced under amds.

but in reality, we'll all overclock them so just like we prefer to pay for a E6600 and clock it up, we'll be getting the £145 chip and clocking it up as far as possible, probably to same speeds as the rest. in gaming, the benchmarks are at very low res/detail, and older games its the difference of hl2 at 153 vs 180, with amd losing, but again at high res they would give same numbers. but crysis, at low res was giving similar numbers. now being crysis i would say the gain could be gpu limited more, but i'm not so sure tbh. its still very low res and most likely very low detail meaning less gpu limited.

i tend to get the impression, theres only so much brute force you need, newer programs, newer games, newer encoding tends to do things better, smarter, to higher quality. that needs better smarter cpu's, brute force is to make older more basic programs run faster. but theres a point where you just don't need more speed on old stuff.

the 3 issue width is the same as older k8, while intel have a 4 width(i think even 5 for things like superpi, but only on very specific usage which is difficult to get to). which is fine, harder to run apps often only fill the core 2 duo with 3 instructions, less is possible on both chips. To a point had they added a 4th, it would give them more brute power, which would result in a lot of programs being faster, but newer programs, more complex, would still only routinely fill the 3 issue width rather than 4.

Its going to be seen as bad, when frankly the use in games will not be any different to intels(at normal resolutions), even dual core intel/amd. i thinka phenom + board will end up cheaper than an intel equivilent, a quad crossfire top end 790fx is as cheap/cheaper than a sli/dual crossfire x38, let alone how much a x48 will cost.

It all feels like a stop gap to the next big jump from both big companies to 8/16 cores with a few of those specific cores, basic gpu, maybe ppu, maybe split up the cores a bit more sony/cell like, so you can choose a fpu or int beast should you want.

the other issue would be a fairly damn new chipset for amd, vs a x38/p35/965 that have changed very very little and had a long time to get the most performance possible out of it. wonder if mobo's will improve much.

[h] are saying the black edition 2.3Ghz will be the same price(well probably bumped up £5 in stores i would think) for an unlocked core that h reckons they can get to 2.8-3Ghz easily, i would think that will be on air aswell. personally i've never had a chip on air/water thats needed a higher multiplier in the past 5 years, fsb and lower multiplier has always been the case for me. but its a nice touch to make it same price and offer the enthusiast the option should we want it. £145 for the 9400 and 9500 apparently in both black and normal edition at £159.


also, their overclocking tool looks god damned brilliant tbh. it seems to basically have every single option every little tweak program has offered us, memset, cpuid, clockgen and the rest all in one app supported by them.

i think every, or almost every single bios option is available in windows. though obviously, if thats more stable than bios is yet to be seen, anandtech decided to only overclock through the tool which might have affected their top stable overclock(2.6Ghz despite being able to get into windows at 3Ghz). not sure.

 

[drunkenmaster]

its not looking great, i'm not sure why they didn't do full sse4. there seems a noticable lack in performance when sse4 comes into play, for instance in crysis with high physics phenom does well against the kentsfield, but significantly worse against penryn which will most likely be sse4.

but then, maybe just better compilers to use sse4a better are needed, who knows.


but its been the case for a long time, if you're a gamer, 2.4Ghz dual core of any kind is ample for any game out right now, a 2.4Ghz x2 feels much the same as a 3.5Ghz penryn when you're at whatever res your gpu handles well. for gaming, much more than £50 on the cpu is a waste at the moment and for a while.

gpu upgrade first for most of us here, and i think with the 3850/70 prices, a 2nd gpu would be the next viable upgrade now.

what needs to be seen is, when exactly we see 2.8Ghz stock phenoms, Q1 could mean right after xmas, they are just stockpiling and binning the new b3 stepping now, or could mean end of march. i get the feeling they aren't too far off though.

what they really need to be doing for launch is the 9500 at something like £125, making it a very viable and cheap quad core alternative, and making the 9600 at most £145, but more like £135. tbh, people like dell the £6 difference between a phenom at £159 and q6600 at £165 is massive, and across a 200k computers gives them a big saving. but to the end user, who will be the ones telling everyone what to go buy, that £6 isn't enough of a saving.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Wrong, I'm going to get one to put in my server and for stability's sake it won't be overclocked at all.

I know this is an overclocking forum and most people are all just interested in overclocking but look at the bigger picture and a lot of people will not just be looking at overclocking these chips. Four stable cores is a lot more desirable to me than overclocked, hot, reckless ones

well i meant most, not all,but then my q6600 is at 3.8Ghz, completely stable, i ran 4 dvd encodes yesterday on 2 cores while playing a game at almost normal speed on the other 2, basically every single part of my system, bar the dvd drive, was under load, thats after over a month of daily use to do mostly gaming.

overclocked != unstable.

people that overclock and get as far as a cpu-z shot saved before crashing are fine, but not me, i get my max 24/7 overclock and keep it there, completely stable to any use.

but in reality, for a server, what would it be doing for you that it needs 4 cores? a lot of people have a home server, that goes as far as only being cpu loaded to the extent the onboard nic needs to give best speed. or you might be running websites from home, thats fine too, might need some juice there.

but 99% of people that use a computer at home the most intensive thing they do is gaming. the number of people who actually use 3dsmax for work at home, or other intensive 3d rendering are in the 100's, maybe 1000's to be honest. sure a few of us play around with stuff but its not exactly serious.

 

[drunkenmaster]

soooo....Phenom sucks, big surprise lol

well i was trying to indicate that, it seems to keep up very well in newer more complex software. it goes clock for clock performance for x264 encoding, while being beaten in divx, despite xvid being used more than divx. but amd could have added raw horse power(4 issues per clock instead of 3) but the fact is in x264, crysis, other more complex things it matches the kentsfield. do you really need 180 fps in hl2 over 150? the extra power amd could have put in, at heat, power, transistor, size, price cost would have added very little for me, an extra 20% in games that are already way more than fast enough, and very little in more complex programs if anything.

meh, its hard to explain, trying to think of a good metaphor but can't.

the simple fact is even at stock in gaming you'd be hard pushed to see the difference in any game. in most apps that will be the case. but in benchmarks , intel is faster, which is why amd really needed to be more agressive for the channel sales market. £6 less for the 9600 with unlocked multiplier isn't going to sway most people over a Q6600, £20 less would though.

 

[drunkenmaster]

prices won't rise. 99.9% of sales are to dell/hp and the bottom line is cpu price. if they can market a quad core with a £159 chip instead of a £165 chip, they'll do it. that will keep intel prices low, and amd. most buyers firstly don't need the power they get, and have no idea what the power of their computer really is anyway. money talks, always.

but again, i know someone has the msi platinum quad way crossfire board up at £135. somewhere else with stock sells it for £100. the intel chipset is incredibly expensive and their boards have always been somewhat more expensive.

you can get a quad core £145, + top end fully spec'd 4 way crossfire mobo for £100 + your choice of gfx cards all the way up to 4 if you want. one of the biggest differences is the same spec intel board would be £130-170 at the moment.

i think [h] showed one higher res gaming and the 2.4-3Ghz phenom, and the fastest intel cpu show within basically 1% of each other. quad core is and will be overkill for gaming for a long time yet. so on the scale of getting on quad cores for the cheapest you can, amd win and give you a system indistinguishable in gaming to a £600 top end penryn. but more to the point, the £165 q6600 wouldn't show a difference either, £20 there, £50 cheaper for a top end mobo with the ability to go quad crossfire in the future for that price is pretty damn impressive.

i mean, 9500 for £145, + a dual crossfire board high spec for £70, + a single 3850 512mb for £120. then add on another card for another £120. have 4x 3850 512mb for maybe unbeatably gfx performance(is triple sli up and running yet?). their range of products can go from cheaper, to fairly expensive with more gfx power maybe than nvidia can put together at the moment(not for long tbh). its not bad,

if they only reviewed high res games in a review almost any cpu over £60 from the last 2 years would give the same performance tbh, which makes intel and amd quads a complete waste.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I read their overclock page somewhat different. 3Ghz unstable, 2.8Ghz unstable, 2.6ghz stable enough for benchmarking.

thats pretty much what i said, 2.6Ghz, but they got into windows at 3Ghz would suggest 2.6Ghz stable but got to windows at 3Ghz. frankly, [h] seemed to have a fair few more cpu's available to them than anandtech(getting the impression since they've gone all adverts all the time they are losing respect from a lot of companies who might not pay them for avertising), and they said they think you can get 3Ghz quite easily with a decent 790 board, would suggest across a few cpus that was fine, and they normally talk about air overclocks so more clocking with less heat from better cooling, maybe?

like i said, i run my q6600 at 3.8Ghz mostly, because i have been doing a bit of encoding this month aswell as a lot of games that are doing better on dual core fast than quad core slow. but tbh, crysis felt the same at 3.8Ghz as at 2.8Ghz, so did cod4, and everything else i tried. my encode certainly went a bit faster as most i did using all 4 cores at around 80% full load, but it still, on a dvd encode to xvid, was only 20mins a pass. 25 or 30mins at a ghz less wouldn't have made a real life difference to me at all.

 

[drunkenmaster]

a thought occured to me, it would seem they are stock piling b3 steppings so they have numbers for release in q1 across the range of speeds. considering the black edition , well, only enthusiasts will buy it, in small numbers, would be freaking great if they let them out as b3 stepping. its not like dell need chips that will do good clocks, but it would go down great with the enthusiast community. hears praying.........

 

[drunkenmaster]

because penryn's barely faster, they'll undercut it, and offer good value. thats been their business model for 90% of their history.

as for the 90 vs 65nm , its just not comparable. amd took out big deals with dell, they need large volume. intel can shut down one of, i think 462 fabs and switch it over to a new process pretty quickly. amd only have really what, 3 fabs, shutting even part of one down severly affects their output for a while and it costs a lot to upgrade a fab, then it would need to be redone to get over to phenom production(though probo not that much redoing). it was simply cost effective to use an incredibly good, high yield 90nm production than shutting down to move to 65nm briefly, before shutting down again to move to 65nm for phenom. 3.2Ghz on 90nm is phenomenal(come on that was damn good). for the TDP, heat, yield and cost they did some very good stuff on 90nm, they got more out of 90nm than intel had to.

but its a big issue, intel can switch around stuff so much more easily, and yes, they can dump hugely more money into design.

the thing is, phenom can compete in some area's, price, gaming performance.

remember, 99.9% of all intel/amd cpu's sold for home computers will get used for........................ outlook, IE, maybe some bluray playback in a year or two(more common in a couple years anyway) and even then the gpu's will be taking a massive part of the load now. amd need a chip that matches on features. because someone will walk into some kind of world of pc's and see a quad core, vs a quad core, sse4, vs sse4, and both have vista on with IE open and a the same case, same drive, same everything, and amd will be trying hard to make sure their box is cheaper. thats as simple as it gets.

most of us barely put a load on a single core for a majority of its use, for gaming, a 2.4Ghz dual core gets beaten by a 3.2Ghz penryn by 3-4%, thats what some of those home computers will do when the familys have kids and get some gaming in.


performance never matters, price, features do. i mean, a ford Ka will never beat a ferrari, but it sells, because it has 4 wheels, seats, a cup holder, a cd player, a steering wheel and a good price and people need a car.

amd sell cpu's because, people need computers. theres the big secret behind amd's success


why buy a phenom, if you're completely and utterly 100% honest with yourself what is the most intensive thing you do? if its gaming, look at reviews, [h] only have one benchie showing high res but said they are doing a gaming performance review soon. if the phenom performs the same in games, and thats what you'll do most, and realise you'll barely put a 10% load on it the rest of the time. you can buy a intel or phenom, it would make no difference. but if everyone buys intel, intel gain market share, put their prices up and help kill amd. if some of us by amd, when it will make no difference, amd live on longer, and their next cpu might beat intel's.

whats "wrong" with buying amd?

 

[drunkenmaster]

Nothing is 'wrong' with it, just the Intel system, at least on this site, is insanely better value.

Besides, Intel's got 45nm production techs under its belt, I don't suppose AMD are financially able to price their CPUs anywhere near as low as Intel can go. CPU limbo, baby.

see thats the thing, intels cache heavy setup, and cache bump as they drop down in manufacture size is going to keep the cpu die fairly big, yields aren't likely to increase massively, and their similar speed cpu's we already know are the same price.

this is in general why intel boards are more expensive, pin heavy northbridges, the chipsets increase board cost because the chipsets have the mem controller in. amd have always competed on price, and have undercut intel for the last year on a 90nm process as opposed to intels 65nm. i don't expect that to be a big deal.


the question is, is more cpu power, you'll never once use, useful? i admit it, i like the fact its there, i like i've overclocked my cpu to 3.8Ghz, but, i use it for games, this month i've done more dvd encoding than in the last year, and thats still only 6-7 dvd's, at 20mins each pass, i think i could have lived if they were 25 mins aswell. then gaming, that extra power doesn't help at all.

amd seems to have lost their "underdog" lovability status. we didn't care when a p4 outperformed a XP, the XP was cheaper, and amd needed some help, and helping them would bring intel prices down. amd hiking their prices as intel dropped theres with p4 vs ath 64 seems to have lost them that status. thats all well and good, but if we all ignore amd, what happens to amd, and then what happens to intels prices?

 

[drunkenmaster]

thing is, if you really want to be all about the theoretical performance numbers, quad crossfire should do insanely well in 3dmark. would amd holding all the top 50 spots in 3dmark somehow make it faster in day to day use? not at all.

like i said, for an encoder, or maybe some 3dsmax guys intel will prove faster.

if you can be honest with yourself and gaming is all you do, you won't find a £50 dual core any slower than a £600 phenom(when/if available) or a £600 penryn. thats fact, provable in every high res games benchmark over the past 4 years bar maybe 1% of games.

the only reason to go quad core now is if you won't upgrade anytime soon, its a fairly easy argument to make, for long term performance without upgrading quad core will easily be faster than dual core, that is the only argument for the majority of people. in gaming amd aren't slower, then manage to go clock for clock in a few other apps aswell.

as i said, i've got a Q6600 at 3.8GHz now, its fine, i want a phenom to play with, thats all really. but crysis for me isn't faster at 3.8Ghz, than it is at 2.8Ghz, and i've not tried at stock but its unlikely to be different at 2.4Ghz.

intel shouldn't be a problem for dual crossfire, honestly got no idea if they support sli but assume they do. i honestly believe that most people just wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 2.4Ghz phenom and a 3.2Ghz penryn, or a 3.2Ghz phenom and a 2.4Ghz kentsfield either, or a 3.5Ghz phenom and a £50 c2d either.

but if no one buys amd, purely because theoretical performance in a few apps you won't use isn't as good, then AMD won't have any money to make the next competitive chip as good as we need it to be. Intel are a business, they will increase prices if AMD stop getting even close to competitive.


errm, there was also talk, and i think maybe a mention on the amd page somewhere of discount phenom + 3850/3870 bundles maybe. which coupled with a higher spec cheaper amd mobo could result in some killer quad core bundles which would be very good for most people and long term performance systems.