Date:
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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AMD Phenom II X4 Model 940 Black Edition Processor

We have been waiting for this CPU, but hardly with bated breath. While we had high hopes, the Phenom II is already waning in enthusiast circles. We pit it against the Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Core i7, clock for clock. Isn't that what we really want to see?

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Testing

As I mentioned on the introduction page, AMD's competition is not the old Phenom, so I have decided to just leave it out of our testing. Let’s face it, the terrible numbers at 2.6GHz would simply screw up the scaling on the graphs so bad that it really makes them worthless.

I think that the enthusiast is wondering exactly what I am wondering. “How does this Phenom II do clock-per-clock compared to Intel’s Core 2 and Core i7?” Now while some of you will whine loudly, “That’s not fair! That flagship Core i7 is $1000!” Well you people just need to shut the hell up and go have a drink. You are already unreasonable, so a little alcohol won’t hurt you in the least. We have not seen any Core i7 processors that would not easily clock to the 3.2GHz mark we are using here today. And the Core i7 920 can already be purchased for less than $300. Same goes for Core 2 Quad. Under $300 and will clock to 3.2GHz easily. That said, our Phenom II Black Edition 940 easily clocked to 3.2GHz at stock voltages.

3.2GHz is currently the “flaghship” stock clock for Intel so we decided to use this clock for our testing here today. HardOCP readers are familiar with 3.2GHz as well, you guys call that “slow.”

Test Setup

AMD Phenom II 940 clocked to 3.2GHz; MSI DKA790GX Platinum; 2GB Corsair DDR2-8888; BFGTech GTX 280 OC; Intel 8GB SSD; Koolance Exos 2 LS and 345 CPU waterblock; Thermaltake ToughPower 1200w PSU.

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 clocked to 3.2GHz; ASUS Ramapage Extreme; 4GB Corsair DDR3-1600; BFGTech GTX 280 OC; Intel 8GB SSD; Koolance Exos 2 LS and 345 CPU waterblock; Thermaltake ToughPower 1200w PSU.

Intel Core i7 965 clocked to 3.2GHz; ASUS P6T6; 6GB Corsair DDR3-1600; BFGTech GTX 280 OC; Intel 8GB SSD; Koolance Exos 2 LS and 345 CPU waterblock; Thermaltake ToughPower 1200w PSU.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Sisoft Sandra 2009

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My hope here was to run our AMD system bandwidth marks at 1066MHz DDR2 memory speeds, but the TWO motherboards we had just simply would not run 1066 stable; so our AMD system is tested at 800MHz DDR2 while our Intel systems are both tested at DDR3-1600. Even with this technical disadvantage, you see the Phenom II continue to shine in one realm where it predecessor did; memory bandwidth. With its integrated memory controller the Phenom II puts the Core 2 to shame. On the other side of that coin, Intel’s TripChan DDR3 on the Core i7 system posts it usual incredible score.

Sisoft Sandra 2009

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Here we see Phenom II struggle to keep up with the Core 2.

Hiper Pi

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In this single thread synthetic benchmarks that calculates Pi, the Phenom II looks horrible.

wPrime

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In this very multithreaded synthetic benchmark designed to fully utilize all threads available, we see our Phenom II actually best our Core 2 system but still lose to the Core i7 by a wide margin. Turning off HyperThreading on the i7 will totally change the outcome of this benchmark almost doubling its score.