[Multiple]Phenom 940 review - Overclock.net

joemaniaci · 01-08-09

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The Phenom II performance speaks for itself. It loses to its old nemesis, the Core 2, which I think some folks will be surprised by. The Phenom II loses to the Core i7, which I think was to be expected. The Phenom II is a loser.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

The resolutions are quite odd, but they wanted to take the gpu out of the equation as much as possible

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The good

Phenom II easily beats out Phenom X4 and gives mid-range Core 2 Quads a good fight
Overclocks well, suggesting significant headroom for 2009
Dragon platform makes implicit

The not so good

Quite power-hungry, as a platform, when compared to Core 2 Quad
Core i7 is still comfortably faster in most applications
940 price needs to drop <£200 and 920 to <£150 to entice enthusiasts away from Intel.

Hexus review

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In the Phenom II, AMD has produced a chip that comes strikingly close to duplicating the performance of Intel's mid-range Core 2 Quad processors, the Q9300 and Q9400. The Phenom II proved to be faster in several of our gaming tests, but it was slower in some components of WorldBench, including WinZip and Photoshop, which lowered its overall score a bit. On the whole, though, the key characteristic we saw through the bulk of our performance tests was the remarkable parity between the Phenom II X4 940 and the Core 2 Quad Q9400

Techreport, thanks to mentholmoose

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We have to say we're very impressed, but mostly because of the very competitive price AMD has hit. Without knowing this during testing we have to say we were more reluctant as a 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 was hitting 2.67 - 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad, meaning the Intel Core 2 CPUs are more efficient in a direct clock to clock comparison.

Intel will still win the day in terms of absolute performance, but this always comes at a price and in the mainstream and performance-value market AMD is very competitive and enthusiasts should be interested in its CPUs once again, especially if you already have an AM2+ motherboard and want a swift upgrade.

Bit-tech Review

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The fact of the matter is this, in order to upgrade to Phenom II, most AM2+ users will simply need to upgrade the processor. Everyday a list of current compatible motherboards increases, so the rest of your system components can remain untouched. If you are new to overclocking, the Phenom II should be an easy starting point. If you are an experienced overclocker, you'll be running 3.6GHz in a matter of minutes. If you are an extreme benchmarker, the Phenom II brings previously unknown possibilities to the AMD platform with sub-zero cooling.

Hardware Canucks
Guru3d, posted by francesthemutes
Tweaktown, already posted by Michelangelo
HotHardware, thanks to XaslanX
ExtremeTech, thanks to XaslanX
Neoseeker, thanks to XaslanX

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A comparison between the current top-of-the-line AMD Phenom II X4 940 and the Intel Core i7 shows the Intel processor coming out about 22% faster. On the other hand, in comparison with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, the same Phenom II CPU finishes about 10% ahead.

When it comes to system efficiency and energy consumption, if you put a Phenom II X4 940 system head-to-head against a Core 2 Quad Q6600, an AMD system delivers measurably better “performance per watt” figures.

Tom's Hardware

If anyone has any other reviews, PM me and I can post them here and give you credit.

ANANDTECH NOW HERE, thanks to michelangelo

It seems that everyone is dying for anandtech, so I will post a few nice snippets below

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Socket-AM3 Phenom II parts will also work in Socket-AM2+ motherboards, the two are pin-compatible. When in an AM2+ board, these upcoming Phenom II processors will work in DDR2 mode but when in an AM3 board they will work in DDR3 mode. How cool is that?

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Despite Intel's strengths, AMD was able to do very well here today with Phenom II. Being able to have a CPU competitive with Penryn right out of the gates is worthy of a commendation. The scary part is that Intel could easily mitigate AMD's gains here with some simple price adjustments. Even more worrisome for AMD is that Phenom II is its only foot forward until 2011 when the first Bulldozer based CPUs arrive. There's headroom in AMD's 45nm process, but what happens when Core i7 goes mainstream?

If you have a Socket-AM2+ motherboard with BIOS support for Phenom II, there's no question - it's the best upgrade path for you. If you are trying to build a new system from scratch, I'd suggest waiting for either the Socket-AM3 CPUs or see what Intel does with its pricing later this month.

Dodger02WS6 · 01-08-09

I normally respect [H]ard|OCP but they are doing a great disservice with this review, they didn't use a single Intel chip running DDR2. Why is the person that's looking to purchase a 275.00 CPU even going to care how it does against a 1000.00 + Core2Quad or i7 965? Sorry Kyle & Company, but you Blew this one...

XxBeNigNxX · 01-08-09

Damn they had no interest in the Phenom II at all.... That was one of the coldest reviews I have ever read.

They have lost my respect.

The_Leetard179 · 01-08-09

Phenom II is dissapointing, and that review really pissed me off

skugpezz · 01-08-09

phenom 2 haters

Dodger02WS6 · 01-08-09

I dropped Joe's list of links over on HardOcp, lets see what happens.

Gave ya proper credit too

XxBeNigNxX · 01-08-09

LOL.... now go read the review from Guru3d

003 · 01-08-09

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Originally Posted by Dodger02WS6

I normally respect [H]ard|OCP but they are doing a great disservice with this review, they didn't use a single Intel chip running DDR2. Why is the person that's looking to purchase a 275.00 CPU even going to care how it does against a 1000.00 + Core2Quad or i7 965? Sorry Kyle & Company, but you Blew this one...

First of all, this is probably the best review of the Phenom II that is currently out there. Notice all the low graphics settings and the very low resolutions. That is perfect to test how CPU bound the games and applications are.

Second, it's not that big of a deal that they use DDR3 for the intel CPUs. DDR3 hardly makes any difference at all in games. If they had used DDR2, the results would have been very similar. Also, it is not AMD's fault that intel currently supports DDR3 and they do not. DDR3 can hardly be considered expensive these days, so don't try and pull the price card. You can get a very good dual channel kit of 2x2GB DDR3 1333 memory for below $80.

And if we're talking Core i7, you do not have to get a triple channel kit. Dual channel still works just fine, and there is zero performance difference in games when stepping from triple to dual channel, and even single channel most of the time.

Quit spewing this rubbish about a $1000 CPU as well... you can pick up a Core i7 920 for below $300, and they easily overclock to 3.8GHz on the stock cooler, and 4GHz+ on good air and water. Some people have even achieved 4.4GHz stable on water.

The only aspect of Core i7 that is still on the pricey side are the motherboards, but the prices are coming down. You can pick up an MSI X58 Platinum for ~$215 currently, and expect the prices to continue dropping on the boards.

EDIT:
Oh, and I'd just like to point out, even though the Core 2 Quad system is using DDR3 1600 memory and the Phenom II is using DDR2 800 memory, the Phenom II still pulls higher memory bandwidth than the Core 2 Quad. Keep that in mind when you are saying it's so unfair that they are using DDR3.

And a lot of the benchmarks on the [H] review are real world tests, such as encoding, file compression, etc...