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Roundups and Shootouts
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AMD Phenom II X3/X4 Roundup
- Hardware Zone |
| At the moment, the Phenom II X4 940 'Black Edition' that launched earlier remains the top Phenom II and as you may know, these Phenom IIs have the Intel Yorkfield quad-cores in sight, and not so much the Core i7. These new models are similarly aimed at the mainstream and are priced below US$200. Their goals are modest, with the US$175 Phenom II X4 810 aimed at the less powerful quad-core range (Q8200) while the US$145 triple-core X3 720 'Black Edition' takes on the Intel dual-cores.
In terms of performance, the Phenom II X4 810 and X3 720 'Black Edition' that we tested did not give us any surprises. Their results were in line with our expectations given what we have seen of the X4 940/920. Moreover, the X3 720 looks to be quite an interesting model, using its extra core to keep up with the Intel dual-cores and at the same time, making use of its higher 2.8GHz clock and larger L3 cache to edge ahead of the X4 810 for those non multi-threaded scenarios. Though we haven't tested its overclocking potential, having one less core usually allows for a better chance of further overclocking this Black Edition X3. |
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published: Feb 09 2009 |
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AMD Phenom II Review
- Tech Report |
| The Phenom II X4 810 is also generally faster and more attractive overall than the Core 2 Quad Q8200, but I can't say I like the value propsition with either of these processors all that well. Because of their reduced cache sizes and clock speeds, these value quad-cores rely almost entirely on multithreaded applications to achieve strong performance. When software doesn't oblige (and it often doesn't), they stumble, as illustrated by the Q8200's poor showings in several of our benchmarks, including MS Office, Firefox, and the gaming tests. For the vast majority of users, the Phenom II X3 720 will be a better choice, and it costs less.
Oh, and we didn't see much in the way of performance gains when moving the Phenom II X4 810 from DDR2 memory to DDR3 memory. That's no great shock, all things considered, and no knock on AMD's implementation of Socket AM3. I suspect we may see more benefits from DDR3 once we get our hands on a non-neutered Socket AM3 quad-core, like a Phenom II X4 940 or something even faster, especially if AMD builds in support for higher memory frequencies. Until then, Socket AM3 is a fine upgrade path waiting for a reason to exist. |
| rated: -- |
published: Feb 17 2009 |
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