AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 8, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X4 940 (3.0GHz) AMD Phenom II X4 920 (2.8GHz) AMD Phenom X4 9950BE (2.6GHz) AMD Phenom X4 9750 (2.4GHz) AMD Phenom X3 8650 (2.3GHz) AMD Athlon X2 7750 (2.70GHz) AMD Athlon X2 5200 (2.7GHz) AMD Athlon X2 4600+ (2.4GHz) AMD Athlon LE-1640 (2.7GHz) Intel Core i7 965 (3.20GHz) Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (3.2GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (3.0GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (2.66GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 (2.66GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.50GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 (2.33GHz) Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (3.33GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.66GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 (2.53GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 (2.40GHz) Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 (2.50GHz) Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 (2.20GHz) Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140 (1.60GHz) |
| Motherboard: | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) Intel DX48BT2 (Intel X48) MSI DKA790GX Platinum (AMD 790GX) |
| Chipset: | Intel X48 Intel X58 AMD 790GX |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1010 (Intel) AMD Catalyst 8.12 |
| Hard Disk: | Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill DDR2-800 2 x 2GB (4-4-4-12) G.Skill DDR2-1066 2 x 2GB (5-5-5-15) Qimonda DDR3-1066 4 x 1GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Card: | eVGA GeForce GTX 280 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 180.43 (Vista64) NVIDIA ForceWare 178.24 (Vista32) |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit (for SYSMark) Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit |
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ViRGE - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
Those numbers are all correct, mate. I'm not sure why you'd be getting something different.Finally - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
Seriously guys, you should check out the new hard disk technology by Seagate. New density record, already available.kknd1967 - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
I thought Q9450 should be better with larger cache?Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
In some of the tests the two will swap places simply because they run at the same clock speed and the added cache doesn't always help performance. In those cases if the Q9450 is behind it's most likely due to normal variation between test runs.Take care,
Anand
Goty - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
If I didn't have a 5000+ BE sitting in a K9A2 in my rig right now I probably wouldn't consider this CPU, but seeing as I do, it looks like I've found my next upgrade.kmmatney - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
I was on a plane flying back from Taiwan (I work in the Fab industry) and I happened to sit next to an Intel employee who had traveled to Asia for the Core i7 launch. I asked him about the small L2 cache, and he explained that these run about 300 test applications, and chose the cache amounts based on a compromise between performance (and latency) and die size. We talked a bit and he asked me how I knew so much about computer hardware, and I mentioned I'm an avid Anandtech reader. He recognized the name, and mentioned that he saw Anand argue with one of his coworkers for quite some time about the L2 cache size!Zaitsev - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
That's a great story! I would love to see anand duking it out with some intel employees! LOLslayerized - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
AMD has indeed made some notable improvements with Phenom II and their 45nm. Reviews keep mentioning about how there is an upgrade option with Phenom II being AM2 compatible; however, what next (this is probably their last product with AM2 compatibility)? Shouldn't the reviews consider the upgrade options for Core i7/X58 with Westmere in a couple of years too? For someone who is considering a fresh build, I think that is something that should be analyzed too imo. Great review otherwise as always; the playing field if not leveled is at least starting to look competitive in a few segments!!Griswold - Friday, January 9, 2009 - link
No. Facts and "might turn out that way in a few years" arent the same thing.san1s - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
still slower than core 2?