Overclocking

All three chips here are easily overclockable. The Phenom II X6 1100T could hit 4GHz however not stable enough to make it through our test suite with stock cooling. I ended up at 3.89GHz for the 1100T:

The Athlon II X3 455 proved to be even more potent than the 450 sample I tested last time. I managed a 3.85GHz overclock out of this one:

The 3.85GHz overclock held even when I enabled the chip's disabled 4th core.

Finally the Phenom II X2 565 BE hit an impressive 3.92GHz even with a third core enabled:

While overclocked the best value continues to be the Athlon II X3 455 which now performs like a Clarkdale Core i5. Unlock the fourth core and the Athlon II X3 455 is faster than a Lynnfield Core i5 in threaded applications:

Overclocked - x264 HD Encode Test - 2nd Pass - x264 0.59.819

You do pay the price in power consumption, the added voltage necessary to reach these higher clock speeds manifests in much higher power consumption. Such is the tradeoff with most voltage overclocking:

Overclocked - Idle Power Consumption

Overclocked - Load Power Consumption (x264 HD Pass 1)

Power Consumption Final Words
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  • vol7ron - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    "today we're getting speed bumps"

    Usually this term is associated with a slow down, not a push forward - you slow down at the speed bump. It's sort of like how you don't associate a stop sign with accelerating as fast as you can, which many do right after.

    Other Thoughts: Perhaps you meant speed burst?
  • fic2 - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Apparently you don't know that words can have multiple meanings.
    See #5 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bump

    bump (bmp)
    v. bumped, bump·ing, bumps
    v.tr.
    1. To strike or collide with.
    2. To cause to knock against an obstacle.
    3.
    a. To knock to a new position; shift: bumped the crate out of the way.
    b. To shake up and down; jolt: bumped the child on her knee; was bumped about on a rough flight.
    4.
    a. To displace from a position within a group or organization.
    b. To deprive (a passenger) of a reserved seat because of overbooking.
    5. To raise; boost: bump up the price of gasoline.
    6. Sports To pass (a volleyball) by redirecting it with the forearms.
  • jabber - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    We shall see. If Intel has been 100% successful and reliable in one aspect of computing its dissapointing with its GPU performance.

    Always a lot of bluster and pre-release pomp about how it will be many times better than the previous piece of crap and then it hits the floor like a dead moose dropped from 50 feet.

    I dont see that changing radically.
  • kwantor - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    How does that work exactly?

    On 2560x yes, you should get 100+fps on 1024x.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    They're using "Ultra CPU" settings to stress the CPUs. People are probably not really running the game like this.

    MrS
  • nitrousoxide - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    It will be bulldozed by eight-core SNB-E, but surely it will bulldoze quad-core SNBs.
  • flyck - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link

    lets wait and see shall we. If each BD core is faster then each K8 core it might be very close to it.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Not sure about the US, but here in Germany the i7 860 has effectively been replaced by the i7 870 since a couple of months. It's 1 - 2 multipliers faster for a small price premium. Currently the 1100T is actually priced a hair above the 870.

    Given the approxiamte tie in threaded apps and wins for the 870 in lightly threaded apps and power consumption at any load level I'd certainly go with that one.

    MrS
  • dertechie - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    They're comparing to i7 860 since they already have one on hand to play with, I suspect.
  • mapesdhs - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link


    MrSpadge is right; when I went looking for one recently, I noticed many
    stores had the 860 priced higher than the 870, or the gap was so small
    that the 860 made no sense. So I bought an 870 instead.

    Btw, it's a bit misleading IMO to include AMD oc results and yet not at
    least briefly mention how well the Intel chips also oc, especially given earlier
    reviews here of the i3 and other options, eg. I get 6.88 for Cinebench 11 with
    my oc'd 870, 20442 for Cinebench 10 (and this isn't on the high side either).

    I've found the 870 to oc better than my older 860 aswell, and not just because
    of the base clock difference. It just seems to work better. I'm sure I could push
    it to 4.5+, but there's no need for this on a gaming rig with two GTX 460s SLI.
    Indeed, so far I find game fps scores are better with HT turned off and a
    higher CPU clock, so even more headroom is possible (confirmed this effect
    with 3DMark06, Unigine Heaven, Stalker COP and X3TC so far). With the
    same Vcore/VTT, my 870 was ok at 4444 instead of 4270 with HT off, and
    temps were lower. If you want max 3DMark06 overall scores, leave HT on;
    to max out game fps rates though, try turning HT off and increase the raw
    clock (I'd like to know which games benefits from HT - none of my current
    tests show any gain).

    Hmm, the '3dsmax 9 - SPECapc' test looks interesting, might give that a spin.
    Is that a separate download to Viewperf 11?

    Ian.

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