AnandTech: AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition

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AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition

Date: January 8th, 2009
Topic: CPU & Chipset
Manufacturer: AMD
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi

Buy the AMD HDZ940XCGIBOX Phenom II Black 940

	$164.99
	$159.99
	$192.26

Fallout 3

Bethesda's latest title uses an updated version of the Gamebryo engine.

Fallout 3 - 1680 x 1050 - Medium Quality

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead - 1680 x 1050 - Max Settings (No AA/AF/Vsync)

The Phenom II might not match the Core 2 series on a clock for clock basis in these two games, but performs very well compared to the Q9400 and Q8200. Overall gaming compatibility and stability was excellent with the 940 and 920 on the MSI 790GX based motherboard.

Gaming Performance - FarCry 2 & Crysis Warhead

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91 Comments - Last by Walkeer, 36 days ago

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Bravo by Kromis, 316 days ago

*Stands up and applause*

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RE: Bravo by wowo, 210 days ago

how x264?

x264 benchmark is 819,very old.

now is 1139.Improved a lot

please ues new x264,more scores will be Changed.

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. by san1s, 316 days ago

still slower than core 2?

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Food for thought! by slayerized, 316 days ago

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!!

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RE: Food for thought! by Griswold, 315 days ago

No. Facts and "might turn out that way in a few years" arent the same thing.

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Funny thing happened... by kmmatney, 316 days ago

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!

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RE: Funny thing happened... by Zaitsev, 316 days ago

That's a great story! I would love to see anand duking it out with some intel employees! LOL

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So who wants to buy me one? by Goty, 316 days ago

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.

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Why Q9450 is often slower than Q9400 by kknd1967, 316 days ago

I thought Q9450 should be better with larger cache?

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RE: Why Q9450 is often slower than Q9400 by Anand Lal Shimpi, 316 days ago

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

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