AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 27, 2010 12:26 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Phenom II X6
Final Words
Today's conclusion is no different than what we've been saying about AMD's CPU lineup for several months now. If you're running applications that are well threaded and you're looking to improve performance in them, AMD generally offers you better performance for the same money as Intel. It all boils down to AMD selling you more cores than Intel at the same price point.
Applications like video encoding and offline 3D rendering show the real strengths of the Phenom II X6. And thanks to Turbo Core, you don't give up any performance in less threaded applications compared to a Phenom II X4. The 1090T can easily trump the Core i7 860 and the 1055T can do even better against the Core i5 750.
You start running into problems when you look at lightly threaded applications or mixed workloads that aren't always stressing all six cores. In these situations Intel's quad-core Lynnfield processors (Core i5 700 series and Core i7 800 series) are better buys. They give you better performance in these light or mixed workload scenarios, not to mention lower overall power consumption.
The better way to look at it is to ask yourself what sort of machine you're building. If you're building a task specific box that will mostly run heavily threaded applications, AMD will sell you nearly a billion transistors for under $300 and you can't go wrong. If it's a more general purpose machine that you're assembling, Lynnfield seems like a better option.
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Belard - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
While in general the upper end i5/i7 CPUs are a bit faster, there are other costs involved.Basic AMD boards are $80, upper end Cross-fire boards are $100~150, while typical P55 boards are $100~200, and X58s are $200~300.
So, with cost of the intels is about $150~400 in price to get a few seconds performance improvements.
Also, if someone buys a lower-end i3 CPU, they can't upgrade to a top end i7 CPUs because of different CPU sockets. While those who bought an AMD class board a year ago will most likely have the option to upgrade.
Scali - Thursday, April 29, 2010 - link
Who would want to run a six-core CPU on a two-year old board though?You wouldn't have things like USB 3.0, SATA 6 gbps, probably not even PCI-express 2.0 either.
I don't think it's a good idea to upgrade a CPU in the same board in general.
Usually the old board will severely hamper performance, so you're not getting your money's worth for the new CPU. And you'll miss out on the new features.
In all the years that I've been building PCs for myself and for friends/family, I have never found a CPU-upgrade very compelling, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's better to get a 1055T instead of a 1090T, and spend the extra money on a new board, rather than running the 1090T on the old board. There's a very interesting article in there for Anand I suppose.
stalker27 - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Tested on Crosshair IV, th 1090T did far better than any i7... proves how much MSI and Gigabyte suck at this thing.hooga - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Can you please make a note of wheather or not all power saving functions like C"n" Q and C1 for PhenomII is activated?Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
All power saving features were enabled on all chips - C1E and CnQ were enabled on the X6. You need to enable these features otherwise Turbo Core doesn't work.Take care,
Anand
KaarlisK - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
With 6 cores, memory bandwidth might be more important. The gain from DDR3 for Phenom II was minimal. Or is L3 cache bandwidth the bottleneck?hooga - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I meant C1E obviously, and what about overcloking? Just a half heartet attempt? makes me wonder if there is some fanb** no, im not going to say that word, iv always seen you guys as very professional and cant quite believe that, im hopeing that you post the 4,2GHz results very soon. :)silverblue - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Bit-tech couldn't exceed 3.89GHz with their sample. Guru3d managed 4.1GHz using an OCZ Vendetta air cooler.These things are usually quite variable.
silverblue - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
That's certainly helpful.Considering the intended uses for this type of processor - i.e. heavily threaded applications - it offers more performance for the price as compared to anything Intel is throwing out.
Yes, Intel's products are faster per clock, but they just can't match AMD for performance at a given price point. Guru3D touched upon the point that you could build a 1055T machine for $600; that's $400 less than the 980 on its own. How much would it cost to build a 980 setup, or even a 930 solution in comparison?
fitten - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Depends on where you buy stuff... Microcenter runs great deals on the i7/930 (around $200), for example.