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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SRivera - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Applications that will use that much memory and memory bandwidth. Off the top of my head, I can only think of moderate-heavy database use. Too many people tend to look over the 1156 platform over to 1366 because of triple channel memory when in reality, even more heavy gamers, you're just never going to fully utilize that much memory or bandwidth.I run a 4GB system, running games and oodles of apps at the same time, I've never seen my memory jump past 3GB or far past it.
So it really comes down to what your use for a system like the i7 9xx & X58 would be if you will really need the triple channel bandwidth and extra memory.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Uncompressed HD editing easily uses more than 4GB RAM. Anyone using an X58 with a
Quadro card for professional work should definitely have 6GB minimum.
Ian.
LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Zero. That's the amount you have contributed to this thread.chrnochime - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Water closet? Haven't heard that term in YEARS.Peroxyde - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
For a machine used as a light VM Server, is AMD Thuban better than i5 750 ?Taft12 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
A light VM server should probably use your old PC in the corner gathering dust.ant_ - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I was hoping to see some benchmarks in Battlefield Bad Company 2. I thought Anandtech had added it to the gaming tests. We know the game scales well using a quad core vs a dual. I was curious to see the difference between 4 vs 6 cores.toolonglyf - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
ya I'm a bit disappointed not seeing it there... I think it would have shown something interestingKranZ - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I'd be curious to see how this stands up in the VM tests you did earlier this year. At face value, it seems VMs = more threads and this proc would be of value.Crypticone - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I noticed the WOW benchmarks are missing from this CPU. Any chance of getting them added to the gaming page?