AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 2, 2011 10:42 PM ESTGeneral Performance: SYSMark 2007
Our journey starts with SYSMark 2007, the only all-encompassing performance suite in our review today. The idea here is simple: one benchmark to indicate the overall performance of your machine. SYSMark 2007 ends up being more of a dual-core benchmark as the applications/workload show minimal use of more than two threads.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test. The test does basic photo editing; there are a couple of color space conversions, many layer creations, color curve adjustment, image and canvas size adjustment, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
The whole process is timed and thanks to the use of Intel's X25-M SSD as our test bed hard drive, performance is far more predictable than back when we used to test on mechanical disks.
Time is reported in seconds and the lower numbers mean better performance. The test is multithreaded and can hit all four cores in a quad-core machine.
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medi01 - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
Now try to make price of CPU + Motherboard equal and compare again.BSMonitor - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
"Now try to make price of CPU + Motherboard equal and compare again."Price is a function of demand. AMD HAS to sell them this cheap to move them at all. They do not sell them as cheap as they do because they are more cost effective to produce, so your comment in this context is completely irrelevant ..
Action_Parsnip - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
You misunderstand his point.kmmatney - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
Yep. I've bought at least 10 cpu+MB combos for $99 at Microcenter over the last year, for clients, friends, and family. Fast enough for most purposes, and you are GPU limited in most games, and so better off spending the cost savings on a better video card. For $300, for can get a much better performing AMD system, versus Intel. Maybe not good for AMD, but good for me.silverblue - Thursday, May 5, 2011 - link
But it doesn't. There's plenty of benchmarks around to show that a comparative Phenom II X4 gets a few wins, especially in encoding. Aside of a few very strong Intel-optimised situations, there's really very little in it, and anyway, if you ignore the very high price of the upper Core 2 Quads, you can get a faster Phenom II X4 or X6 for less.Targon - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
AMD has a new platform on the way, and that is where the focus has been. For now, any new Athlon 2 or Phenom 2 processor will just be a bit more of the same with a higher clock rate, but still has the same exact design as previous chips. Bulldozer on the other hand is the big push to get back to being competitive.The big problem is, and remains the lack of a 32nm fab process which Intel has had for a long time now.
haplo602 - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
thanks for the compilation benchmark. finaly something usable for the Linux folks :-) linux kernel compilation (or open office) would be better, but this is not a bad start ;-)macky_r - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
I knew from the beginning that AMD wants to milk more performance out of it's Deneb architecture. I wasn't surprise when I saw this item on this website that I visit from time to time.I currently own one of the first Deneb CPUs (PH II 965 BE) w/ a clock of 3.4 GHz rated at 140W! I didn't even bother OCing this regretful purchased CPU of mine. How I wish I waited for the cooler versions, but I was in a hurry to build a PC that I can use at home for my Networking classes
I will buy the 1100T soon. I will be be OCing it at 3.7 GHz w/ turbo core disabled.
I don't wanna be negative, but I know for a fact that Bulldozer will not beat Intel's upcoming LGA 2011 CPUs. Maybe Bulldozer is meant to compete with Sandy-Bridge.
Griswold - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
Yea, you know for a fact...BSMonitor - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - link
"I don't wanna be negative, but I know for a fact that Bulldozer will not beat Intel's upcoming LGA 2011 CPUs. Maybe Bulldozer is meant to compete with Sandy-Bridge"Exactly. Even if. Look at the turbo boost scenarios from the Intel SNB processors. There is so much headroom on these processors. Intel is already holding back performance because of lack of competition.
Intel has silicon running stock air-cooled 4GHz and beyond in house, guaranteed.