I pretty much stopped buying AMD for the same reason I stopped buying Palm: I don't think they will exist 2 years from now.

I think first that people should realize that unlike the current Core 2 cpus and the associated Core 2 core logic being sold and supported, the Phenom II hasn't started shipping to mass market and has yet to benefit from the numerous compiler, programming, and bios improvements that Core 2 has benefited from over the past couple of years.

I'm certainly not suggesting that it isn't "fair" to draw conclusions between PII and Core 2, or even i7, because those products are current and comparing current products is always intrinsically fair. But I am suggesting that Core 2 is certainly in an era of diminishing returns as far as what further compiler, programming, and bios improvements will be able to do for it, whereas PII is only now getting started on its own journey of product improvement and support in these critical areas.

From reading this review and also the review by AnandTech, it's obvious to me that both of these sites are currently aware of what this means to the future of Phenom II--whereas in reading reviews like the one done at [H] it is pretty obvious that as far as [H] is concerned it's already "game over" even before PII has officially even started playing the game...;)

I'll never forget the first batch of K7 reviews to hit the 'net--many erroneously concluded based on those very early days that Netburst was pretty much going to wipe the carpet with Athlon. Later, compiler, programming, bios, and even more importantly, production yield improvements for Athlon (as both K7 and K8) pretty much wiped the carpet with Netburst, instead.

My thinking is that these are very early days and that the Phenom II has a good deal more improvement ahead of it--certainly more than was possible for Phenom I--of course, it could well be argued that Phenom II *is* simply yet another improvement of Phenom I. Did I say yield improvements? I think yield-related improvements might be the biggest factor ahead for Phenom II, whereas it surely seems to me that Core 2 has already run that particular improvement gamut and is at least 90% done there.

For some reason, when competition between companies is considered among their differing products and differing production schedules, some people always make the mistake of thinking that Intel makes all the rules and that everybody else plays by them. I think the review sites that are counting Phenom II "out" at this stage, before the Phenom II cpu family has literally even gotten started, are once again making that very same mistake.

AMD is weaker in number crunching capability of their processor compared to Intel . IMHO, considering the competition, AMD is in right direction to go for value per clock, not crown of performance. In order to do that, I think they should consider something like hyperthreading, which add much value to each core, and each tick of clock.

I think most people have forgotten a simple fact in the new PII benchmarks. Intel's socket LGA775 is to be soon obsolete. It's a dead end. No more upgrades period.

So taking that into account, if you want to build a system that won't make your bankruptcy worse I think the PII is a pretty good option.
Yes it's not as fast as the i7 but it should cost you about half. Maybe waiting for the i5 is a wiser option. But if the i5 doesn't deliver and AMD start going uphill from here it's going to be a no brainer.

So with Dragon you get Core2 performance that's upgradeable, a great price deal, built in graphics to start with and fast cheap DDR2 memory in heaps AND you save on the electricity bill. I know what system I'd be building right now.

Also next upgrade would be a DDR3 board BUT you can drop your PII right in it. After that you can upgrade the processor again. It's really nice to be able to do things like that. I run an outdated AMD machine and have a spare processor for it :)

It's a really nice feeling.

Full kudos to AMD for the new Phenom.

Dell XPS gaming desktops now have the PhenomII
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/dell-introduces-xps-625-gaming-rig/

Am I the only one kicking myself for buying a 939 just before AM2 got going? I did the same thing last year buying a 8800GT just before the 48xx came out. :\

I have a hunch my E8400 should do proud for some time though. I'm still waiting for those laser light CPUs to show up.

am I the only one thats not the least bit impressed?

Well, at least they're keeping up with Intel's midrange offerings.

Still, based on TR's ass-kicking benchmarking, I can't see a reason to upgrade from my E8400--and while I was able to hit 4GHz with it, I don't have anything that justifies the extra heat.

When the time comes, I will buy this chip if the price is right.

You see, the only processor intensive thing I do I gaming. To be honest, my overclocked X2-3600 is still delivering playable performance, perhaps because my game library is not very current.

Feenaum 2 looks to hold up pretty good in general against the Core 2 Quads, and performance in any other metric does not really come in to play.

So come upgrade time, either the Core2 quad or the Feenaum 2 X4 will be suitable for me, and it will be all about price.

Well, there is overclocked performance to consider too, and it looks like the Core2 Quad will still rule there. So the Feenaum X4 will have to do a good job undercutting the Core 2 Quad - and that includes motherboard prices too, a place where, last time I checked, you can get a lot more mobo for your dollar on the AMD side, especially in the $125 and under segment. Maybe that has changed though.

Thank you for the review Damage.

Does AMD have the cache right now?
With the Phenom I they had 512KB - 2MB, that was a bad setup
at 65nm they should have gone with 256KB - 2MB
now with Phenom II they have 512KB - 6MB, which is much better.
but is it right this time? going from
512KB L2 / core and 512KB L3 / core to
512KB L2 / core and 1.5MB L3 / core
I would have chosen
256KB L2 / core and 1MB L3 / core
and thus targetted a pricesegment that I'm competetive in and that bears much more sales and a die-size that has higher yields.

This is one of those times where it really feals like they almost got to where they needed to be, another ~5% performance at their clock would have done worlds of good in the price/performance ratio.

The Q6600 is a horrible idea.

looking at all the graphs and such and looking at the specs of the Core vs the new Core i7 920 model - to me:

i think comparing the Core i7 920 - which runs at 2.66 Ghz and has 4-cores with a L3 cache 8 Megs would be more apt in getting an idea of the speed of the cores of Intel vs AMD's latest offerings.

Why? because AMD new chip has 4-cores and runs a 2.8 Ghz and has a 6 meg L3 cache.

both the i7 and the new AMD chip have on-board memory controllers also. this make for a better direct comparison, than to that of the order Cores which have enormous L2 caches and no memory controllers on chip.

the only thing which scews a perfect comparison is the advantage of the i7 to do the "turbo" thing and run at a higher speed without telling you, and the slightly bigger L3 cache, and runing on DDR3 instead of DDR2 like the AMD chip is. But since it is running at 2.666 and AMD chip is running at 2.8 we can assume that the i7 items thus mentioned are offset by the highter AMD speed and they cancel each other out.

IMO comparing the i7 Core 920 with the new Phenom II 2.8 ghz model is perfect for assuming that for the next two years or so, Intel's dual and quad offerings will remain 5-10 percent faster on average. We can assume the older core models will be gone by this year end and we can ignore them in forcasting performance.

I remember the old days where the newer architecture would be 75-percent faster.........to some 10-percent may seem fabulous, but to me its pretty much irrelevant.

i think the new Phemon is what the first one should have been and is a year too little to late to take marketshare, but it looks to be good enough to stay in business. maybe - the economy is so bad now, who knows. ;-/.

Small Request - I love your reviews and this site since you first came online a decade ago.

What I've missed these last two years is a clear CPU Ghz listing. It seems since the Core series has come out we as readers are to keep up with Intel's naming schemes and to automatically know what clock speed (and how many cores!) the 6600 or 8400 or 9400 or 8600 core chips run at.

I gave up on memorizing Nvidia's card linup years ago - and in truth did the same with Intel's core chip offerings as well.

I'm still living in Luddite land with a simple Athlon thunderbird 750 ghz. and an old Pentium4 2.4 ghz.

I'd like to build a new PC in about a years time (a dual - I have no need for a quad - and hopefully AMD will offer a dual Phenom II that performs (or Intel will offer a dual Nahelem in one years time)). either way it would really help me out (and others too??) if you could put the clock speeds (and number of chip cores maybe also?) in parathesis next to the model numbers of the chips you are benching.

Just a thought.

thanks for all your great work these past 10 yrs!!

easy upgrade for me here, got a nice am2+ board. now i just need to see the processor available.

Support AMD!
They really, really, really, need the dough.
Buy some, and buy some more. The Arabs need the non-oil related revenue.

I'd love to go AMD if they can match the Intel offering, but I am more of a dual-core gamer type of guy. I just Is there a phenom II dual-core coming?

Can VMware Workstation be used to run multiple copies of these tests to engage more of the cores simultaneously? Its half price till Jan 15.
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=93396

1 year old Q9300 or Q9400 with only 6 mb L3 and 2.5 or 2.6 GHz, is very much competing with a new 3GHz Phenom 2.
Is this progress?
No isn't any improvement over Phenom 1 ,which was beaten by q6600 at 2.4.
Nothing has changed.
Phenom 2 is a step up but still is very weak in todays standards. One year an only 5% percent IPC? The k8 was good ,4 years ago,but still change the core.
Nehalem is the main competitor because all the Q9xxx is at end of life by now.

#3 That's why I bought an E8400 "for Christmas" recently. I couldn't wait for Nehalem to become cheaper, and dual-cores are still amazing in games. Yes, I'm sure games will take advantage of more cores in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when we get there

On top of that, very few games are really pushing the limits of computer hardware anyway, with so many console ports being made. I mean, Crysis is still the most demanding game out there pretty much, and that's been out for more than a year.

Nice to see AMD back in the game though. Competition is good for everyone. Unfortunately I can't see this converting anyone who owns a Core2, but at least AMD has an option now for people upgrading from older CPUs. I'm not sure that's going to be enough though. AMD really needs to gain market share, not just "lose less" or maintain what they have.

I'm not impressed. Intel has had a significant performance lead ever since the launch of the Core 2 in 2006. It's been almost 3 full years now since AMD has been competitive. Intel has already released another significant architecture, the Core i7 and still nothing truly innovative from AMD to catch up to even Intel's previous generation.

Intel is better in performance and power consumption, and is willing to compete in price.

Until AMD launches its K10, I don't see things going well for them in any segment.

This CPU should of been released 1 solid year ago.

I have to laugh at everyone saying "I am not impressed". Seriously... the chip be being released for under 300 dollars.... you SERIOUSLY were expecting it to beat the i7's?!? Personally i wasn't even expecting this dramatic of an improvement.

For gaming it was keeping up with the best of them it seemed, and in some games even keeping up with the i7's, so idk what everyone is complaining about with it not having good enough performance. And i somehow seriously doubt we have that many people here on TR who render video that they would need something faster than this.

I for one am very impressed, and do think AMD has a decent competitive product again. If i were looking into building a new lower priced computer i would definitely consider this chip.

Great!!! Finally some serious competition in the CPU arena.

Go AMD!!.

Maybe intel can drop prices to be attractive at those price points, until then It's amd for those price points

While AMD has improved beyond themselves, at this point, like it or not, they need to raise the bar.

Those who already have a Core2-based setup won't feel the need to cross back over (unlike the days of P4-vs-Athlon64). Those who are holding on to a Socket 939 Athlon64 X2 probably won't be convinced if they haven't been already. The one sale AMD is guaranteed of is those already invested in Socket AM2+, assuming those people don't have a B3-stepping Phenom they're already satisfied with, and even then, I'm willing to bet a lot of enthusiasts will hold out for the AM3-based design, since it is coming soon.. If they keep the prices low enough and at a reasonable production level, they should be able to continue with the same OEM market-share they have, but I don't see an increase, something they really need.

I find it interesting that while they finally managed the die-shrink, the Phenom II is still rated for 125w TDP. I was hoping for better from them.

Just noticed something funny: AMD has brought back the 2X4

Actually Meadows, Phenom was never known as K10 internally among the engineering team.

Well I compiled all the overclocks from each of the review sites that had them (except Anandtech which is not working now). Here is what I found

Guru3D 3.8
TR 3.5
OC Club 3.755
bit-tech 3.5
AMDzone 3.7
Bjorn3D 3.7
Firing Squad 3.745
Hartware 3.6
Hexus 3.6
Hitech Legion 3.5 (no voltage increase, no more testing)
Hot Hardware 3.737
Neoseeker 3.8

So from what I read, it looks like on a more mature system (updated BIOS, OC settings in BIOS, good cooling, etc.) you might be able to achieve 3.4 to 3.5 GHz without increase the voltage and 3.7-3.8 GHz with voltage increases on air cooling. This is not bad.

Phenom II should be able to hold off against Core i7s and Core 2 Quads for the time being. Its biggest threat is the upcoming "Core i5".

AMD is going to do okay as long as they do not go under the deep "red" in these next few difficult years.

Why does the graph for projected points per day put the Core i7 chips at the top, when they're at the bottom of all the individual tests?