E0 stepping 8400s supposedly hit 3.8+ with ease and low to mid 4's with a little work.
3.5 on the p2 is disappointing, but it is early.

I'm probably upgrading my machine at work soon. The Phenom II will be in consideration.

If they cut those pins off like intel, it will shorten the length the data has to travel from one part of the system to the other, thus, resulting in a faster data rate, which will in turn lead to increased performance of the the overall computer.

Great review, with that many CPUs tested I'm surprised the article still got out so fast.

Sorry, AMD, as much as I would love to support you and get that X3 720 or whatever high end X4 is out by the end of the year. The switch over cost for a new mobo is to much. I'll just wait for the Q9550 or Q9650 to be around $200, whenever that is, even if I have to wait to after its discontinued. An e8400 still rules the roost (For gaming) when its at 3.9 GHz. (With the exception of UT3).

I rest my conscious on the fact that I bought a HD 4870.

Oh, and whats the abbreviation for these guys.

P II or P2 or what?

*grumble*
</obligatory grumble about the uselessness of 'testing' gaming at low resolutions>

Good review though. The x3 certainly looks more compelling than I would have previous thought.

The last 2 page of thread just got silly with you guys arguing with Krogoth.

Its the never ending soap opera I get my kicks from when bored and having a beer reading.

Very good work guys.

Keep it up as usual.

I am still surprise how well the venerable Q6600 at stock manages to hold the line. Nevermind, the fact that an mildly overclocked Q6600 can outrun the Phenoms and keep up with its newer Yorkfield parts.

I was planning to get the M4A79
but someone on newegg posted that a phenom II is not compatible without a bios update and I would need an older processor to do this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131361&Tpk...
I dont have any AM2s lying around, but this information sounds inaccurate?

The phenom 2 940 black with ddr3 and faster uncore clock will give the q9550 and q9650 a good run for its money and hopefully reach IPC parity on several apps. Thats really good news for AMD..

Finally. Now all the "TR has been bought by Intel because there's no AM3 review!" whiners can STFU.

Gaming comparison: E8400 vs Phenom X3 720

E8400 outperformed Phenom X3 720 in Crysis and HL2.
In farcry 2 the E8400 got only 0.1 FPS less but it had higher minimum FPS

Phenom X3 720 only won in UT3

E8400 cost $164.99 at newegg, while 720 cost $169.99 at newegg

The Phenom II X3 720 is our new favorite among mid-range PC processors. Look for it to secure a place in one of the builds in our upcoming system guide refresh.

BAM! That's exactly what I was expecting, and that's exactly what I wanted to hear. After reading Anand's take, I was wondering if TR would confirm their findings.

AM2+ budget system w/ X3 720, upgrade to AM3 later when DDR3 prices go down = win.

"...the total bandwidth available via Socket AM3 is roughly 37.3 GB/s, considerably more than the peak data rate of 10.7 GB/s available via a Core 2 processor's front-side bus (even if it is less than the staggering 102.4 GB/s possible with a Core i7-965 Extreme and three channels of DDR3 at 1600MHz.)"

And here is where price comes in. $999.99 vs about $249? Mmmm.
Yeah.

Plus, when the BIOS's get refined to work better with the AM3/DDR3 setup, performance will be seen there. I'm thinking of a AM3 rig in July. A little 4th of July present for myself!
And at AMD's prices, I'll have enough money left over to buy some fireworks too!

This actually makes me really sad, I didn't know what I expected from AMD, but I thought whatever they released in the AM3 socket would beat anything they had in the AM2 socket. It makes me sad to see that the Phenom II X4 940 is still the leader of the pack for AMD. Obviously the name is higher (owwww ahhh) but I thought maybe they would release Phenom II X4 950 and above for the AM3 socket that would make a good release onto the market touting DDR3 support and whatnot. Now I'm just disappointed.
Oh well, go AMD with your tri-core, still a success.

Nice review.

Market cap of 1.43B and no P/E. Yikes. I personally wouldn't recommend, but I look at more than benchmarks...

Awsome review! Thanks.

Now I know I can stick with my 9500 and 8GB of DDR2, and pop in a X3 720 for cheap when I am ready.

Everytime I see an AMD review I want to go and yell at them for not getting their south bridges in order. Honestly I'd love to see you guys compare, say, a nForce chipset with AHCI enabled to see if there's a performance improvement in productivity tasks (maybe during one of those slow tech news weeks).

All and all another fine review to end, at least my reading, of the AM3 processors' introduction.

Along the same lines - Team Finland strikes again setting the 3DMark06 World Record under Liquid Nitrogen cooling: http://links.amd.com/FinsDoItAgain

I wish the X2 7750 BE (Phenom 2.7GHz dual core) was included...

Page 12, on the power consumption graph for the Core 2 product (the first graph), what is the dark purple line for? It isn't in the legend, or maybe I'm just losing it.

Dear Tech Report,
The "Test Configurations" chart on page 2 is a real killer. It is both too wide *and* too tall for the page (which is really squeezed by ads, links and price checks; can't they make room for a big table?).

To read this table far enough to the right (edit) (offscreen), you have to side-scroll it. But the row headers disappear when you scroll it sideways.

In order to read the specs at the bottom of the chart, you have to scroll your browser down so the column headers disappear, too. You can always scroll up and down to read them, but this is a pain.

Thank you.

Absolutely HORIBLE test i ever seen. Low resolution in games WTF who play in this res in this days (you maybe). And that mobo is CRAAAAPP crpAsus is the worst in stability etc etc.

Hey danny e. when you get the extra time, can you update your Price:Perf forum thread to include the e8400 and PhII 720 X3 ?

Why in god's name is the Phenom II X4 910 limited to "large PC makers" only? This looks like it would be the exact combination of cache size, core count, and price that I'd be looking for in a CPU!

Uh oh. Did something/someone get nuked?

Btw, applause to Damage. No wonder this review took so long; just look at how many different CPUs/Socket-types are represented here!!

Wow, the 720 gets a Damaging endorsement. Well then it will get a serious look from me when the time comes. Man, I hope the time comes soon.

(even if it is less than the staggering 102.4 GB/s possible with a Core i7-965 Extreme and three channels of DDR3 at 1600MHz.)

Last I checked, 1600*8*3 was 38.4GB/s, not 102.4GB/s. i7-965s do have prodigious bandwidth, but they'd need 8(!) channels of DDR3-1600 to match the stated figure.

YES!! FINALLY!!

I have been waiting for this review for at least a week!!

/rushes to read article.

OK, the 720 is just a little impressive.