AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked
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It’s way past high-time that AMD launched a counter-strike to the flurry of compelling Intel CPUs that’ve been launched since Phenom first got off of the ground. The switch over to 45 nm manufacturing seemingly took a lot longer than the company originally planned, but alongside a new CPU with smaller transistor elements, this release introduces some brand-new technology.
The improvements are manifest in a revised transistor count. Phenom II boasts roughly 758 million transistors, up from right around 450 million. As with its predecessor, the original Phenom, Phenom II drops into nearly every Socket AM2 motherboard. This gives the Phenom II broad appeal to the upgrade crowd, many of whom have long sought improved performance for their AMD systems.
How do Phenom II configurations look to the enthusiast crowd? As it happens, the Phenom II starts right where the previous generation left off. The incoming flagship—the Phenom II X4 940—employs a naming convention that goes straight after the company’s principle competitor, running at 3.0 GHz. The fastest Phenom, the X4 9950 Black Edition, was set to operate with a 2.6 GHz clock. Overclockers soon learned that this also represented something near the upper limit of the chips range, and could only get more out of it with the introduction of Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) on the SB750 southbridge, which helped extend scalability up another few hundred megahertz. The Phenom II represents an end to such limits: even at 3 GHz this chip still has lots of headroom, as we will show with the results from our Munich lab.
AMD fired its first 45 nm salvo a few weeks back with its server-oriented Opteron models, which enjoy a much larger market share than the company’s desktop processors. In the interim, 45 nm chip yields have increased enough to permit AMD to supply the desktop market as well. With is new, smaller core re-design (code-named «Deneb»), AMD not only pulled off a die-shrink maneuver, but it also achieved some drastic improvements in energy consumption and module switching tactics.
Since the introduction of the first-generation Phenoms (alongside the Spider platform), graphics card performance has also experienced a sharp spike upwards. The platform AMD is replacing Spider with consists of the Phenom II and the latest Radeon HD 4800-series graphics cards. The mascot for the so-called “Dragon” platform is, naturally, an aggressive-looking, red-eyed silver dragon.
The original Phenom processors quickly ran into performance limitations because of high energy consumption. Simply by switching from 65 nm to 45 nm, energy consumption at the individual transistor level decreases sharply. To pump a first-generation 2.5 GHz Phenom up to 2.6 GHz, AMD also had to raise its maximum power consumption rating from 125 W (TDP) to 140 W. By itself, this was enough to disqualify that chip from use in many favorite AM2 motherboards. But with its 45 nm technology, AMD gives Phenom II a fresh start and bolsters the chip’s attractiveness with improvements in several other important areas.
Here’s the bottom line: in terms of speed, energy consumption, clock rates and overclockability, AMD has taken a huge step with the Phenom II.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Model | Clock Speed | L3 Cache | Code Name | Manufacturing Node |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition | 3.00 GHz | 6 MB | Deneb | 45 nm |
| Phenom II X4 920 | 2.80 GHz | 6 MB | Deneb | 45 nm |
| Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition | 2.60 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition | 2.50 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9850 | 2. 50 GHz |
2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9750 | 2.40 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9650 | 2.30 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9550 | 2.20 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
| Phenom X4 9350 | 2.00 GHz | 2 MB | Agena | 65 nm |
To start, AMD is offering two 45 nm Desktop CPUs: the Phenom II X4 920 at 2.8 GHz, and the Phenom II X4 940 at 3.0 GHz.
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The Phenom II And AMD’s Dragon Platform
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AMD 2009 performance preview: taking Phenom II to 4.2GHz
When it launched in early January, Phenom II’s sole purpose, its raison d’?tre, was to rejuvenate AMD’s ability to compete against Intel with something other than price cuts. Viewed in aggregate, benchmarks of the new CPUs prove that Sunnyvale succeeded; the X4 940 and 920 are tough opponents in the mainstream quad-core market. I don’t want to downplay this achievement; a strong Deneb launch was vital if AMD is to continue as a going concern.
The problem is that Sunnyvale’s future competition is locked, loaded, and launched. In the past, the question of whether AMD or Intel would hold a performance advantage «next time» was fueled by speculation and odd bits of data.
In this case, Intel’s «next-gen» design is already on the market and has been for several months. Nehalem is no paper tiger—it’s here right now, and it’ll hit the 940’s current price point within 2009 (barring a major roadmap change).
So can AMD scale Phenom II to match Nehalem? We wanted to find out, because the answer will tell us how the AMD vs. Intel battle will shape up in 2009. So, we took one Phenom II 940, added coolant, overclocked it to 4.2GHz, and ran the benchmarks listed below.
Cost comparison
We’ve known from the start that Phenom II would primarily target Core 2 Quad processors rather than Core i7. AMD definitely hit its target; Phenom II compares well against Intel’s 45nm Yorkfield processors. A Phenom II X4 940 (3GHz) is currently $229 at Newegg while the Phenom II X4 920 (2.8GHz) is $195. Intel currently offers the Q9400 (2.66GHz, 6MB L2) at $229, the older 65nm Q6600 Kentsfield at 2.4GHz at $194.99, and the Q8300 (2.5GHz, 4MB L2) at $189.99. All of the Core i7 parts are significantly more expensive than the Phenom II X4 940; the Core i7 920 is $294.
99 while the 940 is $565.
So how much bang does Phenom give for the buck?
Performance Summary
- Worldbench 6b2: Phenom II is more than adequate for any office or content creation work, but can’t match Intel’s Core i7-965 even when overclocked. Typically, however, these types of workloads don’t require anything like ultra-powerful hardware.
- Photoshop CS4: Intel’s Core i7-965 led our Photoshop benchmark with the overclocked Phenom II not far behind. The standard Phenom II trailed the pack, but again, all of the processors turned in good performance numbers.
- Handbrake 0.9.3: This x264 encoder scales well across all eight of Core i7’s logical processors; Phenom II at 4.2GHz can’t match the slower Core i7-920.
- Cinebench R10: Phenom II X4 940 is the slowest of the four cores we tested (though not by much), while the 4.2GHz flavor smashes everyone else in single-thread testing. Core i7-965 still wins the multi-threaded test, but our overclocked AMD chip makes Intel work for it.
- Valve Particle, Map Compilation Tests:Another set of overall wins for Intel; Phenom II 4.2GHz can’t quite match the Core i7-920. Phenom II X4 940 at stock speeds is at the back of the pack.
- Crysis: Phenom II is an excellent gaming chip. The X4 940 beats the Core i7-920 here while the 4.2GHz chip is only a hair back from the Core i7-965.
- Call of Duty 4: This is one game that’s quite fond of Phenom II; the Phenom II X4 940 at 4.2GHz wins the benchmark with the stock-clocked flavor in a tie for second.
- Unreal Tournament 3: In UT3, our overclocked chip leads the rest; the standard X4 940 still outperforms Intel’s Core i7-920.
- Assassin’s Creed: Another game, another good showing from AMD. Our overclocked Phenom II outperforms the Core i7-965 while the Phenom II X4 940 is again well ahead of the Core i7-920.
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AMD’s Phenom II X4 940 doesn’t lead a majority of our tests at stock speeds, but both the Core i7-920 and the Core 2 Quad Q9650 are significantly more expensive than the AMD part.
The Core i7-920 is a bit better in that regard, but LGA1366 motherboards and DDR3 still command a price premium over AM2+ and DDR2.
AMD’s new chip competes well against the Intel parts it’s priced against, has plenty of overclocking headroom even if you don’t have a phase-changer handy, and offers excellent gaming performance. Compared to the Phenom that proceeded it, Phenom II is a slam dunk. Whether or not that’s enough to save AMD, particularly in the current economic climate, is regrettably an open question.
Test Setup, SiSoft Sandra
| Components | Nehalem | Deneb |
| Processor | Core i7-965/920 | Phenom II X4 940 |
| Clockspeed | 3.2GHz/2.67GHz | 3.0GHz/4.2GHz |
| Motherboard | Intel DX58SO «Smackover» | Asus M3A79-T Deluxe |
| Operating System | Vista Ult. 64-bit w/SP1 | Vista Ult. 64-bit w/SP1 |
| Video Card | ATI Radeon HD 4870 | ATI Radeon HD 4870 |
| Storage | 80GB Intel SSD | 80GB Intel SSD |
| Power Supply | PC Power & Cooling 750W | PC Power & Cooling 750W |
Results for the QX9650 are only intermittently available; configuration details on that system are available here. Other reviews at other places have done a thorough job comparing Phenom II’s performance against that of Intel’s Core 2 Quad series; we’ve focused our review in a different direction.
On that note: I’ve labeled the QX9650 as a «Core 2 Quad QX9650» in the review. Technically, the part we tested is an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, but that $1,000 part has been replaced by a Core 2 Quad Q9650 selling at a third the price of the original.
Both test systems were configured for dual-channel / triple-channel operation; the same brand of DDR2 and DDR3 was used in all cases.
The Phenom system used 4GB of DDR2-1066 RAM in a 2GB/2GB configuration while the Core i7 processors used 4GB of DDR3-1066 in a 2GB-1GB-1GB deployment.
Configuring the Core i7 in this manner could result in a performance loss but only one test—Sandra’s theoretical memory bandwidth benchmark—gave results that might be interpreted as evidence of such. All of the Core i7-965 benchmarks were run again on the system; a comparison between the performance of the processor in this review vs. the performance we saw in our Nehalem launch coverage shows little-to-no difference.
The Asus M3A79-T will not run in dual-channel mode if three DIMMs are inserted. I’m not sure if this is a characteristic of the 790GX chipset or an errata that’s unique to the Asus board, but it makes it impossible to perfectly synchronize the DIMM loadouts between the two processors while keeping both in triple channel/dual channel mode. Given this fact, 2GB-1GB-1GB for Core i7 was deemed the best option.
As for why we didn’t compare an overclocked Nehalem against an overclocked Deneb, the answer is fairly straightforward: the point of our investigation is to look at how Phenom II scales, and not at how Nehalem scales.
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The cooler head on the phase change unit I used hovered between -50C and -60C; actual CPU temp as reported in the BIOS was -40C. The accuracy of BIOS temperature readings at these temperatures is questionable, but that’s what the ASUS board consistently reported.
I also tested the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H, but ultimately opted for the ASUS board. Stability between the two was equal, but the ASUS model proved more overclocking-friendly—I was able to reach 4.2GHz on the M3A79-T vs. just 4GHz stable on the Gigabyte system.
HyperThreading was kept on for all of the Core i7-965 and Core i7-920 benchmarks.
Note: defining the phrase «stable overclock»
For a word that’s defined as able or likely to continue or last; firmly established; enduring or permanent, «stable» becomes exceptionally slippery when combined with «overclock.
» To some in the overclocking community, a stable overclock is achieved when one is able to boot into Windows, run SuperPi (a single-threaded benchmark that’s long-since outlived whatever dubious worth it once possessed), and take a few CPUID screenshots. This is far below what I personally find acceptable.
I consider an overclock to be stable if and only if the system is capable of executing a review-level/comprehensive suite of benchmarks without crashing, rebooting, or exhibiting any behavior that is not also displayed when the system is running at stock speeds. If a CPU can loop 3DMark Vantage’s CPU tests or continuously re-render an animation for an indefinite period of time at stock speeds but crashes after 30 minutes when asked to do so in an overclocked state, the overclock is unstable. This is still the case even if the system has completed multiple iterations of the benchmark in question.
It’s not easy to fine-tune a system to such a standard while simultaneously attempting to push a processor as far as it can go; it took me several weeks to find the precise edge between stable/unstable for the Phenom II X4 940 that’s the subject of this review.
Meanwhile, the Phenom X4 9950 that we also tested presented its own unique challenges when combined with a phase-change cooler—I’ll provide additional detail on my overclocking adventures later in the review. In the end, I was able to completely stabilize our Phenom II X4 940 at 4.2GHz even with an HT link speed of 210MHz (1.89GHz effective), an IMC/L3 clock of 2.53GHz (up from 1.8GHz base) and an 1170MHz memory clock. Setting the HT link multiplier to 1x and keeping the IMC/L3 clocked at 1.8GHz increased my maximum stable clockspeed, but I thought the tradeoff a poor one. More details to follow.
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
Top specifications and features
- Heat dissipation (TDP)
- Technological process
- Number of transistors
- Number of Cores
- Number of threads
Performance
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE:
1548
Best score:
Interfaces and communications
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE:
nine0021 500
Best score:
Main features of
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE:
1342
Best score:
Thermal Dissipation (TDP)
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE:
125W
Best score:
0.
025 W
Process
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE:
45nm
Best score:
5nm
Description
In this case, the maximum frequency in Boost mode reaches 3 Hz. 4 cores available. The L1 cache is 512 KB, L2 2.048 MB and L3 4 MB. Power consumption at peak times can reach 125 watts.
nine0005
The maximum number of threads that AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE can handle is 4.
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE runs on 45 nm architecture. Total number of transistors 758 million
Regarding memory specification. The AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE processor supports DDR3.
Now about AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE tests. Based on the analysis of more than 4000 processors, AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE ranked 3989 in the ranking of the best.
Why AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE better than others
- L1 cache size 512 KB. This parameter is higher than 50% of goods
- Thermal Dissipation (TDP) 125 W.
This parameter is higher than 85% of the products - Process 45 nm. This parameter is higher than 70% of goods
- Number of transistors 758 million. This parameter is lower than that of 28% of goods
- Number of cores 4 . This parameter is lower than that of 55% of goods
- Number of flows 4 . This parameter is lower than that of 64% of goods
- L2 cache size 2.048 MB. This parameter is lower than 22% of products
- L3 cache size 6 MB. This parameter is lower than that of 36% of goods
Review AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
Performance
Interfaces and communications
Main characteristics
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE Review: Highlights
Number of threads
The more threads, the higher the performance of the processor, and it will be able to perform several tasks at the same time.
Show all
four
max 256
Average: 10.
7
256
L1 cache size
Large amount of L1 memory accelerates results in CPU and system performance settings
Show all
512KB
max 4608
Average: 299.3 KB
4608KB
L2 Cache Size
L2 cache with large scratchpad memory to increase processor speed and overall system performance.
Show all
2.048 MB
max 512
Average: 4.5 MB
512MB
L3 cache size
Large amount of L3 memory accelerates results in CPU and system performance settings
Show all
6MB
max 768
Average: 16.
3 MB
768MB
Maximum Turbo Clock Speed
When the processor’s speed drops below its limit, it can jump to a higher clock speed to improve performance.
Show all
3 GHz
max 5.5
Average: 3.2 GHz
5.5GHz
Number of cores
four
max 72
Mean: 5.8
72
Unlocked CPU multiplier
Some processors have an unlocked multiplier, which makes them faster and better in games and other applications.
Show all
Yes
Max. number of processors in configuration
1
Mean: 1.3
8
Version DDR
3
Mean: 3.
5
5
Socket
AM3
Process technology
The small size of the semiconductor means it is a new generation chip.
45 nm
Average: 36.8 nm
nine0005
5 nm
Number of transistors
758 million
max 57000
Average: 1517.3 million
57000 million
Heat Dissipation (TDP)
The Heat Dissipation Requirements (TDP) is the maximum amount of energy that can be dissipated by the cooling system. The lower the TDP, the less power will be consumed.
Show all
125W
Average: 67.6 W
0.025W
Supports 64-bit system
A 64-bit system, unlike a 32-bit system, can support more than 4 GB of RAM.
This increases productivity. It also allows you to run 64-bit applications.
Full text
Yes
Codename
Deneb
Appointment
Desktop
FAQ
How many cores does AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE have?
4 cores.
What socket is AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE uses AM3 to install.
Is the AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE a 64-bit processor?
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE is based on the Deneb architecture.
What is the maximum frequency of the AMD Phenom II X4 9 processor40 B.E.?
In this case, the maximum frequency in Boost mode reaches 3 Hz.
How much cache is the AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE?
L1 cache is 512 KB, L2 2.048 MB and L3 4 MB.
How many watts does the AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE consume?
Power consumption at peak times can be up to 125 watts.
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AMD Phenom II X4 Processor Review 940
Just a few weeks ago, AMD launched its new Phenom II X4 processors on the market.
As we have already found out, the flagship model of this series — Phenom II X4 940 — performs on a par with Core 2 Quad processors, which, of course, is good news for AMD, because processors from this company have seriously lagged behind competitors until recently. nine0005
We foresaw that Intel might respond to the release of the Phenom II with a price cut — which it did. AMD did the same a day later, and the Phenom II X4 940 is now available for $235 (previously $275) — almost the same as the Core 2 Quad Q9400.
Well, we’re not going to forget about Intel’s latest generation of processors, the Core i7. The Core i7 920 model sells for $300. With the latest price cut, Intel has ensured that Core i7 sales no longer interfere with Core 2 sales. This plan is also beneficial for AMD, which can now compete with Core 2 in performance and prices, but still completely falls short of the Core i7 level. nine0005
However, the Core i7 platform needs more expensive Intel X58-based motherboards and DDR3 memory, putting it in a league of its own.
But the Phenom II X4 can be installed in a regular AM2+ system and uses inexpensive DDR2 memory. Anyone interested in value for money will see more value in buying the new Phenom II X4, especially now that we’ve seen their overclocking capabilities.
We have already received some preliminary overclocking data. Using a regular cooler we reached on Phenom II X4 940 stable frequency 3.6GHz. While 20% overclocking may seem insignificant compared to the overclocking we’ve been putting Core 2 Duo processors in for the past couple of years, it’s a big step up from the first Phenom.
In any case, the most important thing is not how much you can overclock the Phenom II X4, but how its performance is scaled and how it eventually works.
Well, let’s find out by running a series of tests on the Phenom II X4 940 running at 3.6 GHz. It will have to face stiff resistance from the Core 2 and Core i7 series. And, of course, we will tell you what allowed us to overclock the Phenom II X4 to this frequency.
nine0005
Phenom II X4: Overclocking
I don’t remember when we wrote a separate article about overclocking an AMD processor. Due to the shortcomings of the Athlon64 architecture, Advanced Micro Devices processors performed poorly in this aspect.
The stepping of the first Phenom B2 is frozen at its stock speed, and we’re glad AMD got rid of that in their latest offering.
Phenom B3 stepping was already slightly better, although it only made sense in the «Black Edition» processors. There were also problems with effective power — increasing it to overclock the Phenom was a bad idea. nine0005
We weren’t particularly surprised when early reports claimed that the Phenom II X4 940 could hit 4.4GHz when water-cooled. The new Phenom II X4 is very efficient and consumes less power than the Core 2 Duo. However, when using a conventional cooler, we were unable to achieve such a result — our sample was only able to overclock to 3.
6 GHz.
Some reports say that retail samples of this processor perform better than the sample we got. Although our processor overclocked to 3.9GHz, at this frequency, Windows Vista could not be loaded. It was possible to boot the OS at 3.75 GHz, but it was not 100 percent stable.
In order to overclock our sample, we used the usual multiplication method and did not touch the FSB. To achieve a stable 3.6 GHz, the multiplier was set to 18x (standard is 15x), and the voltage was increased to 1,500V.
With a standard voltage of 1.350V, we reached 3.5 GHz, so we were disappointed that a 0.1 GHz increase in frequency caused us to increase the voltage so much. nine0005
There are various reports on the Internet about overclocking this processor, from 3.5 GHz to 3.9 GHz using a reference cooler — quite true. Either way, we’ll show you what a 20% clock boost can do for performance — and you can decide if it’s worth it.
System specifications and SiSoftware
Below you can see the characteristics of the systems we used for testing.
You may notice that the rival of our Phenom II X4 940 — Core 2 Quad Q9650 — the fastest in its family, except for Extreme Edition processors, of course. After the recent price cut, the Q9650 can be purchased for ~$320, which is higher than the Phenom II X4 940 ($235).
Phenom based system
— AMD Phenom II X4 940 (AM2+)
— AMD Phenom II X4 920 (AM2+)
— AMD Phenom X4 9950 (AM2+)
— x2 Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2-1066 (CAS 5-1066) 5-5-15)
— ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe (AMD 790FX)
— OCZ GameXStream (700 W)
— Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
— ASUS GeForce GTX 280 (1GB)
Software
— Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit)
— Nvidia Forceware 180.43 Beta
based system Core i7
— Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (LGA1366)
— Intel Core i7 940 (LGA1366)
— Intel Core i7 920 (LGA1366)
— x3 1GB DDR3-1066 Samsung (CAS 7-7-7-20)
— Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) (Presale)
— OCZ GameXStream (700W)
— Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
— ASUS GeForce GTX 280 (1GB)
Software
— Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit)
— Nvidia Forceware 180.
43 Beta
Core 2 based system
— Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (LGA775)
— Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (LGA775)
— Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (LGA775)
— x2Gb Kingston Dx33 (CAS 7-7-7-20)
— ASUS Rampage Extreme (Intel X48)
— OCZ GameXStream (700W)
— Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
— ASUS GeForce GTX 280 (1GB)
Software
— Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit)
— Nvidia Forceware 180.43 Beta
First, we ran the SiSoftware Sandra 2009 processor arithmetic test, which measured ALU and iSSE3 performance. Given that the Phenom II X4 940 was overclocked by 20%, we didn’t expect much more performance from it; actually, that would be the best scenario. nine0005
The Whetstone iSSE3 test showed a 20% increase when overclocked from 3 to 3.6 GHz.
And then the Dhrystone ALU test came up with an unexpected 23 percent gain, which is impressive. This puts the Phenom II X4 940 a notch above the Core 2 Quad Q9650 in the test of arithmetic ability.
Benchmarks: CINEBENCH, WinRAR
Performance in the CINEBENCH R10 test increased by 16% when overclocked to 3 GHz, which is worth it. Here the Phenom II X4 940 was only 8% slower than the Core i7 920 and confidently kept ahead of the Core 2 Quad Q9650 running at the standard frequency.
The Phenom II X4 processors don’t perform particularly well in the GPU benchmark included in CINEBENCH R10, so a 13 percent gain is still pretty good. Overclock don’t overclock, but the Phenom II was over 10% slower than the Core 2 Quad Q9650.
The gain of the overclocked Phenom II X4 940 in WinRAR is insignificant, but its performance at 3 GHz was also good. Phenom II X4 940 was much faster than Core 2 Quad Q9650 and before overclocking.
Tests: Adobe Premiere, AutoMKV, Excel
Overclocking the Phenom II X4 940 allowed the Adobe Premiere test to take three seconds less.
This helped the Core 2 Quad, which was still slightly faster and without overclocking.
We note a significant increase of 20% in the AutoMKV test. This resulted in a savings of three minutes and cut the gap to the Core i7 920 nicely.650 which was 28% faster.
Gaming benchmarks (Low quality)
Gaming benchmarks at low settings don’t quite tell the truth, as games are more dependent on graphics cards. But they can still show how our processors compete with each other.
In terms of percentages, in Unreal Tournament 3, raising the frequency of the Phenom II X4 940 gave us a whopping nine.
In Crysis Warhead, Phenom II wasn’t that impressive. The Cry Engine seems to favor Intel processors, though it’s the graphics card that makes all the difference at high resolutions anyway. nine0005
But in Far Cry 2 Phenom II X4 performed much better — bypassed the Core 2 Duo E8600 and, after overclocking, even the Core 2 Quad Q9650 (by 5%).
Power Consumption
Overclocking the Phenom II X4 940 at just 600MHz seems to have had a negative effect on its power efficiency. Before overclocking, the Phenom II X4 940 was one of the most efficient processors we tested, especially under heavy load.
In the overclocked state, the situation changed dramatically — under load, the processor began to consume 49% more electricity. Even in office tasks, he used 47% of the energy, which is perhaps a bit too much for overclocking at 20%.
The golden mean is achievable by overclocking the Phenom II X4 940 to 3.5 GHz without boosting the voltage, although this may not be enough to beat the Core 2 Quad Q9650 in most tests, as if we overclocked it to 3.6 GHz. At the same time, the Core i7 920 offers more performance — of course, for more money.
Final totals
Well, with such an impressive overclocking potential, Phenom II X4 processors seem much more attractive to us than their predecessors.
However, it’s a pity to see that the 20% clock speed boost didn’t make the Phenom II X4 940 much faster in real world benchmarks, and there are several reasons for that.
The Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition is overclocked by increasing the multiplier, while Core 2 Duo processors are overclocked by increasing the FSB — increasing the frequency of both the processor and the memory. nine0005
Phenom II processors still cannot tolerate changes in FSB frequency, and increasing it almost always leads to problems in achieving a stable frequency of operation. With Core 2 processors, adding 400 MHz to the FSB is not a problem, which cannot be said about the Phenom II X4. That’s why buying the Black Edition is a must for overclocking enthusiasts.
According to our tests, the difference varies from 5 to 20 percent, which is quite good. But we were annoyed when we realized that overclocking also increases power consumption by almost 50%, whether the processor is under load or not; in this situation, the entire energy efficiency of Phenom II can be thrown out the window.