Official Phenom 2 Review Thread

[SickBeast]

Here is a link to the Hexus.net review

HardOCP

Tech Report

PCGH

AMD Zone

neoseeker

ClubOC

Here is a link to a list of a ton of reviews from the Inquirer

I will update this thread as the reviews come in.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Here is a link to the Hexus.net review

HardOCP

I will update this thread as the reviews come in.

Interesting how these 2 reviews portray different feelings regarding the PhII.

TechReport has their review up.

 

[DrBombcrater]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle
Interesting how these 2 reviews portray different feelings regarding the PhII.

HardOCP always seems to dismiss anything except the very top performing hardware as a waste of time. I get the feeling Kyle thinks everyone should be running i7-965s with 3 GTX 280s in triple-SLI and doesn't quite grasp why people are mostly interested in something less extreme.

 

[masteryoda34]

Anyone find a review with minimum FPS?

 

[LoneNinja]

I don't know how much you guys trust TomsHardware, but they just got a review posted up as well.

 

[Lonyo]

The [ H ] article showing all 3 at the same speeds though is kind of useful. Gives a starting point for clock to clock comparison.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
HardOCP

The Bottom Line

The Phenom II is a loser.

Ouch.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
Anyone find a review with minimum FPS?

I too would like this. Does it do better than a C2Q?

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: SickBeast
HardOCP

The Bottom Line

The Phenom II is a loser.

Ouch.

But can we get it to OC to 3.8Ghz? If so, it'll be enough to push the C2Q prices down.

edit: oh darn, no it won't.

I think they cherry picked FC2 though because it sucks. Plenty of other benchies on techreport shows it neck and neck, un-OC'd, with a q9550. OC'd it comes out quite nice.

edit2: Our favorite reviewer has his article out, and Tom's H has theirs up as well. This chip looks exactly like what I wanted it to be.

 

[chizow]

PCGH

Shows its about on par with a i7 920 at stock 2.67 and a C2Q Q9550 at stock 2.83GHz. They managed to OC it to 3.6GHz although it doesn't seem to benefit all that much or distinguish itself from any of the Intel processors. Probably would've been better if they used some CF or SLI solutions as faster CPUs are able to show scaling with multi-GPU. Overall looks like a pretty good competitor to Intel if its able to OC reliably in the 3.6-3.8GHz range.

 

[OCGuy]

Anand:


"Clock for clock, PII Still Slower than C2Q"




This puts AMD ~ 1.5years behind. Not good for competition.

 

[Goty]

Kyle at HardOCP has a number of issues that I find very disturbing in his review.

First of all, he has only supplied his Phenom-II rig with 2GB of RAM while the C2Q and i7 come with 4GB and 6GB respectively. His argument for this is evidently that running 4GB of RAM on the Phenom-II would slow it down (I kid you not, read their forums). Shenanigans? Yes, I think so.

Secondly, in his supposedly "CPU-bound gaming" benchmarks, you'll see that a nearly 20% increase in clockspeed leads to less than a 10% increase in performance for both the Phenom-II and the C2Q. Umm, somebody remind me, but doesn't "CPU-bound" mean that increasing the speed of the processor should increase the framerates in-game almost linearly? Looking at the rest of his data, this performance delta (or lack thereof) holds all the way up to 2560x1600.

Personally, I think he's just an idiot. The only people that are going to take that article seriously are his fanboys and people who don't know enough about hardware to question his obviously flawed results.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well, it was pretty much what I expected. From AMD's pricing I was fully expecting it to compete with the 45nm Core 2 Quads, and it seems to do just that, with a few surprises (good and bad, for AMD) here and there.

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
Anyone find a review with minimum FPS?

Look at the techreport review. Seems like the minimum framerates are in check with Core 2 Quads, but not as good as Core i7.

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
Anand:


"Clock for clock, PII Still Slower than C2Q"




This puts AMD ~ 1.5years behind. Not good for competition.

Yeh. I don't think AMD, in the relatively near future, is going to compete with Intel's high end. However, at least we are seeing great competition in the mid-range and budget segments. This is going to be an interesting year: How will Intel handle the Core 2 platform; how is Core i7 going to change, or not change; is Core i5 (or whatever) going to shake things up even more; how is Phenom II and AM3 going to mature.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: SickBeast
HardOCP

The Bottom Line

The Phenom II is a loser.

Ouch.

But can we get it to OC to 3.8Ghz? If so, it'll be enough to push the C2Q prices down.

edit: oh darn, no it won't.

I think they cherry picked FC2 though because it sucks. Plenty of other benchies on techreport shows it neck and neck, un-OC'd, with a q9550. OC'd it comes out quite nice.

This wouldn't be the first time HardOCP turns out to be the outlier amongst the notable reviewers out there. I don't follow them closely enough to have a sense of why this would be (test methodology, bias, incompetence?).

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
edit2: Our favorite reviewer has his article out, and Tom's H has theirs up as well. This chip looks exactly like what I wanted it to be.

Oh yeah! AMD is back and delivering performance right in the price range that probably %80 of us care about (sub-$300). We may all be unemployed come end of 2009 but our rigs will most likely have 3.6GHz or higher 45nm quads in them that we purchased for $250 or less at some point this year.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
Anyone find a review with minimum FPS?

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147

TRs review has min framerates. Its a mixed bag, in some games its higher than a comparable C2Q, in others its lower.

 

[Atechie]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Here is a link to the Hexus.net review

HardOCP

I will update this thread as the reviews come in.

Interesting how these 2 reviews portray different feelings regarding the PhII.

TechReport has their review up.

I'm not sure where you get that from?
"The twin Phenom II processors from AMD, released today and available later on this month, are exactly what the company needed just over a year ago, when the original quad-core Phenoms were released. We say this because performance from the top-of-the-line Phenom II 940 is better than a £200 Core 2 Quad Q9300 (although pricing may well change), and AMD's achieved this by transitioning on to a more-efficient 45nm process and raising clock-speeds to 3GHz for the 940 and 2.8GHz for the 920. Had they been released 15 months ago, Intells Core 2 Quad may not have had it all their own way for so long in the high-end space."

and

"The good

Phenom II easily beats out Phenom X4 and gives mid-range Core 2 Quads a good fight
Overclocks well, suggesting significant headroom for 2009
Dragon platform makes implicit

The not so good

Quite power-hungry, as a platform, when compared to Core 2 Quad
Core i7 is still comfortably faster in most applications
940 price needs to drop <£200 and 920 to <£150 to entice enthusiasts away from Intel."

That is the same as Kyle said?

 

[Goty]

Those reviews don't insult AMD's engineers or say that the product should never have been released. Instead they look at the processor's merits, its inadequacies, and provide a full set of results that support their conclusions.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
The [ H ] article showing all 3 at the same speeds though is kind of useful. Gives a starting point for clock to clock comparison.

Hey I like Kyle and Hardocp a lot, but comparing clock for clock between AMD and Intel processors hasn't been useful in years. They are so different in terms of architectures and platforms it is a silly comparison.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Looks like a good upgrade for people like me with AM2+ boards. Looks like a good choice worth at least looking at for someone with an older system. If you already have a socket 775 or newer Intel system there is no reason to make a change obviously. Anyway, I'm glad to see they are at least competitive again. I doubt there'd be much difference in the actual experience using an overclocked PhII or overclcoked Intel. I just hope it's not too late for AMD.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Goty
Kyle at HardOCP has a number of issues that I find very disturbing in his review.

First of all, he has only supplied his Phenom-II rig with 2GB of RAM while the C2Q and i7 come with 4GB and 6GB respectively. His argument for this is evidently that running 4GB of RAM on the Phenom-II would slow it down (I kid you not, read their forums). Shenanigans? Yes, I think so.

Secondly, in his supposedly "CPU-bound gaming" benchmarks, you'll see that a nearly 20% increase in clockspeed leads to less than a 10% increase in performance for both the Phenom-II and the C2Q. Umm, somebody remind me, but doesn't "CPU-bound" mean that increasing the speed of the processor should increase the framerates in-game almost linearly? Looking at the rest of his data, this performance delta (or lack thereof) holds all the way up to 2560x1600.

Personally, I think he's just an idiot. The only people that are going to take that article seriously are his fanboys and people who don't know enough about hardware to question his obviously flawed results.

Kyle being an idiot non-withstanding... the bolded part IS indeed correct. The AM2+ Phenom 2 automatically drops the DDR2 clock to 800MHz when populated with 4 DIMMs. This is indeed a limitation of the CPU (for example, Gigabyte's memory information for their 790GX board - which I have - specifically states this).

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: classy

Originally posted by: Lonyo
The [ H ] article showing all 3 at the same speeds though is kind of useful. Gives a starting point for clock to clock comparison.

Hey I like Kyle and Hardocp a lot, but comparing clock for clock between AMD and Intel processors hasn't been useful in years. They are so different in terms of architectures and platforms it is a silly comparison.

Those are always nice (and definitely not useful as you say) because it tells you exactly how much faster, clock for clock, the each architecture is.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: classy

Originally posted by: Lonyo
The [ H ] article showing all 3 at the same speeds though is kind of useful. Gives a starting point for clock to clock comparison.

Hey I like Kyle and Hardocp a lot, but comparing clock for clock between AMD and Intel processors hasn't been useful in years. They are so different in terms of architectures and platforms it is a silly comparison.

Those are always nice (and definitely not useful as you say) because it tells you exactly how much faster, clock for clock, the each architecture is.

Indeed - and it also tells you (potentially) either how far you'll have to overclock or how much progress AMD needs to make to catch up to Intel.

The Hexus review was a nice one for the Phenom 2. TR's didn't show as much luster, but was still overall positive. Kyle's I'm not even bothering to read.

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: SickBeast
HardOCP

The Bottom Line

The Phenom II is a loser.

Ouch.

Yeah, you said it. I agree with reviewer that this processor can only be recommended to those who already have a AM2+ (maybe AM2 in some cases - TBD) board. For someone who wants an entirely new build, I just couldn't recommend anything other than Intel right now. The AM3 PII will make even less sense to me. Why form dollars over for a new board, and DDR3 for a slower processor?

AMD made a great "upgrade-path" processor that is decently overclockable.

Sorry, that's about all folks.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Atechie

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Here is a link to the Hexus.net review

HardOCP

I will update this thread as the reviews come in.

Interesting how these 2 reviews portray different feelings regarding the PhII.

TechReport has their review up.

I'm not sure where you get that from?
"The twin Phenom II processors from AMD, released today and available later on this month, are exactly what the company needed just over a year ago, when the original quad-core Phenoms were released. We say this because performance from the top-of-the-line Phenom II 940 is better than a £200 Core 2 Quad Q9300 (although pricing may well change), and AMD's achieved this by transitioning on to a more-efficient 45nm process and raising clock-speeds to 3GHz for the 940 and 2.8GHz for the 920. Had they been released 15 months ago, Intells Core 2 Quad may not have had it all their own way for so long in the high-end space."

and

"The good

Phenom II easily beats out Phenom X4 and gives mid-range Core 2 Quads a good fight
Overclocks well, suggesting significant headroom for 2009
Dragon platform makes implicit

The not so good

Quite power-hungry, as a platform, when compared to Core 2 Quad
Core i7 is still comfortably faster in most applications
940 price needs to drop <£200 and 920 to <£150 to entice enthusiasts away from Intel."

That is the same as Kyle said?

Just the overall tenor of the articles. HardOCP states that the PhII is "a loser", whereas Hexus considers it an above average product. HardOCP's benchies, for the most part, show PhII trailing C2Q, Hexus's benchies show PhII matching/surpassing C2Q on some occasions. Take from it what you will.

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Goty
Kyle at HardOCP has a number of issues that I find very disturbing in his review.

First of all, he has only supplied his Phenom-II rig with 2GB of RAM while the C2Q and i7 come with 4GB and 6GB respectively. His argument for this is evidently that running 4GB of RAM on the Phenom-II would slow it down (I kid you not, read their forums). Shenanigans? Yes, I think so.

Secondly, in his supposedly "CPU-bound gaming" benchmarks, you'll see that a nearly 20% increase in clockspeed leads to less than a 10% increase in performance for both the Phenom-II and the C2Q. Umm, somebody remind me, but doesn't "CPU-bound" mean that increasing the speed of the processor should increase the framerates in-game almost linearly? Looking at the rest of his data, this performance delta (or lack thereof) holds all the way up to 2560x1600.

Personally, I think he's just an idiot. The only people that are going to take that article seriously are his fanboys and people who don't know enough about hardware to question his obviously flawed results.

Kyle being an idiot non-withstanding... the bolded part IS indeed correct. The AM2+ Phenom 2 automatically drops the DDR2 clock to 800MHz when populated with 4 DIMMs. This is indeed a limitation of the CPU (for example, Gigabyte's memory information for their 790GX board - which I have - specifically states this).

It's not necessarily the PhII doing this - it's the motherboard, perhaps. Even so, who says you need to populate all 4 slots in order to attain 4GB?

 

[SunnyD]

The inq has a handy list of all release-day reviews right here.