Phenom II 960T @ 4 Ghz - Performance

[Face2Face]

Hello people. I recently picked up a 960T and have overclocked it to 4.0Ghz. Coming from Athlon X3 2.9 GHz, it's a big leap in performance for me. I was wondering if anyone here knows how a 960T (x4) @ 4Ghz would compare to a Intel 2000 Series quad core? Is there a benchmark I could run to see what the gap is?

And are thubans faster than denebs? Core for core

Thanks

 

[allenk09]

Hello people. I recently picked up a 960T and have overclocked it to 4.0Ghz. Coming from Athlon X3 2.9 GHz, it's a big leap in performance for me. I was wondering if anyone here knows how a 960T (x4) @ 4Ghz would compare to a Intel 2000 Series quad core? Is there a benchmark I could run to see what the gap is?

And are thubans faster than denebs? Core for core

Thanks

You can just get PerformanceTest...it's just a basic test but they have most (if not all) processors benchmarked and on their website.

 

[BD231]

Phenom II never got better than being about step for step with core two duo tech, so basically you have a q6600 with ever so slightly better IPC and a lot more clock room. Its a middle class CPU with a lot of upside as far as gaming goes, but it's nowhere near 2000 series performance though. You'd need an x6 at the very least to match the video encoding performance of an intel quad core I series chip.

 

[Face2Face]

So we are looking at performance similar to a Core 2 Quad @ 4Ghz?

 

[tulx]

So we are looking at performance similar to a Core 2 Quad @ 4Ghz?

Can you please tell me your exact CPU configuration? FSB speed, multiplier, voltage? I seem to encounter problems when raising the FSB frequency of my 960T.

 

[Face2Face]

Since it's a Black edition I overclocked the multiplier only. 200 X 20 @ 1.375 volts - Rock solid @ 4 Ghz - temps are @ 48c under a TX3 HSF. The 2 additional cores would not unlock.

 

[BD231]

IPC wise yep, don't think those core 2 quads made it much past 3.6ghz on air though so you have a pretty decent advantage over core 2. Just not enough to catch up with any quad i series in much of anything but gaming. Definitely not a big deal though, that CPU will power any modern GPU just fine.

If you wanted to compare your cpu to a more modern I series you'd be looking at 2100 dual core performance gaming, with a pretty substantial advantage encoding/multitasking due to core count.

 

[Face2Face]

IPC wise yep, don't think those core 2 quads made it much past 3.6ghz on air though so you have a pretty decent advantage over core 2. Just not enough to catch up with any quad i series in much of anything but gaming. Definitely not a big deal though, that CPU will power any modern GPU just fine.

If you wanted to compare your cpu to a more modern I series you'd be looking at 2100 dual core performance gaming, with a pretty substantial advantage encoding/multitasking due to core count.

Thanks for the info!

 

[tulx]

Since it's a BE edition I overclocked the multiplier only. 200 X 20 @ 1.375 volts - Rock solid @ 4 Ghz - temps are @ 48c under a TX3 HSF. The 2 additional core would not unlock.

Thanks for the info! I'll disable turbo and test your settings.

 

[busydude]

You can use the bench utility on AT's main website.

 

[tulx]

You can use the bench utility on AT's main website.

Agree. Great source.

 

[Face2Face]

You can use the bench utility on AT's main website.

The 960T is not on the bench, and it doesn't show overclocked performance only stock.

 

[busydude]

The 960T is not on the bench, and it doesn't show overclocked performance only stock.

Phenom II 945 = 960T.

 

[Face2Face]

Phenom II 945 = 960T.

I understand, but the bench doesn't show performance @ 4Ghz.

 

[amenx]

Well, heres the 965BE @ 3.4ghz vs 2500k @ 3.3ghz:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=288

We could probably say the % performance differences between both these chips oc'd to 4ghz would be roughly similar to their difference at stock.

 

[exar333]

Well, heres the 965BE @ 3.4ghz vs 2500k @ 3.3ghz:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=288

We could probably say the % performance differences between both these chips oc'd to 4ghz would be roughly similar to their difference at stock.

Thats a pretty fair assumption.

 

[Jovec]

Overclocking the CPU-NB on Phenom II's into the 2.6/2.8 range tended to put their gaming performance ahead of the Core2 line. If you want to get the most out Phenom II, you'll need to OC the CPU-NB.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3877/...investigation-of-thuban-performance-scaling/7

 

[Magic Carpet]

According to my tests, even Conroe in some cases... beats Phenom II per clock. Phenom II @ 4.0 is decent though.

 

[Jovec]

According to my tests, even Conroe in some cases... beats Phenom II per clock. Phenom II @ 4.0 is decent though.

Per clock yes, at a given pricepoint Phenom IIs had higher clocks to compensate. It varies, but leaving the CPU-NB at stock instead of 2.6/2.8 leaves about 5% extra performance on the table for gaming (not so much for everything else).

 

[Face2Face]

Per clock yes, at a given pricepoint Phenom IIs had higher clocks to compensate. It varies, but leaving the CPU-NB at stock instead of 2.6/2.8 leaves about 5% extra performance on the table for gaming (not so much for everything else).

Thanks for the info. 5% not worth putting the extra stress on my $60 motherboard.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

So we are looking at performance similar to a Core 2 Quad @ 4Ghz?

Depends on which one you're talking about because of differences in L2 cache.

A Core 2 Quad Q9450/9550 at 3.6GHz will give you the same performance as a Phenom II X4 960T at 4GHz. Penryn has 8% higher IPC than Stars/K10.5 and better frequency scaling.

 

[Face2Face]

Depends on which one you're talking about because of differences in L2 cache.

A Core 2 Quad Q9450/9550 at 3.6GHz will give you the same performance as a Phenom II X4 960T at 4GHz. Penryn has 8% higher IPC than Stars/K10.5 and better frequency scaling.

So a conroe @ 3.8-4.0Ghz would be about the same? I had a Q6600 at one point in time, but all I could get our of it was 3.2GHz. This 960T seems quite a bit faster.

 

[eastyy123]

i got a 960 t its quite fickle i managerd to get the 2 cores unlocked but overclocking can only have it at 3.2ghz and be stable

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

So a conroe @ 3.8-4.0Ghz would be about the same? I had a Q6600 at one point in time, but all I could get our of it was 3.2GHz. This 960T seems quite a bit faster.

A QX6850/6800 at 3.8GHz would be equal to a Phenom II X4 960T at 4GHz, yes. Conroe has 3% higher IPC than Stars, and Penryn has 5% higher IPC than Conroe.

A Q6600 at 3.2GHz is around equal to a Phenom II X4 960T at 3.3GHz, so the Phenom II would be around 20% faster at 4GHz vs the Q6600 at 3.2GHz. If I'm honest, it's not that big of a jump. I'd recommend you go for a Core i5-2400 and an ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 if you're looking for maximum bang-for-buck at a low price. Even the 2400 will give you over 50% higher performance than the Q6600 at 3.2GHz since you can OC the 2400 to 3.8GHz on the stock cooler.

For reference:

i5-2400: $190
Z68 Extreme3 Gen3: $122
G.Skill 8GB (2x2GB) DDR3: $37

$350 gets you over 50% more performance and a better platform than what AMD can give you at a comparable price. You get support for Ivy Bridge and PCIe 3.0, plus it consumes a lot less power.

 

[Bones313]

Well I this is what I have on my test. Cores running at 48C on full load.