A native quad-core design sounds as though it should be better than two dual-cores that have been cobbled together, but life isn’t necessarily that straightforward. Core 2 has all sorts of deficiencies, including the use of a frontside bus (FSB) and a memory controller that is part of the chipset. In a server, you can hit all sorts of bottlenecks in performance when you gang up a number of multi-core Xeons, but in the desktop arena these limitations don’t seem to have any effect.
All the details
Phenom uses an AM2+ socket which needs to be matched to an AM2+ motherboard if you want to get the benefits of Hyper Transport 3.0. We used an Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe with AMD's 790FX chipset for testing. We also threw an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ into the equation on a Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H motherboard, and then mixed and matched the permutations of AM2 processor with AM2+ motherboard (X2 on Asus) and AM2+ CPU on AM2 motherboard (Phenom on Gigabyte).
Asus' M3A32-MVP Deluxe: AM2+ socket on board
We also ran a Core 2 Q6600 on an MSI Diamond X38 with OCZ PC3-1333 memory so we could see how a comparable Intel system would perform.
COMMENTS
Upgrading from Athlon XP3200 - Is AMD any good nowadays?
Hi I have had and still got my trusty Athlon XP 3200 that I have used for virtually everything for the past few years, but a recent mainboard failure (Soltek Nforce 2 400 ultra type) left me finding replacements hard to find. I found only on'new' or unused Nforce 2 400 mobo on sale on Ebay which I was lucky to win - or daft enough to bid high enough for!
Anyways I decided that its time to move game playing from the XP machine and build a new one.
But reading reviews and so on its not clear whats any good these days. Intel or AMD, but whats bugging me is the AMD seem to swap sockets after only a brief time - one socket seems to be just a partial change to yet another. I think that phrase 'Futureproof' must be some joke!
What I'm considering is a small form case MATX mobo, single HD (sata), graphics card (doh), sound card, memory 2 -4 gb,one dvd rom/writer. Inshort this machine is for games only and the more serious stuff I'm leaving to my newly repaired Athlon XP3200 machine, the Radeon X800XL Agp card might as well stay there too I feel.
My problem is Intel or Amd? Once it was clear, AMD were cheaper and offered performance that more often than not beat Intel hands down - but today it is so unclear! Even prices seem muddy and as for chipsets too!!!
There is nothing phenomenal with Phenom.
Indeed David (AMD Athlon 64/X2) kicked Goliath (Intel - Netburst).
But now David 2.0 (Phenom) can't do that anymore and the chip giant is still on the lead... pounding poor little AMD. David 1.0 can even beat David 2.0.
Thus, there's really nothing phenomenal with the Phenom.
We all know that despite Intel processors are still on FSB and separate memory controller hub, beats AMD in overall aspects. Imagine what Intel "Nehalem" can do more with its hypertransport-like bus and integrated memory controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_%28CPU_architecture%29 .
As for me, I will use AMD for budget reasons, and definitely go Intel for performance. Cheers to all! 8)
Poor AMD....
I had been using them for ten years now, the K6's, Athlons, all great. Up until recently they produced brilliant chips at a brilliant price. Then came the Core 2 and it was an utter empire strikes back moment, and since then AMD haven't had an answer. I may of been said to of been a bit of an AMD fan through the last ten years, but even I moved to the Core 2 and it's been incredible (unlike how utterly dreadful the P4's were). AMD really need to so something as currently they just can't answer the Core 2's. Intel seems to have the performance edge well in the bag currently, and with plenty of room to take the CPU's also. Poor AMD :(
Another review biased for Intel from the start
Hi, I seen the bench marks, still not going with Intel. I will not deal with a company involved in antitrust issues. Yes I know, I am a reseller for 10 years. AMD will be on 45nm soon anyway. I laughed when I saw how Intel made there "quad core" two duels....
Threaded apps
Hi Matt
You generally need a multi-threaded OS to get some advantage, which NT, 2K, XP and Vista all are. You're never running just one application, so it still helps (hefty app can hog one core while leaving the other one for the other things running, i.e. the OS!). But more and more apps are coming along that know how to multi-thread and spread the load
