It was predictable that the Phenom would lose performance when it was plugged into the AM2 Gigabyte with previous-generation AMD 690 chipset. It was something of a surprise to see that the same was true when we ran the X2 6400+ processor in the AM2+ Asus as performance took a slight hit compared to the older 690 motherboard.
3DMark06 Results
Longer bars are better
Power consumption of the Gigabyte 690 motherboard was incredibly low in regular Windows duties with both the X2 6400+ and Phenom, so that’s clearly a feature of the chipset. The 790X, by contrast, draws about the same as the Intel X38 with Q6600.
Power Draw Results
Power Draw in Watt (W)
There's a fourth element to the Spider platform as AMD has created an overclocking utility called OverDrive that seems to have a great deal in common with Nvidia’s nTune 5 software. The difference is that nTune can be a truly horrible piece of software for system tuning, while OverDrive looks incredibly promising.
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
