Moving on to the heart of the matter, the CPU is a 2.8GHz hexa-core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T that has been overclocked to 3.5GHz by Cyberpower. It’s interesting to compare the hexa-core technology used by AMD in Phenom II X6 with the Intel Core i7 980X. Intel had to shrink the Core i7 975X from 45nm to 32nm to squeeze in six cores. The quad-core has 1MB of L2 cache and 8MB of L3, which has increased to 1.5MB and 12MB for the hexa-core with the TDP holding steady at 130W.
Windows Task Manager reveals the load on the somewhat untaxed six-core Phenom II
AMD, by contrast, stuck with its 45nm process and simply added two more cores to create Phenom II X6. The shared L3 cache stayed unchanged at 6MB and the L2 increased from 2MB to 3MB. This suggests that the Phenom II X4 core has a considerable amount of unused space. It’s also interesting to note that the TDP of Phenom II appears to be more dependent on clock speed, rather than the number of cores, as the 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 has a 140W TDP while the 2.8GHz and 3.2GHz Phenom II X6 models have a lower TDP of 125W.
Benchmark Tests
PCMark Vantage Results
Longer bars are better
Longer bars are better
There’s a major difference between AMD and Intel in terms of pricing as the Phenom II X6 1055T sells for £170 with the faster Phenom II X6 1090T at £250 whereas the Intel Core i7 980X is priced at an epic £825. Cyberpower has overclocked the Phenom II X6 1055T by raising the CPU Voltage a tiny amount to 1.5V and also tickling up the chipset and RAM voltages slightly and then increasing the base clock speed to 251MHz to give a clock speed of 3.5GHz.
COMMENTS
Thanks for the advice.
But can you really see ducting working on PCs without removing or greatly reducing modularity and upgradability.
BTW this PC is not noisy, it has lots of fans at low speed for good balance of air-flow to noise.
I play with the lights down on such a system...
so I never notice the lights dim. It does a good job of supplementing the central heating in the winter.
We make gaming behemoths too but the bulk of the market buys at the mainstream
Fluid Dynamics 101
Lots of fans at low speed = better cooling vs noise than a duct and a high speed fan. In our many years experience as a system builder ducts tend to become resonating chambers amplifying the sound of the high speed fan to a deafening roar.
I like the shoe box PC idea, watch this space or follow my tweets...
hm...
I have to object on the graphics card part: The card itself is very well suited for gamers and if coupled with a second one it is okay even for hardcore gamers (tried Crysis on two 5770 on two full-hd lcds... very nice...)
Interesting
No, really.
Why not use a low noise, moderate throughput fan (such as those from Noctua, and other similar people) in the ducting? One at each end of the duct gives a reasonably constant air pressure and they don't generate enough noise to cause major resonance issues.
That said, I threw some Noctua fans at my Big Box upstairs, fully intending to duct it, but it was quiet enough that I never bothered - I might break up an old shoe box and get some gaffers tape and see if the sound gets any more noticable/better/worse in terms of it's signature etc.
Although that said, this is the whole reason I stopped building systems (for other people at least ) I still build my own workstations and servers) - too much hard work for not enough profit, especially if you are overclocking on top of that....
Steven R
