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  • MikeODanyurs - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link

    This article got me thinking, why would you purchase a 9350e for a HTPC (which was what I was planning) when for the same or less money, you could get a 9850 Black Edition and just set the muliplyer to 10 (instead of 12.5). You'd have a CPU that you could use later on at full speed or OC'd, but for now on a HTPC underclock it to the 9350e speed and you would still have the bus at 4000 (not 3600) and the NB and HT speed at 2.0GHz (not 1.8GHz). Anything I would like to know is what the power usage would be if you did this (125w), compared to a 9350e (65w).
  • Wwhat - Friday, July 11, 2008 - link

    In regards to your description of the strange behavior I'd like to point you to this article on microsoft.com:
    http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256">http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256

    An excerpt:
    Possible decrease in performance during demand-based switching
    Demand-Based Switching (DBS) is the use of ACPI processor performance states (dynamic voltage and frequency scaling) in response to system workloads. Windows XP processor power management implements DBS by using the adaptive processor throttling policy. This policy dynamically and automatically adjusts the processor’s current performance state in response to system CPU use without user intervention.

    When single-threaded workloads run on multiprocessor systems that include dual-core configurations, the workloads may migrate across available CPU cores. This behavior is a natural artifact of how Windows schedules work across available CPU resources. However, on systems that have processor performance states that run with the adaptive processor throttling policy, this thread migration may cause the Windows kernel power manager to incorrectly calculate the optimal target performance state for the processor. This behavior occurs because an individual processor core, logical or physical, may appear to be less busy than the whole processor package actually is. On performance benchmarks that use single-threaded workloads, you may see this artifact in decreased performance results or in a high degree of variance between successive runs of identical benchmark tests.
    ..

    It also explains how to change the policy in windows regarding this behavior, and while this is about XP I would not be surprised vista inherited this.
  • Rev1 - Saturday, July 5, 2008 - link

    I dunno im gunna wait till nahalem comes out.
  • gochichi - Thursday, July 3, 2008 - link

    I see that they have a lot of issues still. They need make sure that their board partners and chipset designs are really stable and ready for the "future"... I thought that was the whole point of AMD's spider platform, that they weren't gonna be playing around with switching sockets on users and such.

    Well, anyway... I love having a quad-core (Intel) and I think that these products are all at a nice performance level. I do believe it helps for them to have ATI right now. Because if I were going to buy a cross-fire system, which I think makes more sense now than at any other point of time, it would be tempting (though still ultimately wrong) to get a 2.5 AMD quad-core to have everything match.

    Wow, it's a great time to be a computer shopper right now. Today's AMD would have trounced yesterday's Intel, but Intel is just so lean and so efficiently producing better and better stuff that it's a tall order to even compete. AMD does seem to be making their appeals to the big guys pretty effectively, seems like when you go to brick and mortar stores about half of the systems are AMD based.

    Looking into the future, AMD has what it takes to remain relevant in the market. They need to switch to a smaller process and save energy, and keep the 3 or 4 core thing going... no dual cores at all is the right thing to do.

    I'm thinking that AMD could really grow into a huge beast with their AMD/ATI combo, just look at the beating NVIDIA is getting all of a sudden. The Radeon 4850 is going for $170.00??? And it's in abundant supply... wow, sucks to be lil' NVIDIA right now. AMD beat Intel when Intel was doing all kinds of illegal stuff that made it irrelevant, next time AMD beats Intel (if) it's going to be a very very big deal.

    AMD has market share and name recognition, all they need now is a killer product, and I think they're getting really close to having one.
  • Aries1470 - Thursday, July 3, 2008 - link



    Hey, just speculating now...

    In a couple of years (maybe some time next year?), we should start seeing CPU's incorporating GPU's, or vice versa.
    So the battle would be something like:
    AMD/ATI

    Intel/Intel

    VIA/S3 Hey, they are still on single cores, as far as I know, but they do have the Chrome 440 GTX, of which is a DX10.1 product, but that doesn't mean much.. I haven't searched for a review yet ;-)

    nVidea/??? correct me if I am wrong, but at the moment they have No rights for x86 CPU??

    Well, that is my 2¢ worth.

    p.s. the Chrome 440GTX is with a 64bit memory us? Hmm... not really wide. ahmmm...
  • Calin - Friday, July 4, 2008 - link

    VIA is playing in a league of its own (or played, until the Intel Atom). Even with the Atom, the northbridge is using a lot of power, so VIA could still compete.
    VIA is now all about integrated platform with low performance at very low power draws (very low compared to the x86 world of today).
    As for the 64-bitness of the S3 Chrome memory controller, this too helps save both costs and power.
  • garydale - Thursday, July 3, 2008 - link

    I realize that the Windows world is still 32bit, but we're talking about processors here. I run a pure 64 bit Linux (Debian/Lenny) with (almost) no 32 bit applications - certainly not the ones I use frequently that need full processor speed. Why are the tests all done with 32 bit software?

    Even if you can't run all the tests in 64 bit mode, surely a few benchmarks are available in 64 bit so we can get an idea of how the various processors perform in their native modes?
  • ohodownload - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link


    - The AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition ­ 2.6GHz @ 140W; $235
    - Energy-efficient AMD Phenom X4 9350e ­ 2.0GHz @ 65W; $195
    - Energy-efficient AMD Phenom X4 9150e ­ 1.8GHz @ 65W; $175

    The first thing to notice is that AMD is launching a new model set 100 MHz higher for the same price as the previous 9850 at 2.5 GHz. The small boost in frequency should enable this CPU to be equivalent to Intel’s Q6600. Unfortunately, this is to the detriment of power consumption and the TDP gains 15W compared to the previous model for a total of 140W. Therefore, even with its Q6600 Intel holds a clear advantage in terms of power consumption all the while being slightly less expensive (officially $224)....

    more : computer-hardware-zone.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-3-amd-phenom-x4s.html
  • aguilpa1 - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    I was just noting how Anandtech's articles are often a little slow to come by (new ones) but WOW! CHock full of great info, insight and indepth information. Its like a good book you just can't quit reading till its done. Great Job GUYS!
  • Christian Packmann - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    1. Are there no CPU drivers for the Phenom? These should allow changing C&Q configuration with Windows' energy options, better than fiddling in the BIOS. This works on my Athlon64 3200+ on WinXP Pro.

    I'm also running AMD Power Monitor, which allows quickly switching the used energy setting from its tray icons popup menu, so I don't have to open the energy options every time.
    This is great for debugging C&Q-related problems, which can happen on single-core CPUs too.

    2. I'd guess that the isse with the Phenom is a software bug in the CPU driver or BIOS, but it /might/ be a CPU bug.
    CPU frequency changes are always driven in software (doesn't matter if it's a kernel driver or BIOS) by writing to some model-specific CPU registers, see the "BIOS and Kernel Developer's Guide (BKDG) for AMD Family 10h Processors", http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content...e/white_... .

    You can set the VID and Frequency with these registers. A frequency ramp-up or ramp-down usually consists of several steps of changing voltage and frequency until the target frequency is reached. There is a short waiting period after each change until the new voltage step has stabilized.
    These waiting periods seem to be contained in some more CPU registers; if these values are wrong, C&Q will obviously not work as planned.

    Now I don't know if these waiting values are determined by the CPU or written to it by the BIOS/kernel driver during its respective initialization (I only skimmed this section in the BKDG, not enough time ATM). If they are determined by the CPU itself and C&Q goes wrong, this would indicate a CPU bug. If they are determined by the BIOS however, this would be a BIOS bug and fixable with a BIOS update.
    If you find a Phenom motherboard which doesn't exhibit these problems, then the BIOS would obviously be the culprit.

    Oh, and a wild-ass-guess: maybe these waiting periods are (in part) influenced by temperature, and vary with changing CPU temperatures - this would of course imply that they aren't determined once at startup, but recomputed at given intervals. This should be testable, too.

    3. Even if it's just a BIOS bug, a fix shouldn't completely solve the performance loss with PS, due to the split power planes of the Phenom. As long as the kernel throws threads around the cores willy-nilly, you will get a performance loss if C&Q does work properly. Frequency ramp-up does always take some time if C&Q actually works. This specific problem cannot occur on CPUs with a single power plane (which the C2Qs still have, I think), as all CPUs will always have full voltage as long as a single core runs at 100%; only the frequency might need to be adjusted. Of course the performance loss you measured is extreme and indicates broken C&Q ramp-up speed.

    BTW, this wild thread-changing you observed will always cost some performance for most code, as a core change makes the L2 contents useless. This is only 512K for the K10, but on C2Q a change between cores 0/1 and 2/3 will invalidate up to 6MB, depending on CPU model and cache usage. This doesn't matter much with todays memory bandwidths, but I'd still regard this a kernel bug.
  • Gikaseixas - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Other sites tested it already and could hit 3.2 - 3.6 speeds. Hopefully Anandtech will be able to overclock a Phenom to it's limits this time around.
  • Googer - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Missing from the benchmarks is the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB. How would this chip stack up against all others tested?

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
  • RamarC - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    the q9550 isn't in the same price range as the other processors so that's why it wasn't included. as for performance, either subtract or add 10% to the q9450's figures.
  • DanD85 - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Are you absolutely sure about that? As hothardware thinks differently:
    "By altering its multiplier and increasing the CPU voltage to 1.45v, we were able to take our Phenom X4 9950 to an respectable 3.1GHz using nothing but a stock AMD PIB cooler. Higher frequencies were possible, but we couldn't keep the system 100% stable, so we backed things down to 3.1GHz. While running at that speed, we re-ran some tests and also monitored core temperatures and found that the chip never broke the 60ºC mark, and hovered around 58ºC under load - at least according to AMD's Overdrive software. That is one heck of an overclock and relatively cool temperatures for a Phenom in our opinion. If the majority of chips have the same amount of headroom as ours, we suspect the 9950 Black Edition will be appealing to AMD CPU enthusiasts looking for the best the company has to offer."
    http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/AMD_Phenom_X4_...">http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/AMD...nom_X4_9...
  • KaarlisK - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Maybe by setting affinity for Photoshop's threads to a certain core, it would be possible to verify whether Vista's thread management is part of the cause?
  • Zoomer - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    I know its a novel concept, but what about running some benches in XP to see if it's another Vista issue?
  • Rhoxed - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Increasing the NB core (IMC) clock (in Phenom it runs async from the Core Speed unlike Athlon which is Sync) drops latencies (especially L3) and increases memory performance/throughput, which in turn improves system performance. The Phenom starts to come to life when you hit a 2.6GHz core speed with a NB core clock at 2200MHz+. Depending on the application and CPU, increasing NB core speeds (getting up to 2200MHz+) can result in performance differences from 3%~12% in most cases.

    Upping my NB/HT to 2400MHz over the stock 2000 at the same clockspeed (2800) i net a 15%~ increase (on a 9850BE)
  • RamarC - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    i'm a developer and want to upgrade my win2k3/ss2k5 server to a quad core. since it currently has a 3.4ghz p4d, a phenom 9x50 would be a big step-up (even though i don't have any performance issues). but the p4d has been very reliable and i don't want to have to deal with flaky hardware issues when i'm pushing code out the door. should i just bite the bullet and shell out the extra cash for a p45+q9450?
  • Calin - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    I have an AMD based PC at home, and I look forward to another AMD-based pc (780G and Phenom X3 or X4).
    These being said, I think for a server you really really should go for an Intel configuration. Also, at 3.4 GHz a P4D probably is one hell of a power draw.
    Compared to your current server, and based on what I think you need, I don't think a quad core would help you - a dual core would probably be enough, and Intel has those aplenty.
  • Zoomer - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    From the article, it seems like sticking to the cheaper, sub 100W TDP cpus and not overclocking is the way to go.
  • Sylvanas - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Wheres the 9950BE overclocking results? It is an unlocked CPU so what about Overclocking the NB? What performance difference does that bring? I doubt people that buy IGP's are going to overclocking much anyway since they are usually silent HTPC rigs...
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    The 9950BE overclocking results are coming in a different article. Unfortunately, our 790FX boards (they have been beat on for six months) were not exactly up to speed and we thought it would be better to not show anything instead of a 2.8GHz clock that obviously is not representative of the processor at this point.

    Also, most of our previous results were run on the 780G, a chipset that when tuned correctly and on a good board will outclock the 790FX with a discreet graphics card by the way. Jetway just released a fairly comprehensive BIOS for their new 780G we ended up using after the others started failing. We just received BIOS updates for the 780a boards and have a new 790FX/SB750 arriving shortly for a CF/SLI update on AMD (gaming is not that bad by the way on the Phenom for the mid-range market).

    Increasing the NB core (IMC) clock (in Phenom it runs async from the Core Speed unlike Athlon which is Sync) drops latencies (especially L3) and increases memory performance/throughput, which in turn improves system performance. The Phenom starts to come to life when you hit a 2.6GHz core speed with a NB core clock at 2200MHz+. Depending on the application and CPU, increasing NB core speeds (getting up to 2200MHz+) can result in performance differences from 3%~12% in most cases.

    Almost as important is increasing HT speed for further optimizing the pipeline links (CPU/Memory/PCIe,etc). Our 9950BE follow up will have an overclocking guide along with optimization details.
  • Sylvanas - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Excellent, thanks for the info Gary- I look forward to the follow up 9950BE overclocking article. If there is some info on the SB750 aswell that's even better :)
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    AMD post X2 = ROFLMAO

    The C&Q thing is probably another respin waiting to happen. What a bunch of boobs.
  • acejj26 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    what's a seccond?
    why didn't you include the 9950 in the first page of benchmarks?
    is the 9960 a new processor from AMD?

    i've come to expect these errors from other staff writers, but not you Anand.
  • skiboysteve - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    why are you using 780G to overclock and check stability on the same article you say how someone else wrote an article about how that is a bad idea because of power...

    you even say at the bottom of your overclocking page, a mere footnote, that you got higher clocks on a different platform
  • js01 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    I think they scale much better then that hothardware got the 9950be to 3.1ghz barely even trying and the 9350e to 2.7ghz.
    http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/AMD_Phenom_X4_...">http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/AMD...nom_X4_9...
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    It depends on the board and CPU actually. We have a retail 9850BE that will do 3.3, but three others struggle to make it to 2.8. Until we see some consistency in the retail parts, we would rather play it safe with the comments. A separate overclocking article is on its way though with the new lineup. :)
  • woofermazing - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Odd that you guys couldn't get any OC out of the 9950. Results from other sites have been pretty impressive using the stock cooler. 3.6ghz is the highest of seen so far.
  • Clauzii - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    I second that!

    PS: And why does the comment page keep looking like pre-95 internet :O (I'm on FF3)
  • Regs - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Between cool n' quite and flimsy power management, it just seems like AMD overshot their goals. Though to me, it seems like they could easily be fixed in Shanghai, but that's if they can keep all four cores busy instead I have 3 cores at stall, and one pumping at max in threaded or shared instruction instances. This will though cause more power consumption, and I think you guys all ready said that mobo support is just not their to power these suckers. You can have your cake, you just cant eat it.

    What do you goes think about AMD at 2.6 GHz? Looks more competitive stacked up to Intel's finniest at the given price point. Just makes me wonder if the over complicated power management features are keeping AMD from hitting 3.0 GHz or above. What do you think is holding AMD back?
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Shitty engineering?
  • Griswold - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - link

    Well, I dont know for sure. But its definitely not moronic comments from dumbasses such as you.
  • Assimilator1 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Yeah it looks like they've messed up the clock speeds for the lower Phenoms too, lol.
  • Aries1470 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    Hi,
    Just found the following strange:
    AMD Phenom X4 9850 $205
    AMD Phenom X4 9750 $215
    The slower one is more expensive, while in the article it has the prices reversed?
    "The new Phenom X4 9950 will occupy the $235 space, which will push the 9850 down to $215. The Phenom 9750 will go away temporarily to make room for the new chips at the high end, leaving the 9650 at $195 and the 9550 at $175."

    I wonder which one is correct ;-) Hmm... I think a proof reader and an eye for detail is needed :-)

    Ok, now for me to read the rest of the article.

    Btw, any update on the new VIA Nano CPU - Codename Isaiah? Will there be a review? It is as fast as a 9150e or faster at the same clock speed? It has much less power usage. Now if someone over here could do a review or get more info that would be great, since it is like there is no other x86 competitor out there...

    That's all from me.
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - link

    The 9750 pricing will not be changed by AMD officially and thankfully that model is being phased out in the retail sector and replaced by the 9850BE.

    I have a picture of the VIA Nano PR flag from Computex and a handout explaining how it should perform. That is about as far as VIA is willing to go at this point with information. I did hear from some OEMS that VIA was not even close to getting the CPU out this summer as originally thought, much less advanced reviews. However, we do push them on an almost daily basis for it.

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