AMD Phenom X4 9850 Processor Review

[RobRich]

Quote:

In the previous article devoted to benchmarking an engineering sample of a quad-core AMD Phenom we failed to "cross all t's," because this processor has a bug officially acknowledged by AMD. Thus, we could benchmark Phenom either in a reduced performance mode (with patched BIOS, which disables some processor units) or without the patch, which potentially allowed mistakes in their operation. Our testbed did not freeze even once, and the patchless mode theoretically shows the real performance of future "debugged" processors, but our article still produced an impression of being incomplete. And now we have an AMD Phenom X4 9850, B3 stepping. This bug is fixed here. The processor operates at 2.5 GHz, it possesses an improved integrated Northbridge (2 GHz), and it even supports DDR2-1066. To all appearances, it's indeed the fastest solution AMD can offer now, so it will be interesting to compare Phenom X4 9850 with Intel processors. We've selected four dual- and quad-core processors from Intel based on the Core 2 architecture, operating at about 2.5 GHz, with new and old cores. So Phenom will be surrounded by possible direct competitors, which should help us analyze its performance in a proper way.

Source: Digit-Life

[sr71000]

AMD is in a rough spot, huh? :-\

[SoloCamo]

Indeed....and to only think we were all praising AMD's domination of intel only a few years back...

[carl33p]

Ouch.
Performance aside; the power consumption is horrible compared to the Intels.

[SoloCamo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by carl33p

Ouch.
Performance aside; the power consumption is horrible compared to the Intels.

Yea, noticed that too. They really need to rethink their game plan here, because this one is simply not going to cut it. They are in the same crunch Intel was back when the A64 and A64 X2's were slapping around the p4's and p4d's. The only difference is AMD isn't exactly as financially stable as intel by any stretch and therefore just pulling a new processor out isn't going to happen, at least anytime soon. They will continue with the price wars, but there comes a point when givng an extra $30 for a far superior CPU is well worth it, even on the tightest of budgets.

[RobRich]

The AMD "Bulldozer" architecture is slated for maybe late this year or next year. It is supposedly a "new" x86 design, which could be a interesting move to perhaps better shake up the microprocessor market.

Looking out a little further to around the 2010 timeframe, "Sandtiger" could have up to 16 "Bulldozer" cores per interconnect package, but it will probably be initally targeted more to the enterprise-class sector.

[pullmyfoot]

Pity. Id like to see AMD start slapping Intel's asses again soon. Oh and Rob do you really have 102, 283 posts or was that like, altered

[RobRich]

Off topic, but anyway....

A few thousand carryover forum posts. Currently around 30,000 forum posts here. Thousands of news posts, with each news post counting five forum posts.

[pullmyfoot]

Right. thats alot. lol