AC's Phenom Review and Techinical info

[DerekT]

so much for reading my whole post eh?

I read your whole post, but the statement I quoted of your whole post was the only portion that actually applied to my post where I queried why the "Phenom" was a chip that deserved a spot as a newly released and highly performing architecture to be considered along side the similar priced C2Q.

You posted back that it was slightly slower tick for tick than the C2Q and I put forward that ~15% faster is more than a slight difference and that the ~3.0 overclock of Phenom to the ~3.6Ghz overclock of C2Q shows a marked speed differential. The 2.3 Phenom and 2.4 C2Q for pretty much the same price does not show me why the chip is to be considered.

Your response did not address my question whatsoever, except to attempt to minimize the differences in performance and overclockabiltiy of the Phenom when compared to a similar priced C2Q.

If you like less for more, then that's fine. That's not how I purchase though. This will be my last post in this thread as I was requesting information for the above and I can now see that there is none.

 

[Duner]

Just an update.

She's 12hours prime stable at 11x237 = 2607
Been doing SETI since I shut down prime with no problems at all.

Unfortunately I did have to increase voltage to 1.5 bios 1.43 load cpuz.
Load temps 43C under water.

AND I had to drop my mem ratio down to 533 in bios. The cheap DDR2 667 didn't like running at 790, it's running underclocked at 630 right now.

Unable to post at 239 FSB despite varying settings in bios.
Won't be able to play some more until I'm home on the weekend again.

 

[Pick2]

Am I missing something here? I must be...

DerekT , I think you need to look at the BIG picture for a moment ....
Back when AMD was the King , if we ALL had bought nothing but an AMD CPU , then Intel would have gone belly up , and we'd all have a crappy Phenom right now
If we ALL buy only Intel now because it is supposedly faster , Buying Intel will be the only option we will ever have.

So , you are enjoying your faster Intel CPU because we are buying AMD !
You should be thanking us

 

[copernicus]

I read your whole post, but the statement I quoted of your whole post was the only portion that actually applied to my post where I queried why the "Phenom" was a chip that deserved a spot as a newly released and highly performing architecture to be considered along side the similar priced C2Q.

You posted back that it was slightly slower tick for tick than the C2Q and I put forward that ~15% faster is more than a slight difference and that the ~3.0 overclock of Phenom to the ~3.6Ghz overclock of C2Q shows a marked speed differential. The 2.3 Phenom and 2.4 C2Q for pretty much the same price does not show me why the chip is to be considered.

Your response did not address my question whatsoever, except to attempt to minimize the differences in performance and overclockabiltiy of the Phenom when compared to a similar priced C2Q.

If you like less for more, then that's fine. That's not how I purchase though. This will be my last post in this thread as I was requesting information for the above and I can now see that there is none.

first of all your question is of no relevance to this thread, as it's smack's of intel fanboy flamebait (not saying it was just read that way to me) ergo i did not answer your question nor did i attempt to minimize the difference in performance or oc'ability. if you take the time to read the thred you can see plainly everyone know's phenom is not an oc monster. and as far as buying less for more. i bought this chip for the fun of playing with a new platform knowing full well the problems i could run into. if i was building only thinking of max performance i would of went intel. but then i'm me not you. (weird how people do things different huh?)

 

[AlabamaCajun]

Hank, future prices look to be around the 200 mark. If amd can get some 2.6-2.8 units out then it's up in the 300-400 range. All still way below competition unless a major improvement happens in the cache or IMC. The cores are what they are until another major release but the cores are decent performers.

Nice clocks Duner. Try backing the multi on core 3&4 to see if the you can reach 2.7G

 

[Duner]

I don't think I have access to core multi's. The bios isn't very user friendly. I'm using a budget AM2 board. No access to AMD overdrive either.

I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve, but can't do anything till I get home on the weekend.

 

[Neuromancer]

Hey AC

I am waiting for some cash to make the switch back to a green system, 790FX phenom quad and my 3850... (might even get a second for benching, although dont need to game)

The TLD bug only appears to rear its ugly head with VMs correct? And the BIOS patch can be disabled with Overdrive I think...

And the 9600BEs are out now. Are they worth getting? Or should I hold out another 3 months and hope the B4s are better?

Thanks

 

[jonspd]

No I just got one and results are around 2.5ish TBO max 24/7.

They don't like FSB at higher muilt I think trying 11x and lower it ideal.

I'm not using AOD atm only bios clocking thinking on getting the latest bios but my current doesn't have the patch.



ALSO AC what is the difference it your setting and mine to get 1 min less on smp http://www.jonspd.com/jonspd_uploads/screenies/2398 fah.GIF

 

[AlabamaCajun]

Neuro, if you can wait on the quads 200-300 is all we are seeing in overclocks for the most part. As for the boards they really nice board with Gigabyte and MSI seeming to be more popular with a few Asus. B3s are supposed to be the fix, rumors about the B4s have not gained any traction in truth. My 790FX will sit have a 3600X2 as a mate until better quads come out. Seems I'm near max already unless something comes around to change that. You can bypass the TLB code in the 790FX BIOS, I don't see a switch on my 770.

Jon, If I read that right you are about 10 secs faster where I'm at 13 mins are so last checked. Your CL4 ram is gaining ground it appears. On a AM2 you would be ahead by 20 secs are more with the better throughput.

 

[jonspd]

Thats without 2xsmp if a q6xxx can do 2 vmware smp clients and put out 4k ppd Y can't a amd do the same at around 3,200 PPD would be nice.


I'm gonna format this thing and see what I can do but I think in the end a patched bios and stable rig is what I'm gonna do...

 

[AlabamaCajun]

I'm only running 1X SMP.

I found the NB freq on the A770 board and dropped it by 200 and raised the HTT to 220 which works out to 2420. 20 mins into dual Orthos and it holding. I'm going to play with it some more once it gets another unit in and see if I can get stability at 2500.

 

[QuietIce]

I've been thread watching because I thought I would have one of these by now. But when Christmas started showing up in the bills the wife shut of the money suppply. But I'll know where to come looking when I do manage one of these!


Sorry, AC, I've got to do this.
[hijack]

The 2.3 Phenom and 2.4 C2Q for pretty much the same price does not show me why the chip is to be considered.

If you like less for more, then that's fine. That's not how I purchase though. This will be my last post in this thread as I was requesting information for the above and I can now see that there is none.

OK, here's an interesting situation. Several of my "old" s939 Opty's are outrunning C2D's and C2Q's in SETI. If a modern 2.4 GHz Intel can't beat a 2.9 GHz Opty 165 what else is there to say??? Not all apps are the same and I spend a LOT less building an s939 system than a modern Intel system. As I've recently found out SETI depends a lot on memory speed/latency and Intel just doesn't seem to cut it in that area. Whether Phenom and the L3 cache does or not remains to be seen.

[/hijack]



>> Duner, what kind of SETI numbers are you getting? How many CPU seconds for those 55-64 credit units ...?

 

[AlabamaCajun]

That means unlike the slight bump up from K8 in we see in FAH, Seti will be a set back on the Phenoms. Memory bandwidth sucks!

 

[jonspd]

ac try a 10.5 muilti lmk what happens... or if it works better then 11 for you.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

ac try a 10.5 muilti lmk what happens... or if it works better then 11 for you.

If I could pin the NB below the 2000 ceiling or should I ignore the NB and just keep the HT down. At 10.5, I can get my RAM bandwidth up a little.

 

[jonspd]

the NB should be good to around 2.0-2.2 if vid is around 1.25-1.3

ht isn't as big of a deal you would rather have higher nb then ht as far as I can tell...

do you have NB and HT voltage selections? at 1.3 nb vid 2400mhz isn't a problem here.

 

[QuietIce]

That means unlike the slight bump up from K8 in we see in FAH, Seti will be a set back on the Phenoms. Memory bandwidth sucks!

I found out by building a cheap AM2 system. No way to raise the FSB, RAM, or vCore and a 2.0 vDimm limit but I got a deal on a 5000 BE to put in it. The CPU is running @ 3.2 GHz and I've got Transcend RAM @ 4-4-4-12 / 800 MHz (cheapest DDR-800 CAS 4 I could find). The AM2 rig takes 3-4% longer than my 2.9 GHz Opty 165's @ ~DDR-525 RAM (2.5-3-3-7 & 3-4-4-8) to run similar work units. From that comparison SETI's got to be somewhat RAM intensive or the AM2 rig would be faster, wouldn't you think? Guess I need to do a Memtest on that AM2 to see what the bandwidth really is.


I hope we'll see a rise in bandwidth on the newer Phenoms or I may have to wait for DDR3 ...

 

[Duner]

>> Duner, what kind of SETI numbers are you getting? How many CPU seconds for those 55-64 credit units ...?

My 54 credit units are taking 8200-8300 seconds. My 72 credit units take ~8800 secs at 2607 Mhz.
I found only 3 recent 64 credit units. 2 took 7600 secs at 2420 and 1 took 7200 secs at 2607.
Again, that with my ram running at 315Mhz (630 effective) and 5-5-5-15 timings for the 2607 speed.

I did notice quite a good drop in crunching times compared to my 3600+ x2 at the same speed with faster ram settings.

How does that compare to your AM2 rig and Opty?

 

[jonspd]

I found out by building a cheap AM2 system. No way to raise the FSB, RAM, or vCore and a 2.0 vDimm limit but I got a deal on a 5000 BE to put in it. The CPU is running @ 3.2 GHz and I've got Transcend RAM @ 4-4-4-12 / 800 MHz (cheapest DDR-800 CAS 4 I could find). The AM2 rig takes 3-4% longer than my 2.9 GHz Opty 165's @ ~DDR-525 RAM (2.5-3-3-7 & 3-4-4-8) to run similar work units. From that comparison SETI's got to be somewhat RAM intensive or the AM2 rig would be faster, wouldn't you think? Guess I need to do a Memtest on that AM2 to see what the bandwidth really is.


I hope we'll see a rise in bandwidth on the newer Phenoms or I may have to wait for DDR3 ...

What kinda bandwidth are you looking for on the phenoms?

just wondering as I was very pleased to see 11k mbs in sandra.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

Ok CPU multi not available and I'm stuck at 11 but I'm playing with more OCs.
Clock is at 221, CPU 2431 VCore still at 1.265 and NB speed is still 1990 or just under 2000.
I might settle for 2450 but wish I could drop the NB speed to be sure.
The testing goes on.