Higher Clock Speeds, No TLB Issues and Better Pricing: The New Phenom
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 27, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Overclocking B3, a Little Better
Despite the new 50 series CPUs being a new spin of silicon, the only changes AMD made (that we are aware of at least) were to fix the TLB erratum. We were told not to expect any significant increases in clock frequency out of B3, it was simply a functional change. However, with Phenom having been in production for a little while now it's possible that we could get a little more out of our B3 chips than the first Phenom processors we tested late last year.
Using stock cooling on air we wanted to see how things had changed in four months. Armed with our unlocked Phenom X4 9850, we wanted to see what was possible.
We went straight for 2.8GHz at stock voltage, which surprisingly enough POSTed and got us into Windows without any problems. The system wasn't stable enough to complete most of our benchmarks however, we needed to boost the core voltage a bit:
Note that this is better than any of our previous attempts with Phenom. While we could hit 3.0GHz in the past, it was never stable enough to complete all of our benchmarks. While we only had a few hours left over to test the overclocking stability of the 9850 it does look like it may be the first Phenom capable of easily breaking the 2.6GHz barrier.
We aimed for 3.0GHz and while we could get into Windows and run some benchmarks, we couldn't get it 100% stable. In our opinion it's highly unlikely we'll see AMD release a 3.0GHz Phenom on 65nm this year. It may be possible on 45nm but it's still too early to tell if that'll be this year or not.
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ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
What!!!! How darest though speak such blasphemy!AMD is your king! Bow to PHENOM!!! :) LOL
sorry feeling a little silly today.
hvypetals - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Why are the Intel core 2 duo's outperforming the intel quad core cpus?Is it because the games cant see beyond a dual core?
ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Thats why I got the E8400 and clocked it to 3.6 ghz, it was cheap and it does very well for gamers....ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Oh wait I could have saved 20 bucks and got a much slower AMD. Crap...ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Then I would have had an AWESOME slow CPU instead of a CRAPPY much faster CPU....Roy2001 - Monday, March 31, 2008 - link
Wow, that's superb logic!fitten - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Most games can't "see beyond" one core, much less two, three, or four.nycromes - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
This is what I expected from AMD and from all of you here making comments. It has always astounded me that people will act like these chips are the equivalent of a 500mhz chip compared to Intel's chips. Its like saying my car has 375hp and yours only has 370, my car is soo much better than yours. The difference is there, but for most people, the difference is quite negligable.The differences amount to almost nothing depending on application. Sure there are better parts out there, but competition drives markets to innovate and will bring down prices. Oh how awful. The intel fanboys can ride their high horses still, but AMD releasing better products benefits us all. Try taking your heads out of that little box and looking at the big picture.
I like to see AMD working on new products and hopefully they can get more competitive. We all need to be hoping for this so we don't see slowdowns in development and skyrocketing chip prices. I mean, look at the GPU industry compared to a few years ago and tell me that the situation is great for consumers. More competition = happier consumers. nuf said.
ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
you are right, and you obviously dont game. Intel=FPS=FTWmark3450 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
What a complete strawman. Look at the data, the best Phenom chip is getting beated by the q6600 by 20% in real world performance, not the 1% in your idotic horsepower strawman attack.Yes everyone understands that the lack of competion isn't good. The reason people bitch at AMD is that they want AMD to have a competative offereing, but that data clear says they don't. They know because of that there isn't going to be any competition in the CPU market for a long time. Yes that isn't good, but sticking your head in the sand and denying the reality of the situation doesn't help.