AMD's Phenom X4 9950, 9350e and 9150e: Lower Prices, Voltage Tricks and Strange Behavior
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Gary Key on July 1, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Intel Makes 45nm Affordable
Remember this chart from a couple of CPU reviews ago?
It helped explain why Intel's first Penryn microprocessors, based on its new 45nm process, cost so damn much. In short, the chart showed that in Q1 and for much of Q2, the demand for dual and quad core CPUs exceeded what Intel was able to supply in 45nm versions. However today is July 1st and we're now entering the third quarter, which is when we first predicted we'd see 45nm 1Ku and street prices collide. Have they?
| 1Ku Price | Street Price | Premium | |
| Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 | $1399 | $1470 | +$71 |
| Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 | $999 | $1019 | +$20 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 | $530 | $539 | +$9 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 | $316 | $329 | +$13 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 | $266 | $270 | +$4 |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 | $266 | $264 | -$2 |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 | $183 | $190 | +$7 |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 | $163 | $183 | +$20 |
The table above speaks for itself, while the ridiculously priced QX9770 will set you back $70 over what Intel's 1Ku pricing sheet indicates, the rest of the chips are priced very close to what their 65nm ancestors were priced at. At the lower end of the spectrum the Core 2 Duo E8200 remains an exception, costing over $180 instead of the $163 we'd expect to pay for it. I suspect that within the next month or two you'll see the E8200's pricing fall in line with expectations, just as the rest of the lineup has. The new $133 golden boy, Intel's Core 2 Duo E7200, is actually selling for $129 these days - making it the new value leader from the boys in blue.
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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 = ROFLMAOThe 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)