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
Gaming Performance
Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander is a popular RTS (Real Time Strategy) title that can be very CPU dependent. Our benchmark involves playing back, as fast as possible, a 4-person match and recording the simulation time for the replay in seconds.
We ran Supreme Commander at 1920 x 1200 with High fidelity presets, v-sync was disabled.
Here's one area where AMD needs pure clock speed to keep up, even the old X2 6400+ is able to outperform the latest Phenom processors. As long as you have two cores you're golden in Supreme Commander, but AMD's K8 and Phenom architectures are clearly slower under Supreme Commander.
Crysis
The most demanding FPS on the market right now is Crysis, and we couldn't resist using it as a benchmark. We ran at 1024 x 768 with Medium Quality defaults and used the game's built in CPU benchmark.
More than anything you're going to be GPU limited with Crysis, but in terms of how well these CPUs handle the workload given to them by the game - Intel continues to take the cake here.
Oblivion: Shivering Isles
Our Oblivion benchmark is the same one we use in our GPU reviews. Oblivion can vary from being CPU limited to GPU limited depending on the scene, we picked one that was GPU limited to illustrate that even with a wide array of CPUs when you're GPU limited, the differences can be little if anything:
Half Life 2 Episode Two
Half Life 2 is obviously more CPU limited these days, and we continue to see that Intel is ahead of the pack when it comes to pure CPU gaming performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
65 Comments
View All Comments
The Jedi - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I'm pretty much with you, but just to comment on this part:"As for price the q6600 is dropping all over the place... Frys had it for 180 yesterday, Microcenter has it for 200."
It's a common misnomer to see a sale price on something and then get it locked into your head that that price you saw one time is the price you should expect to pay for something from then on. For example if the company that rhymes with hell is advertising a PC with monitor for $299, even if it's THREE DAYS ONLY in the fine print, or like after rebate, people tend to get it stuck in their head that "a new computer" can be had for a mere $300, when a wiser person would know something that cheap would be like 3-year old tech/speed, likely with dead pixels and a 6-bit analog LCD panel, Windows Basic, stuff like that.
Companies sometimes have a sale on one thing hoping you'll buy items with it, which allows them to make money. Just wanted to throw that out there.
bigboxes - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
How old are you? What's with all this "ownage" crap you are spewing? Do you really tie in your self worth to the cpu you use (feel free to substitute car, house, salary)? Most of us mature individuals who have actually reached adulthood just want the best performance for our dollar, not ownage just to inflate our e-penis.Nice article.
RamarC - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
it's "funny" that anand forgot that the e6750 is $180 (not $266) and that the 3ghz oem e8400 (sans cooler) is in-stock and available for $200. the e8400 would certainly push a couple of phenoms lower on the chart.and it's also "funny" that anand's comparing projected phenom prices (since they aren't available yet) with real street prices. wait until you can get street prices before claiming a better price/performance ration.
Margalus - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
apparently you didn't read the article. The amd chip is not as good as intel currently, but they aren't crap.And if you read the article you would have seen that they still recommended and intel cpu for a new system, so it definately wasn't written with payola in mind from amd.
ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
We read it, cmon you didnt see any slant towards AMD? Come on, be honest :)And it sounded like they were about to cry when they recommended Intel (plus the long in the tooth comments geez, I mean really, Intels old crap sucks and should die but AMDs latest and greatest ALMOST beats Intels crap wow what logic, LOL). Hey I wish AMD were top dog again. I loved the Athlon XP's & 64's. But facts are facts....
hooflung - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Well look at it this way. Enthusiasts do not drive the market. System builders and servers do. AMD is able to bring competitive prices to the OEM channels and that will also translate to the server markets for the Phenom Opteron lineup.AMD is still largely competitive with Intel at the server level with the Phenom where TLB, the now strong point of the Phenom, is implemented better.
To keep your servers sponsored with a healthy company, IT departments will purchase desktop parts when refreshing hardware. It would be nice for AMD to be able to boast the crown but their company is still profitable, ie in business, by offering parts that sell well.
Also, its not wise to accuse Anand to being bribed. He's been saying this for a long time and he's enthusiastic that AMD is finally making good on their goals. Fanboi squat somewhere else.
michal1980 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
How is this NOT a fluff piece? A 'new' cpu (Thats only new because the first time around it had a bug) thats 4+ months late to the party.Is being beaten by processor that was launch over a YEAR ago.
In gaming the new processor has even been beaten by a X2 6400+!!!.
Thats CRAP. How old is that cpu?
and yet we get conclusions that this is more like the "Amd we're used to seing.. a competitive AMD"? Competitive excatly how? I'll grant you this will push intel to release there 45nm cpu's... But its not like intel is sweeting.
Futhermore, How can you come out and say the Q6600 is long in the tooth, when its better then the new stuff amd has on the market?
Long in the tooth because 12+ months after being released its faster then a brand new amd chip? long in the tooth because its easy to find one for 250, and on sale for less? Or just long in the tooth because It just beats the AMD right now, and doesn't whoop them by 20%+?
I'm standing by my claim this article is fluff/ BS . its written in a postive spin for amd.. When the AMD processor has clearly been beaten again/still.
Goty - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
I love how fanboys like to conveniently "forget" about the few years that AMD was dominating Intel in pretty much every benchmark when it was the Pentium 4 against the Athlon64.VashHT - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
I don't get what you're saying, are you implying that phenom is competitive because A64 dominated the P4? Funny how you can call someone a fanboy when you're bringing up 2 processors that don't matter in the current market.Goty - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
You kind of have to read the previous post wherein the author implies that AMD has never been competitive, which it has been numerous times. My example was merely the latest and had no bearing on the current generation of products.