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greyhavens24
Perhaps my previous comments in “Are we missing something?” are less than factual but here’s one post that isn’t.
Tom’s Hardware has recently reported on some hidden technology locked away in Black Edition 8000 (X3 Phenoms) and 9000 (X4 Phenoms). Apparently these processors feature “hidden pins” on the processors and chipsets that enable overclocking via the SOUTHBRIDGE which will automatically overclock the processors.
If you are running an upcoming 2.8 GHz Black Edition CPU, a motherboard with the old SB600 model (RD690) will keep the processor cores operating at 2.8 GHz. However, if you have a motherboard with the SB700 chipset, you will receive a free upgrade to 3.0 GHz. And if you get a motherboard with a SB750 chip, your processor will run at 3.2 GHz, which matches the clock speed of the Athlon X2 6400+ - the highest clocked processor AMD ever offerred.
The 780G, 790FX and 790GX chipsets all support this feature. Once AMD can unlock the potential of the Phenom this could yield a bit of an unwelcome surprise for Intel, right on the cusp of a major architecture change.
The release date of this technology is unknown, but it will be available in time for the 790GX launch.
Interesting times as I said previously. I still feel that there is an awful lot of potential to unlock in the Phenom as it is early days in the roadmap . Overclocking aside, as this is not the “be all and end all” of what makes a CPU great, when you take a look at other publications reviews of the Phenom’s they are far more favourable than CPC whose views are somewhat skewed towards the overclocking of hardware. Don’t get me wrong I overclock myself hence the reason I love CPC, but it isn’t what drives me to my purchases. CPC’s sister publication PC Pro (also by Dennis Publications) rate processors on Performance to Price i.e. Bangs for your Buck!
When you look at this the Phenom is mixing it with Intels very favourably. One of Toms Hardware’s recent reviews of Phenoms show that the the Phenom X3 8750 (2.4 GHz) is only 3.2% slower than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33 GHz) for a similar cost (at the time of the review), but you gain the extra core which yielded a massive 55.8% increase in speed when encoding in Mainconcept H.264 Encoder and was actually 10.8% quicker than the Intel part in Supreme Commander. Not all is as rosey though in apps that don’t utilise the additional core though with Warhammer Mark of Chaos running 21.9% slower than on the Intel E6550. Do bear in mind though that AMD 8750 is giving away 700MHz per core to the E6550 and this could represent some of the performance in the non-multicore tests. Interestinly Tom’s Hardware also notes that the AMD Phenom X3 8750 is only 14.2% slower overall than an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 but the Phenom is 26.4% cheaper! This is what illustrates how important “Bang for Buck” is and why the Phenom is not as bad as initial CPC reviews make it. I can’t recall one review of Phenoms in CPC that don’t mention how bad the overclocking potential is and this then makes it a poor performer.
In my experience overclockability is usually down to steppings and dates of manufacture. Historically the reason you can massively overclock is that when there is a shortage of a certain CPU resulting in faster chips being downclocked to meet a demand or similarly a manufacturing fault that means a production run is notched back a bit due to Quality Control tolerances not being neccessarily stable. This would enable us to seemingly overclock a processor to a high degree. I know this personally because I have and Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz) running at 2.95GHz on air using nothing more than 268Mhz Bus and an AC Freezer 64 Pro. Another good example was some Radeon X1800 GTO’s being able to be unlocked to X1800 XT’s and gain a whole quad pipeline of vertex and pixel shaders and ROPs with nothing more than a BIOS flash. The key thing here is that SOME CPU’s or GPU’s could be overclocked to larger degrees.
Given this, I can’t help feeling that the overclockability of Intel CPU’s is a marketing ploy of Intels, a good one I’ll agree, but a ploy nonetheless. Given that virtually ALL the Intel range overclock by 25-30% I think it entirely possible that ALL the chips are in reality underclocked and that by overclocking these chips they are simply running at the speed they were intended and in reality not overclocked at all. You may well argue that this isn’t so because you have to overvolt, but the same may apply, you are actually running them at the clock speed and voltage that they were originally designed for. To a degree the Bus speed at which you overclock (and hence possible lower mulipliers) is largely governed by the quality of the hardware around the CPU i.e. Motherboard, RAM etc. In my experimenting, Lowering the multiplier had little effect on performance but a larger effect on system stability due to the fact that the FSB/Multiplier combination had less of an impact on Athlon 64 X2’s due to their Hypertransport not having a reliance on FSB frequency in the same way as Intel CPU’s quad pumped approach does.
I’m sure someone will miss the observations again and I’ll get some negative comments. Bring it on that’s what discussion is all about, but lets have some challenges to my obeservations this time not negatives about my facts. This time the facts are their for you to go and look at.
I hope this blog proves as interesting as the last LOL!
Interesting article but 26.4% cheaper X3 8750 to Q6600? Scan is showing the two CPUs (retail) at:
£123.38 X3 8750
£131.20 Q6600
For me the AMD just isnt cheap enough to justify it being 14.2% slower, especially when you consider the overclocking ability of the Q6600. I’ll pay the extra £7.82 for 14.2% performance increase thanks.
I like the idea of the Phenoms upping the clock speed of the CPU without any user intervention. Its like a free upgrade! I personally overclock manually but for the people who dont this could be a welcome suprise. I’ll have to research this for myself me thinks!
Kudos on welcoming the neg comments too. When I write I like to stimulate responses both good and bad. You can please the many and its nice to upset the few otherwise whats the point in writing. Check Jeremy Clarkson. I’d bet he has as many haters as fans.
Not a hater just one of the few that pointed out facts.
The reason C2Duos & Quads are so overclockable has nothing to do with underclocking it mostly has had to do with nm die sizes the smaller the cooler the chip runs and the less juice it uses.
Intel have been consistantly ahead of AMD in this respect espically with their jump to 45nm.
I used to be a real AMD fan but the facts are out there and it really is pointless to get all fan boi-ish about equipment that is slower and hotter.
I really hope Fusion comes along and shakes the tree though, its just that AMDs aging 64 architecture is now becoming quite outdated.
Thanks Veato, I would like to point out that pricing was part of the Tom’s Hardware review and I did say at the time of going to press in the article. I agree with you absolutely that £7.82 is not a lot to pay for extra performance.
The jump to 45nm has not affected overclockability as mentioned by D Simpson though they were just as overclockable when they were 65nm. The point I was trying to get across was that they are ALL highly overclockable something you don’t get on every single chip. I remember when you looked out for certain fab dates and steppings in order to get this level of overclocking previously. Now all of a sudden you can go out and get a Pentium Dual Core and it overclocks by 1GHz.
If Core 2 is so scalable why are they getting rid of it in favour of Nehalem then? Why not just bring out a faster one that overclocks then if they have AMD beat? Why invest in new architecture when the old works so well? I still can’t help thinking Intel are not being entirely straight.
Any body else got an opinion?
why invest in Nehalem when Core is doing fine? because getting ahead of yourself before anyone overtakes you is the best way to keeping pole.
it is a good point though that Phenom is possibly the most under-rated CPU since. stop bagging it… its actually quite alright.
CPC readers are overclockers and they do take price to performace reviews but the AMD does rather poorly in the CPC benchmarks.
There is nothing wrong with Phenom other than the clock speed is a bit low and they dont have 12mb (is it 4.5mb of cash total) of cash. This could be got round with overclocking but as said the do not overclock well.
I got a feeling that if an amd went head to head with an intel with the same clock and cash the amd would win as the structure is just better.
The (Q9300) Processor 2.5GHz 6144KB It’s just poor compared with the rest of the 9000 and even the 6000 series due to the lack of cash mean while the Phenom must make do with even less.
My comment meant that intels overclocked more (like pentium dual cores)
When they were at 65nm and AMD were still stuck at 120nm. Chips always overclock to a degree but AMDs have been bad for overclocking or have you found chips that can jump from 1.6 to 3ghz easily like the pentium dual cores ?
Remember just because some chips overclock doesn’t mean they will last running at that speed for any length of time.
Although just saying that nm size doesn’t effect overclock ability is obviously proof !
Funny you didn’t reply to your earlier post eh 
Hi D Sampson,
As far as I was aware AMD have been 90nm for quite a while and Phenom is the first 65nm core. Contrary to your observations I currently have an AMD 64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz) running very nicely at 2.8 GHz for the last 9 months on nothing more than a 255MHz HTT by 11 Multiplier and an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (I have had it as high as 2.98 but it was a bit flaky, but worked). Not as good as a Core 2 but pretty good for a 90nm design. I have been around computers since the early eighties and have always had the urge to overclock - sometimes with disastrous results.
What I have been referring to is the fact that the reason my Athlon 64 X2 overclocks so nicely is that I managed to source a certain fab and manufacture date which allowed me to unlock the potential of my little cracker (which incidentally ain’t far behind a Core 2 Duo - not bad for £40 and is certainly fast enough for me! I was just wondering if Intel are actually “sandbagging” and not being entirely honest about clock speeds. If some fabs of Intel were able to overclock to these massive degrees then I’d agree that it’s all down to the architecture but if ALL the processors can do it from bottom to top of the range, my personal opinion is that this isn’t typical.
I totally agree that the Core 2 and kin are superb processors and one of Intel’s finest products. I also agree that 65nm is also hobbling the Phenom but not because of heat though. A Phenom X4 actually has a lower TDP than a Core 2 so it’s something a bit more fundamental probably due to the fact that Phenom B3’s aren’t overly fond of overvolting as this DOES cause them to generate a lot of waste heat. I suspect that the Phenom needs a redesign of the coolers as don’t forget that they are still designed for Athlon 64 X2’s not the Phenom X3/X4. It’s early days for Phenom and I’m pretty sure that AMD will emerge leaner and meaner from their latest slide, they are after all the perennial underdogs.
Thanks for the reply though, nothing like a good discussion to get the cogs a going huh!
Cool_CR’s CPU has onboard cash. I wish my CPU had onboard cash although if it did I would probably remove it
(Dont be offended Cool, Its only a little jibe)
AMD still aint coming up with those Brisbanes and other low wattage CPUs — and here comes E8400 that can be undervolted and ran at approx 35W at an amazing 3Ghz. Phenoms and like are only 3/4cores — apps are generally not heavily multithreaded so it ends up not being so green having too many of em. not to mention that TLBs of Core 2’s are more focused on L1 than the more balanced AMD’s meaning C2D’s can punch through out of order executions and hence games better. again, AMD aint CRAP!
@greyhavens24: any overclocker should get after market HSFs anyway. i stuck my intel HS onto my router with thermal paste. and manufacturing process dont help much — unless you got the same archi in a much smaller nm — its archi mainly than it is to nm (my old PII 300 was o/c’d to 533mhz with a dusty hsf and ran 24/7 over months)
Good points thegreat0mi,
Platform is very important. When I had my own computer retail outlet a few years ago, I always used to explain to my customers that a PC is only as good as it’s weakest part. Putting a great chip in a poor motherboard just doesn’t work.
After my experience with my current DFI mainboard and my AMD 64 X2 4200+ (see one of my other posts “How relevant is overclocking”), I have to say that I would seriously consider another DFI but they can be a trifle difficult to source sometimes.
Anyway thanks for the comments, much appeciated.