[bkwegoharder]

That means more confusion,. but it also brings more price points and more bang for buck offers that AMD has been offering now.

Lets go over AMDs current cpu line.

There is the

Sempron
Athlon 64 LE
Athlon 64 X2
Athlon X2(Kuma)
Athlon II X2
Phenom X3
Phenom X4
Phenom II X2
Phenom II X3
Phenom II X4

They are bring out the new Athlon II X3 and X4. There are rumors that the X4 will have unlockable L3 cache though, and yes it does make a good difference on performance.

AMD Athlon II X3 and X4 in September, Phenom II X4 965 with 125W confirmed - AMD, Athlon II X2, Athlon II X3, Athlon II X4, Regor, Rana, Propus, Phenom II X4 965 - PC Games Hardware

http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/17488

The Phenom II X4 965 is already released, it has a 3.4GHz clock rate but it has a 140Watt TDP, there is a new 125Watt revision coming in september though. It's like the Phenom II X4 945 that got a revision which sent it from 125 Watt to 95Watt. In benchmarks the Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.2GHz seems to equal the Core i7 920 @ 2.8GHz, with gaming, everything else the Phenoms seem to lose. So, in a purely gaming situation, the Phenom II X4 965 is slightly stronger than the Core i7 920, and it costs less, but the i7 overclocks much farther, the Phenom II X4 965 is near the peak clock rate that the Phenoms can possibly go, and reviewers say that they were having hard times getting it to 4.0GHz. The i7 can get to 4GHz a lot easier even with the lower clock rate.

 

[nanaya]

at least the socket is clear enough...
and yes, someone does unlock the L3 cache of Athlon II X4
"unlockable" has become a key marketing for AMD since the Athlon 5000 BE day xD

 

[LoneWolf]

the athlon IIx2 are sweet. 45nm overclock like nuts, run very cool.

 

[jembut]

hey guys just curious?? does phenom II really surpassed phenom (I) in peformance at the same clock, i already test in sisoft sandra etc .the result not so different (just very little phenom II win over phenom I)

p.s

anyone already try regor ?? how far that chip can overclock on stock voltage???

 

[masta.g.86]

For the hundredth time, yes Phenom II is faster clock for clock.

You can't rely on synthetic benchmarks to reliably compare two different CPU cores.

 

[StriderVM]

That's the problem with synthethic benchmarks, although it shows absolute numbers it cannot even accurately depict general performance. And it will show bizarre results/behaviour that cannot be replicated in real gaming/application stuff.

That's why the Phenom 2 is quite suggested, it's as good, if not better than the latest Core2Duo's while also being cheaper. The Corei7's are currently a bit more expensive, especially due to the change of new motherboards/RAM as well.

 

[LoneWolf]

phenom II x2 550 is just as overclockable as an E8400 and gives almmost the same performance. It is also 60$-70$ cheaper.

 

[bkwegoharder]

the Phenom 2 X2 doesn't give performance anywhere close to the e8400. And it doesn't overclock as well, it is rare to find one at 4GHz, while the e8400 can get there easy.

 

[LoneWolf]

Lol :lol:

who told you that.

the PII x2 550 give performance slightly slower than the E8400.

 

[bkwegoharder]

AnandTech Bench (beta): Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 vs AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE


The Phenom II doesn't win in not ONE test. And no, not all of them are synthetic benchmarks. This shows performance with gaming, video encoding, audio encoding, 3d rendering, Photoshop, file restoration, disc image creation and compression. The Phenom doesn't win any.

Make sure you look and see if the benchmark says higher is better and lower is better since that throws people off sometimes. There is no proof that the phenom II is slightly weaker. It is a lot weaker. that is why it is almost 100 dollars less than the e8400. And it has 6MB of L3 cache instead of faster L2 cache. The e8400 has 6mb of l2.

 

[LoneWolf]

ok, gaming may be no but it is still very close except in crysis.

 

[makotech222]

anyone else hate the naming scheme for AMD cpus? i can never tell whats good at all.

 

[Princess Garnet]

I don't hate the naming scheme itself, but rather the confusion all of the names cause. There's too many of them. I mean, take a look. You have the Athlon 64, the Athlon 64 X2 (wasn't it just called the Athlon X2 back in it's time?), the Athlon X2 (the new one, the one that is Kuma and based on the Phenom II, yet not only is it not called the Phenom II X2 then, but there does exist a Phenom II X2 as another CPU!), the Athlon II X2, the Phenom X4, the Phenom X3, the Phenom II X4, and now we have the Althlon II in X3 and X4 flavors, and the Phenom II in X2 and X3 flavors. Did I miss any (not counting the Sempron, and the LE and what have you suffix versions)? If so, I rest my case. I can just see that guy who made that video mocking poorly named sequel schemes ripping on all of this.

Let's make a grouping of them. This seems to add some order to the chaos.

Althlon
Athlon 64 X2 (I thought this went by just "Athlon X2"), Athlon X2

Athlon II
Athlon II X2, Althlon II X3, Athlon II X4

Phenom
Phenom X4, Phenom X3

Phenom II
Phenom II X4, Phenom II X3, Phenom II X2

I guess it's not that bad, right? You have the name, and then the number of cores it has. The problem is, there's too many. The Phenom and Phenom II are running at once. The Athlon and Athlon II are running at once. Discontinue some? Why make an Athlon II X4 if you have the Phenom/Phenom II for that to be your quad core CPUs?

AMDs lineup and naming scheme is quite chaotic right now, but I remember everyone hating on Intel's news of it switching it up when they went from rating the GHz to giving them model numbers.

 

[gamefreak94]

anyone else hate the naming scheme for AMD cpus? i can never tell whats good at all.

lol yeah. Athlon X2, Athlon II X2, Phenom II X2. And to make matters even worse, they aren't sticking to the Pentium performance scale either i.e. before they were called (e.g.) Athlon X2 5600 but now they're called (e.g.) Phenom II X2 550.

Edit: Seems like LZ already covered it.

 

[Phil]

They should drop the whole X3 lineup

 

[gamefreak94]

Why? Its a good option for people who want more then 2 cores for whatever tasks but can't afford a quad-core.

Oh, and there's the possibility of unlocking the 4th core which reels even more people in.

 

[nanaya]

anyone else hate the naming scheme for AMD cpus? i can never tell whats good at all.

i think it makes sense...

e.g
Phenom 9XX - quad core with full 6MB L3 Cache
Phenom 8XX - quad with crippled 4MB L3 Cache
Phenom 7XX - tri core, full 6MB L3 Cache
Athlon 6XX - quad core, no L3 Cache
Phenom 5XX - dual core, full L3 Cache
Athlon 2XX - dual core, no L3 Cache

that's the whole lineup afaik. generally phenom brand have L3 cache while Athlon have none.

 

[bkwegoharder]

I don't hate the naming scheme itself, but rather the confusion all of the names cause. There's too many of them. I mean, take a look. You have the Athlon 64, the Athlon 64 X2 (wasn't it just called the Athlon X2 back in it's time?), the Athlon X2 (the new one, the one that is Kuma and based on the Phenom II, yet not only is it not called the Phenom II X2 then, but there does exist a Phenom II X2 as another CPU!)

Uh, none of the Athlon X2s are based off of the Phenom II. They are all based on the original Phenoms. I think that people called the Athlon 64 X2s Athlon X2s to shorten it up, so when AMD decided to ditch the 64 part to let people know that the athlon X2s were different, it caused confusion. All of the Athlon X2s are based on the original Phenoms. Those are the Kumas. They are based only on the original Phenoms. That is why they don't clock to high even when some of them are black editions.

So if you want to get a good AMD cpu, just get one of the lines that has II. Like Athlon II X2, or Phenom II X4. The athlon X2s are being fazed ou and they are based off of the original Phenoms. They are actually kinda weak, but they were priced very very low. They are obselete now though since the Athlon II X2s perform much better and are priced very low.

 

[Phil]

Or be a man about it and go Intel

 

[bkwegoharder]

Oh and I think that the Phenom II X4 are native quad core designs, when some of the cores are defective, they simply disable them and sell them as X2 and X3 in the Phenom IIs. The Athlon II X2s are cpus with defective L3 cache I'm guessing, instead of just throwing them away and losing a lot of money, they simply lock them and sell them at lower prices. It's kind of like what Intel does with their Celerons.

It's actually smart since the Phenoms (I and IIs) have huge die sizes and they are expensive to make. More expensive to make than Intels offerings. To make it worse, Intels offerings are stronger in general and they use less power and produce less heat. So in order to actually try to compete they have to sell the cpus at low prices and in the end they aren't getting high returns. so, in order to squeeze everything they can out of their lines, they sell the cpus that would normally be thrown out. That way they don't lose out completely and they get better yields.

Or be a man about it and go Intel

Yeah i7 or bust.