Phenom II - AMD unleashes the Dragon

 

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Posted on 8 Jan 2009 at 14:21

AMD had announced the full details of its new quad-core Phenom II processor. We managed to get our hands on a pre-release sample for advance testing. The processor is built on a 45nm die, compared to the original Phenom's 65nm, this should make it cooler, faster, and less power-hungry. It's compatible with any motherboard using an AMD 7-series chipset, though a BIOS update will be necessary.

The processor is designed for an AM2+ socket, and will be compatible with the upcoming AM3 boards as well - which support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory. AM2+ and AM3 processors are backwards compatible with older AM2 boards as well. Though performance will be limited by those board's slower HyperTransport memory bus.

AMD are promoting the processor as part of their Dragon platform, a successor to the Phenom-based Spider platform. Dragon branded PCs will consist of a Phenom II, a compatible motherboard and an ATI Radeon 4800 series graphics cards. However, it's hard to put a finger on what the exact benefits are of having a Dragon PC as opposed to using an older ATI or Nvidia graphics card.

There will be two initial products at launch, the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, and the 3.0GHz 940. The faster model has an unlocked multiplier, which should make it an ideal candidate for overclocking. AMD reports that it has managed to push it up to 3.9GHz in an air-cooled system and a whopping 6.3GHz in a system cooled by liquid nitrogen.

We ran tests on the 940 at its standard 3.0GHz clock speed, using an ATI Radeon HD 4850. We got an overall PCMark Vantage score of 5,045, which is considerably slower than the 6,483 we saw recently from a PC using a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 - see our Zoostorm Core i7-920 Gaming PC review in What's New, Shopper 252. A confirmed UK price wasn't available when we went to press, but the planned US pricing for the Phenom II X4 940 is $275, equivalent to around ?184 at current exchange rates. This is only around ?45 less than the current price of an Intel Core i7-920.

Comparing these two processors based on their price alone isn't entirely fair. Motherboards and DDR2 memory for Phenom II systems are around ?200 cheaper than equivalent components for a Core-i7 PC. For those with AM2 or AM2+ based systems, the Phenom II should prove a tempting upgrade option. It's certainly worth considering if you're building a PC from scratch as well. Next month we'll be including the Phenom II in our PC building mega-test, comparing it with all the other processors currently on the market.

Author: Kat Orphanides