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AMD Overclocks New Phenom II X4 To 7 GHz
CWmike writes "Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday introduced the latest member of its Phenom II X4 family of high-performance quad-core CPUs, which the No. 2 chip maker said it had run as fast as 7 GHz in extreme overclocking tests. Out of the box, the new X4 955 Black Edition, which is aimed at gamers and hobbyists, runs at 3.2 GHz, giving it similar performance to Intel's fastest desktop chips at lower cost, AMD says. The company was able to more than double the CPU's speed during its tests using extreme cooling technology that is not safe at home, said Brent Barry, an AMD product manager. The Web site Ripping.org notes that hobbyists with early access to the X4 955 chip have been able to clock it at up to 6.7 GHz. AMD said the chip was safe with fan cooling at up to 3.8 GHz."
Without a doubt, the CPU-only upgrade is the best deal (I'm going to do the same to my Barcelona Opteron server systems once the BIOS upgrade to support Shanghai comes out), but a Core i7 upgrade (X58 motherboard, Core i7 CPU, DDR3 RAM) isn't as much as you think:
That's all you need to replace, as your existing power supply, video card, hard drives, etc., will all work just fine. So that's $698 for a system that will absolutely crush the Phenom-based system. Even at the stock 2.66GHz, the i7 920 is a beast compared to the socket AM2+ Phenoms.
The socket AM3 Phenom 955 is a good budget choice for a completely new computer compared to the i7 920, but it still requires a new motherboard and RAM for an upgrade, and then it loses on price/performance.
The Phenom 955 is backwards compatible with socket AM2+, so you don't necessarily have to purchase a new motherboard and RAM to use it. You do miss out on some features (DDR3 RAM, I think HyperTransport is slower, that sort of thing), but I believe they have a fairly minimal effect on the workload of average users.
The Phenom II line is such a small increase in perfomance clock-for-clock compared to older chips that use the AM2/AM2+ motherboards that even $200 is really a waste. The only real advantage is the Phenom II can be found a higher stock clock speeds.
So, without the DDR3, you really don't have a lot of reason to upgrade. If you already have one of the AM2+/AM3 combo motherboards that supports DDR3, you can do a CPU and RAM upgrade for about $340 and get a good increase
Where Phenom II shines is the ability to spend only about $420 or so for motherboard/CPU/RAM. But I'd still rather pay $250 more and get twice the performance on single-threaded apps, and as much as 4-5x the perfomance on multi-threaded apps. The Core i7 Hyperthreading isn't like previous CPU family Hyperthreading...you really do almost get a full extra core per thread.
My current tower (Althon64 X2/a great 780G mobo/8GB DDR2 800 CL4/good Seasonic CPU/Antec 300 case/WD 640GB AAKS HD) was only like $400 TOTAL!
I've got to call "bull" here. Even if you bought this today with prices dropped, you'd spend around $450:
If you purchased very long ago, the CL4 DDR2 RAM would have been closer to $200.
$700 for something that doesn't really beat just getting the $200 AMD CPU by much, despite costing 3.5x as much.
Apparently, you haven't seen the benchmarks or used a Core i7 system. When I say they crush the Phenom II, I'm not exaggerating. Some things take quite literally 1/4 the time. If you are multitasking at all, you can really see the difference. I can run the Prime 95 torture test with 4 workers and still do normal computing without even noticing. Try that with any AMD processor.
If you include the Core 97 940 like I said before (something that's actually noticeably faster), then you're over $1000.
Anything more than the 920 is a waste of money. Only the 965 has an advantage in that it is fully multiplier-unlocked, but the 920 is unlocked between 12x and 20x. With that plus changing the BCLK, you can get pretty much any combination of CPU and RAM speed you want. With DDR3-1600 so cheap, this means the only limit to running the speed you want is cooling, and the 940 requires exactly the same cooling clock-for-clock as the 920.
I'm running the 920 at 3.33GHz (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro as HSF) and RAM at DDR3-1333 with no voltages out of spec. In fact, I'm under-volting the RAM (although I have raised it from the default 1.5V to 1.6V...still below the 1.65V spec). I also still have the Intel Turbo enabled, so for single-core apps, I can get over 3.5GHz. The CPU temps are still 20C below thermal shutdown even when running 8x Prime 95 torture tests, and in line with the 940 temperatures at stock speed.
So why would anyone pay literally twice as much ($560 vs. $280) for a CPU that runs slower?