AnandTech: AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition

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AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition

Date: January 8th, 2009
Topic: CPU & Chipset
Manufacturer: AMD
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi

Buy the AMD HDZ940XCGIBOX Phenom II 940 Black

	$145.99
	$159.99
	$159.99

POV-ray 3.7 Beta 23

POV-Ray 3.7 beta 23 - SMP Test

Once again, the Phenom II is very competitive on a cost basis in this 3D rendering application while remaining very close to the Core 2 series on a clock speed basis.

Multi-threaded par2 Archive Recovery

Data Recovery - par2cmdline 0.4 Multithreaded

Our Data Recovery test shows Phenom II equalling or bettering the Core 2 series due to a test that favors the IMC designs over the cache centric Core 2.

Blender 2.48a

Blender 2.48a Character Render

Blender shows Phenom II less competitive than the other 3D rendering tests we've seen thus far.

Microsoft Excel 2007, Sony Vegas Pro & Sorenson Squeeze

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91 Comments - Last by Walkeer, 117 days ago

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Bravo by Kromis, 397 days ago

*Stands up and applause*

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RE: Bravo by wowo, 291 days ago

how x264?

x264 benchmark is 819,very old.

now is 1139.Improved a lot

please ues new x264,more scores will be Changed.

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. by san1s, 397 days ago

still slower than core 2?

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Food for thought! by slayerized, 397 days ago

AMD has indeed made some notable improvements with Phenom II and their 45nm. Reviews keep mentioning about how there is an upgrade option with Phenom II being AM2 compatible; however, what next (this is probably their last product with AM2 compatibility)? Shouldn't the reviews consider the upgrade options for Core i7/X58 with Westmere in a couple of years too? For someone who is considering a fresh build, I think that is something that should be analyzed too imo. Great review otherwise as always; the playing field if not leveled is at least starting to look competitive in a few segments!!

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RE: Food for thought! by Griswold, 396 days ago

No. Facts and "might turn out that way in a few years" arent the same thing.

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Funny thing happened... by kmmatney, 397 days ago

I was on a plane flying back from Taiwan (I work in the Fab industry) and I happened to sit next to an Intel employee who had traveled to Asia for the Core i7 launch. I asked him about the small L2 cache, and he explained that these run about 300 test applications, and chose the cache amounts based on a compromise between performance (and latency) and die size. We talked a bit and he asked me how I knew so much about computer hardware, and I mentioned I'm an avid Anandtech reader. He recognized the name, and mentioned that he saw Anand argue with one of his coworkers for quite some time about the L2 cache size!

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RE: Funny thing happened... by Zaitsev, 397 days ago

That's a great story! I would love to see anand duking it out with some intel employees! LOL

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So who wants to buy me one? by Goty, 397 days ago

If I didn't have a 5000+ BE sitting in a K9A2 in my rig right now I probably wouldn't consider this CPU, but seeing as I do, it looks like I've found my next upgrade.

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Why Q9450 is often slower than Q9400 by kknd1967, 397 days ago

I thought Q9450 should be better with larger cache?

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RE: Why Q9450 is often slower than Q9400 by Anand Lal Shimpi, 397 days ago

In some of the tests the two will swap places simply because they run at the same clock speed and the added cache doesn't always help performance. In those cases if the Q9450 is behind it's most likely due to normal variation between test runs.

Take care,
Anand

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