Reviews - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T: hexa-core computing for the masses

[HEXUS]

AMD launches its fastest-ever desktop processor and gives Intel's Core i7 a run for its money.

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[Queelis]

Very nice!

Now, if only someone were to do a comparison whether DDR2 has a negative impact on performance. How 'bout some love for AM2+ users, huh?

[miniyazz]

Nice. But it would still need to be able to hit 4.5GHz on an H50 to match multithreaded performance with an i7 920 @ 4.1Gz (my clock on an H50).
However you can easily save >£50 by going AMD mobo, which could still make it worthwhile even if it can't make 4.5GHz that easily.

[Jimbo75]

Try not to get too excited chaps.

"Decent overclocking headroom" what? Please look at your headline for the i7 930, and the conclusion of

"Clocks like a champ; 4GHz should be easy as pie"

[kalniel]

Thanks again Hexus, that really is a multi-threaded chip for the masses! Very impressive power characteristics, and good point about the nomenclature and socket compatibility!

Some questions:

I asked before about what happens when you have less than three cores loaded - can it ramp up only two cpus and down clock the remaining four? The reply from AMD seemed to indicate it was possible, but you only test the 3/3 here. Could you double check the 4 down /2 up pretty please?

There's nothing to choose between the quad and hexa-core Phenom IIs, all running DDR3 memory at 1,600MHz. Intel's tri-channel memory controller on X58 continues to create a sizeable performance gap as far as memory bandwidth is concerned.

So why do you think there is a sizeable performance gap for the dual-channel i7 870 and i5 750 as well?

[jim]

Looking purely at ye olde Hexus bang4buck analysis, this seems to have done quite well.

Taking the i7 930 as a fairly good comparison when it comes to price, the X6 seems to beat it a fair few times - and there's still a good chunk to save on the motherboard as well.

[ehhhhhhh]

nice cpu,makes huge sense for the mentioned price especially for current am3 and hopefully for am2+ owners...

I really welcome that you did not waste time on gaming tests this time, however I would have tested how it performs in am2+ if it works at all...

anyway thanks

[scaryjim]

Taking the i7 930 as a fairly good comparison when it comes to price, the X6 seems to beat it a fair few times ...

Try looking closer at the X6 1055T against the i5 750 if you want bang for buck - in mutlithreaded workloads, at least. The i5 750 is faster in terms of single core, but loses *massively* on anything that can make use of those extra cores. I really can't think of a good argument against the cheaper processor...

[Parm]

Some questions:

I asked before about what happens when you have less than three cores loaded - can it ramp up only two cpus and down clock the remaining four? The reply from AMD seemed to indicate it was possible, but you only test the 3/3 here. Could you double check the 4 down /2 up pretty please?

Kal, glad you enjoyed the review, thanks for your questions.

The answer to your first is yes, the Turbo CORE Phenom IIs will dynamically overclock up to three of the six available cores. Here's a shot of the 1090T ramping two cores beyond 3.2GHz. It all happens quickly, so the screen grabs don't give an accurate representation of the fluctuations, but the benchmarks show that it works:

So why do you think there is a sizeable performance gap for the dual-channel i7 870 and i5 750 as well?

We'd put that performance gap down to the larger quantity of L3 cache available to the Intel chips; 8MB as opposed to 6MB for the Phenom IIs.

[ProbablyJoe]

Very interesting. I am now regretting getting an i5 and Maxumus III Formula a week ago. I jumped at some heavily discounted prices, and now Scan's selling the 1055T with Crosshair IV Formula at an identical price for better performance. Hmm.

[razaron]

the phenom x6's are pretty good overall and the gaming performance shouldn't matter much unless you game at 1024x768 or similar resolutions. but i wonder how they do in bad company 2, since it's is properly multithreaded.

[miniyazz]

What sort of O/Cing potential did the 1055T have? (In other words, how worth getting will the black edition be over the 1055T). Presumably the cheaper part will end up being motherboard limited, but if it can get to 4GHz it's probably worth it for most people over the Black Edition.

[Jasp]

the phenom x6's are pretty good overall and the gaming performance shouldn't matter much unless you game at 1024x768 or similar resolutions. but i wonder how they do in bad company 2, since it's is properly multithreaded.

None lol as benchmarks on others websites show, infact it comes out worse then a X4 965 at 1920X1200 with 8XAA 16XAF by 2fps.

[Jimbo75]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/phenom...090t-review/18

As you can see, the X6 performs exactly the same as an i7 980X in BC2.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Phenom X6 processors seem to do very well in video encoding and rendering tasks. Socket AM3 motherboards are also far cheaper than socket 1366 ones too. Hence for video encoding and rendering tasks the Phenom II X6 looks very good value for money.

[HW_90]

Try not to get too excited chaps.

"Decent overclocking headroom" what? Please look at your headline for the i7 930, and the conclusion of

yes but 4GHz is also the max that 930's get, 920's get way higher because the newer the i7 you get, the worse silicon you get.