The Athlon II X2 & Phenom II X2: 45nm Dual-Core from AMD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
SYSMark 2007 Performance
Our journey starts with SYSMark 2007, the only all-encompassing performance suite in our review today. The idea here is simple: one benchmark to indicate the overall performance of your machine.
True to its pricing, the Pentium E6300 falls right in between the Phenom II X2 550 and the Athlon II X2 250. Note that the higher clock speed of the Phenom II 550 gives it the edge over the more expensive Phenom II X3 710. The Phenom II 550 is also nipping at the heels of the $133 Core 2 Duo E7500; not bad.
Note that all of the chips are around 50% faster than the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 and over 90% faster than the Pentium 4 660. Chances are, if you own a PC from 2005 then an $80 CPU will give you at least twice the performance.
A Blast from the Past: The Pentium 4 660 and the Pentium Extreme Edition 955
Adobe Photoshop & Video Encoding Performance
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vajm1234 - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
its really hard to believe ad a lil concern for upcoming c2d processors --- why that 6300 sample didnt overclock? wat was wrong 3.7 i xpct normally but i m amazed as its a 45nm.... not 90 or 65crimson117 - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
I'm getting image not found for this first image on the last page of the review:http://www.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/athlon2/l...">http://www.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/athlon2/l...
ShawnD1 - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
I like how you included the overclockability at stock voltage. Since all of my computers use stock heatsinks, overclocking at stock voltage is pretty much all I can do.Gary Key - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
I used the standard heatsink off the Phenom II 940 on the X2 250, 1.4V, and hit 3.825GHz in Win7 64, idle temps around 33C, full load at 54C. I have retail CPUs coming with the new cost reduced heatsink to see what happens but any stock AM2+ heatsink from a Phenom/PhenomII works wonderfully for overclocking these two CPUs.RamarC - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
I know AMD has 'nudged' mobo makers to prevent this, but some still allow it. I'm curious why Anand didn't experiment with it.AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
I figured those extra cores have defects.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
It's more of a timing issue than anything else. I spent a lot of last week working on Lynnfield and there's one more CPU review before this week is up. I am curious about it and will look into it shortly though :)Take care,
Anand
flipmode - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
Hi Anand. Great review, it is much appreciated. The first thing I looked for was a comparison to the Brisbane CPU. To me, a comparison to Brisbane and a comparison to Penryn are the two most interesting.Just thoughts.
ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
I'm guessing if Phenom II X2s use harvested cores, they'll eventually be a limited commodity. Still, the Athlon II X2 seems to have a lot of scaling room left so higher clocked Athlon II X2s will probably do just as well.I just flipped through the benchmarks this morning, but since I was one of those commenting on wanting to see the best of dual core Netburst processors like the 965EE for comparison, I wanted to thank you for deciding to include the 955EE.
ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - link
As a follow-up is AMD still making 90nm dual cores or have they converted the fab to 45nm now? I believe the previous fastest dual core was still the 3.2GHz 90nm Athlon 64 X2 6400+. It's too bad it wasn't included here.