AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
DivX 8.5.3 with Xmpeg 5.0.3
Our DivX test is the same DivX / XMpeg 5.03 test we've run for the past few years now, the 1080p source file is encoded using the unconstrained DivX profile, quality/performance is set balanced at 5 and enhanced multithreading is enabled:
DivX encoding performance is hot on the heels of the Athlon II X4 620, but still slower. Once more we're about the same speed as the Phenom II X3 720.
x264 HD Video Encoding Performance
Graysky's x264 HD test uses the publicly available x264 codec (open source alternative to H.264) to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.
x264 encoding performance is noticeably slower than the quad-core offerings. Even the 2.3GHz 605e is faster than the X3 435. Compared to the equivalently priced dual-core options from Intel however, the Athlon II X3 435 is without a doubt the chip to get. If you're encoding video however, you're probably better springing for the $99 quad-core.
Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Advanced Profile
In order to be codec agnostic we've got a Windows Media Encoder benchmark looking at the same sort of thing we've been doing in the DivX and x264 tests, but using WME instead.
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Fleeb - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Or maybe, these three are just the same person craving for attention in real life he cannot have. Do not hate the guy. Pity him.mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Sorry for the double post! The submission form just gave an error
the first time round, but I guess it went through anyway. Anand,
please feel free to delete this post and my previous duplicate.
Ian.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Anand, just curious, the test platform description includes mention
of an X58 mbd, yet there are no i7 results in the tables. How come?
Then again, including a couple of data points from a P55 with an
i5 750 and i7 860 would be more useful. AMD wins on price by a mile
of course (personally I reckon the 620 is the best buy much of the
time) but for those occasions where only 1 or 2 threads are running,
the i5 750 might win on price/performance. If it's deemed appropriate
to include a top-end Ph2 in the results, then surely at the very
least the i5 750 should have been included aswell just to put things
into perspective? I would include an 860 aswell just to show where
the curves are heading on the Intel side, but nothing above that.
And btw no, I don't agree with anything maddoctor says. Speaking of
which, can you please ban the guy? Once again the discussion section
of an otherwise interesting article is just being filled up with
junk. To everyone else: please don't reply to his posts, you're just
making it worse. It's a sad fact of nature that half the population
have got to be below average. Who _are_ these people? Sheesh, I can
almost hear the banjo, da da ding ding ding... :D
Ian.
PS. One other thing Anand, have you ever tested how high the 620
can be oc'd with a *good* air cooler? I know the retail AMD cooler
allows it to reach 3.25, but what about with something better? Someone
mentioned the Coolermaster Hyper TX2 as being a suitable alternative.
rupa - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
hi ... my 620 is stable till 3.380 (260x13) - noctua nh-u12p default vcore x64 asus m3a78tmapesdhs - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Anand, just curious, the test platform description includes mention
of an X58 mbd, yet there are no i7 results in the tables. How come?
Then again, including a couple of data points from a P55 with an
i5 750 and i7 860 would be more useful. AMD wins on price by a mile
of course (personally I reckon the 620 is the best buy much of the
time) but for those occasions where only 1 or 2 threads are running,
the i5 750 might win on price/performance. If it's deemed appropriate
to include a top-end Ph2 in the results, then surely at the very
least the i5 750 should have been included aswell just to put things
into perspective? I would include an 860 aswell just to show where
the curves are heading on the Intel side, but nothing above that.
And btw no, I don't agree with anything maddoctor says. Speaking of
which, can you please ban the guy? Once again the discussion section
of an otherwise interesting article is just being filled up with
junk. To everyone else: please don't reply to his posts, you're just
making it worse. It's a sad fact of nature that half the population
have got to be below average. Who _are_ these people? Sheesh, I can
almost hear the banjo, da da ding ding ding... :D
Ian.
PS. One other thing Anand, have you ever tested how high the 620
can be oc'd with a *good* air cooler? I know the retail AMD cooler
allows it to reach 3.25, but what about with something better? Someone
mentioned the Coolermaster Hyper TX2 as being a suitable alternative.
Zool - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
For a fast compare with other procesors the test setup is not bad but for some people some the benchmarks could be misleading.People will not buy these cpu-s just to put them together with a intel SSD drive and a gtx280.
I think it wouldnt take much longer to test it with average hdd and a sub 100$ gpu. I would care much less if i cant compare it to other anad tests with high end cpus.
Zool - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
For a fast compare with other procesors the test setup is not bad but for some people some the benchmarks could be misleading.People will not buy these cpu-s just to put them together with a intel SSD drive and a gtx280.
I think it wouldnt take much longer to test it with average hdd and a sub 100$ gpu. I would care much less if i cant compare it to other anad tests with high end cpus.
7Enigma - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Zool,The purpose of using an SSD is strictly for the variability between tests. What Anand's site never shows (and one of my major complaints) is % error. In any statistical measurement you always present the amount of error in a test. What this might show is there is no REAL clear winner, or very little difference as when you get close (say within 5%), and you have a large variability (say due to a standard HD or run-to-run variability), the numbers become moot.
I will agree with you on the GTX280, however, as that is a pointless component for this price sector.
7Enigma - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
As an example I went back and looked at the game data. The Fallout3 data is generated MANUALLY by running through an area and using FRAPS. The X2/X3 chips are bunched up with less than 1 fps between them. I would wager a hefty sum that the % error in this test is greater than 1fps and so any chips within that range are EQUAL. Same goes for Left 4 Dead...maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I don't see anything wrong for the benchmark setup, but other SSD products are not competitive and have lower performance than Intel products. The most wrong thing about is Anand is compare AMD rubbish product to Intel products.