AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition Overclocking @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition Overclocking - AMD Phenom Black Edition parts are just now hitting the streets and we should see them on retail shelves very soon. We get our hands on one and take it for a quick spin so you guys will know what to expect from the unlocked Phenom.

The retail AMD Phenom Black Edition processors look to have just as much overclocking appeal as our engineering samples if not more. 3GHz from what will hopefully be a $240 quad-core processor is nothing to sneeze at. For you AMD brand loyalists, or if you are just an enthusiast looking to head down the road less traveled, the Phenom Black Edition is the AMD processor you want. And let's be clear, if you want to experiment with overclocking on the Phenom, the Black Edition is the only Phenom that is likely going to meet your needs.
 
nice, are you guys going to do a more in depth review with ocing the HT bus and NB aswell? also is 15x the MAX multiplier you could set?

I take it you guys didn't experience the "tlb" issue ^^
 
Seems like a relatively positive experience. How were the temperatures?
 
Will the Phenom 9600 be the only BE edition, or are more planned to come out on a later date?

I noticed in the article that you load tested the Phenom chips. Does that mean that the TLB look up buffer problem is solved, or does it mean that the TLB is not much of a problem at all?
 
On the chips that would not reach 3.0GHz, were you able to get at least one or two cores to 3GHz?
 
Seems like a relatively positive experience. How were the temperatures?

I was only taking temperatures at the block itself and never saw it get over 95F. It was far from "hot."
 
Will the Phenom 9600 be the only BE edition, or are more planned to come out on a later date?

I noticed in the article that you load tested the Phenom chips. Does that mean that the TLB look up buffer problem is solved, or does it mean that the TLB is not much of a problem at all?

Currently, the 9600 BE is the only one planned, but given the terrible CPU bus overclocking we have seen, I think for AMD to even come close to satisfying the enthusiast base they will have to continue forward with the Black Edition model. That said, until we see a new stepping that has more clock headroom, one is really not needed.

Again, on the TLB issue, I have never seen it be an issue. Ask the editors that have used it as negative fodder against AMD to create the error and show you what happens. They can't. We ran all of our tests with the TLB "fix' turned off.
 
Will the Phenom 9600 be the only BE edition, or are more planned to come out on a later date?

I noticed in the article that you load tested the Phenom chips. Does that mean that the TLB look up buffer problem is solved, or does it mean that the TLB is not much of a problem at all?

It's not solved in this chip- this is a B2, B3 is supposed to fix the errata, and be available in Q1.

Kyle himself has stated that he's had one at 3G for awhile, with NO ISSUES at all.

I haven't seen any evidence of the TLB issue in reviews (unless I missed it), probably because it supposedly only happens under very certain circumstances(including VM from all I've read), none of which are very common, especially to the average Joe.

For average Joe Enthusiast, the TLB bug should not be an issue.

Edit: Seems I'm a lil late Kyle!!
 
On the chips that would not reach 3.0GHz, were you able to get at least one or two cores to 3GHz?

I did not test with that granularity. I think the [H]'ers out there are going to want all or none. :) But we have talked to AMD about that, especially since most games will only utilize one core due to being GPU bottle-necked. Who is to say that we could not downclock three of the cores, giving up a lot of thermal room for the 4th, and being able to clock the hell out of it? Then be able to set a profile for a game that would utilize that core primarily? We have had long conversations with AMD about this and hopefully we will see something like this in upcoming tools. That said, you should be able to do this by hand with a little trial and error and the affinity settings inside the task manager. ;)
 
For average Joe Enthusiast, the TLB bug should not be an issue.

Edit: Seems I'm a lil late Kyle!!

Actually it is good to know I am not the only one that sees this. There are a lot of reasons to pick on the Phenom. I expected better IPC, and PPW. There are two issues to pound on if you want to, but TLB and AMD PR is being drug through the mud by certain sites for nothing other than page hits. If you are going to try to give me drama, at least give me some REAL drama, not something that has no impact on the enthusiast community.
 
I see the "OMG TLB Bug arrrrgh POS" every day.......

Yet I have seen NO evidence of it....

I think it's way overblown.
 
NICE OC.

Would love to see some benchmarks at that speed.
Similar to how the HD3870 is priced lower than the 8800GT, the BE9600 sounds like a good price/performance opponent to the Q6600.
 
So can you turn off the TLB fix via the AMD tool or is it a motherboard bios setting?
 
with any luck, the phenom may turn out to be what the P4 was. anyone remember when the P4 was launched? we had something like 3 or 4 different speeds and they were slower than the lower clocked P3's at the time. it was a joke to begin with just like amd is right now. hopefully they can improve it a great deal more and soon - we may see some competitive phenoms within the year. i hope.
 
Great review, Kyle. It's nice to see the new Phenom stable at 2.8 to 3.0 GHz. And with prices on the decline, this is certainly double good news!
 
So should we expect these available for purchase soon?

This is tempting me, though I just have a standard AM2 board and wouldn't get full benefit... but I'm enthusiastic about having 4 cores at 2.8-3.0Ghz instead of just 2... just... because. Not because I expect huge benefits. Though I have just started playing SupCom :D
 
I'm very interested.. But i am more interested in the AMD OverDrive. That thing looks effing sweet!
 
[RIP]Zeus;1031823724 said:
I'm very interested.. But i am more interested in the AMD OverDrive. That thing looks effing sweet!

That does seem like a sweet utility. :cool:
 
So should we expect these available for purchase soon?

This is tempting me, though I just have a standard AM2 board and wouldn't get full benefit... but I'm enthusiastic about having 4 cores at 2.8-3.0Ghz instead of just 2... just... because. Not because I expect huge benefits. Though I have just started playing SupCom :D


They started shipping this week. Given the holidays, I am not sure when we will see them on the shelves.
 
[RIP]Zeus;1031823747 said:
So Kyle

Have you used AMD Overdrive yet? if so, what is it like?


Well, as I explained in today's article.......also from our Phenom launch day....

A REAL Overclocking Tool


Lastly, AMD has delivered an overclocking tool that actually works and does what it says. Sami Maekinin, an enthusiast brought into service by AMD is the lifeblood behind this product and if you ever see him out and about, make sure you buy that man a beer.

I know very well that the first thing you think of when you hear “AMD OverDrive” overclocking tool is NVIDIA’s nTune tool. nTune has always had lofty goals, but it always has been a flaming piece of shit. AOD is the polar opposite of nTune. AOD while extremely immature works better than nTune could ever aspire to. AOD is still far from perfect, but is still a tool that alone might have the enthusiast purchasing a Spider platform.

And the autoclock feature now works great to scale the CPU bus automatically. Set it, leave the room, it clocks the bus up 1MHz, runs stability test, clocks it up another and so on. Too bad there is not friggin CPU bus headroom.
 
maybe a dumb question, but was this test done with the same mobo as the original, the Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6?
 
maybe a dumb question, but was this test done with the same mobo as the original, the Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6?

Not a dumb question, and YES it was. I had actually set up another mobo to begin with then realized I wanted to use something familiar and the same board we benched with earlier.

It does however have a much newer BIOS on it.
 
So did the Black E 9600 comes with hsf? Haven't read the article yet but I'm looking at a 9600 BE for 215Eur, still got time before the shop close.
 
So did the Black E 9600 comes with hsf? Haven't read the article yet but I'm looking at a 9600 BE for 215Eur, still got time before the shop close.

The product you buy will be PIB and come with a heatsink. This was an "OEM" non-packaged part I was able to get my hands on outside of official channels. Same CPU though.
 
If this turns out to be significantly cheaper than another Intel setup, I may just do this instead.
 
So I'm wondering how well this will overclock with an nvidia chipset.
 
I'll most likely be picking one up when the B3's come out. Seems promising enough and AOD looks sweet...
 
Why are they selling both locked and unlocked versions at the same price? It seems like a rather unnecessary division, since anyone who knows what they're buying will want the unlocked version, and AMD don't make any savings if others purchase the locked version anyway. It would seem like it would make matters easier to sell all 9600s unlocked, since there's no chance of having tons of locked ones in the market which no-one's buying.
 
I've got to say that my experiences with the Phenom processor and overclocking are identical to Kyle's.

The Black Edition is definitely a welcome product.
 
Honestly. Thank you Kyle.

I had been trying to figure out if I should jump ship to Intel and their C2D line, or hope and pray that AMD has a ace up their sleeve. Seems as if you guys handed that to me.

Now I just need to wait for a new bios to come out for my motherboard. Luckily MSI says it's "in testing" so that's good news there too.

You guys just made my Christmas!!!!
 
Kyle,

I noticed on the AMD Overdrive Application screenshot that it was reporting the memory running in single channel mode.

Was this due to the application only reporting on one module or were both sticks really only running in single channel mode?
 
If i recall correctly, single channel is with regards to "ganged" or "unganged" The memory still runs dual channel, but there's a new option with the Phenom's memory controller. But someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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