Phenom 9900 reviewed!

just from everything that's happened with amd and ati over the past year i just cannot get excited about them anymore, maybe next year when its time to upgrade again i'll look into amd but as it stands amd has converted me into an intel man! :(
 
How is that promising?

Also, this:
Gamespot said:
AMD stressed to GameSpot that the problem is extremely rare. So rare, in fact, that users will be able to use the AMD OverDrive utility to disable the errata fix to get full performance out of the processor. The Asus motherboard we tested did not have a BIOS fix, but we did not notice any system instability when we benchmarked our Phenom engineering sample using the motherboard's shipping BIOS. Please keep in mind that our test results show the Phenom running at full power without any errata fix limitations.
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made me lol. I mean, I can get ten to forty percent performance back, but my system might BSOD every few weeks? No thanks.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
How is that promising?

Also, this: made me lol. I mean, I can get ten to forty percent performance back, but my system might BSOD every few weeks? No thanks.
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You pulled that "every few weeks" right out of your a$$. You have no clue how frequently the bug will be hit. Anyone who overclocks and at the same time flips out about this particular erratum is a hypocrite in my mind. Every Hz above stock risks a crash, just as dropping the BIOS patch will give double digit boosts for an infinitesimal chance of a crash.
 
The difference is that I test for stability in Prime95 for 72 hours rather than the traditional 12 or 24. I also run my rig for weeks on end without rebooting. If it BSODs, I *DO* back down on the OC while I attempt to pinpoint the problem.

Yes, I did pull the few weeks out of my ass, but for certain people with certain workloads, it could be every time they go to run their favorite program. You don't have any more concrete information than I do, otherwise you'd have already tried to shove it down my throat. In my opinion, "might crash every few weeks" is rather conservative.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
The difference is that I test for stability in Prime95 for 72 hours rather than the traditional 12 or 24. I also run my rig for weeks on end without rebooting. If it BSODs, I *DO* back down on the OC while I attempt to pinpoint the problem.

Yes, I did pull the few weeks out of my ass, but for certain people with certain workloads, it could be every time they go to run their favorite program. You don't have any more concrete information than I do, otherwise you'd have already tried to shove it down my throat. In my opinion, "might crash every few weeks" is rather conservative.
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Do you have any idea what sort of technical conditions cause the bug? Do you run applications that are likely to cause it? Are you blowing hot air out of your ass for no reason? Did someone plant this in the media and the fallout was 10x worse than even they expected? No, No, Yes, Yes. That's my guess, but hey, I might be blowing hot air out of my ass. Does the same thing.
 
is it just me, or is none of this erratum discussion even applicable to the 9900 phenom that will actually be shipping for mass consumption?

All Phenom processors, including the Phenom 9700 and 9900 shipping in mid-to-late Q1 2008, will have revised cores with an erratum fix in place
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its just an engineering sample they were testing that still had the bug

that major turn-off for me is the much higher real-world power consumption of the 9900 i've seen in other reviews. hopefully the revised core will have improvements in that area
 
So AMD has a CPU that still doesn't compete clock for clock with an intel design that's a year old? What the hell has AMD's R&D been doing? I'd like to see some competition come back to the market.
 
My 4200+ is only 5 hours dual prime 95 stable, core 1 could prob go forever but core 0 keeps slippin up. I use windows vista ultimate, along with an overclocked video card, I have never had any form of overclock related crash, or any crash for that matter. Only once on vista have I gotten a blue screen, and that was an IRQ less than or equal too when booting up. I fold 24/7 for the most part when I'm not gaming. And this PC is way more stable then when I had my SC opteron + 2x512 OCZ VX which was 18 hours prime 95 stable.

Prime 95 stability is nice, but its not the end all stability test, I also do 2 instances of 32m superpi. Then 8 hours of RTHDRIBL at full screen.

I honestly don't think a phenom BSODing randomly every few weeks is going to be a problem for about 98% of the people in the market for them.
 
They said it BSODs when using virtualization and maxing out all 4 cores. Unless there are other circumstances to.. I cant say that would hurt me personally.
 
The TLB error has absolutely no impact on desktop apps. I have run the things for weeks OCed to 3GHz without issues. AMD fucked up and handled the PR on this totally wrong. They let is seep out instead of taking the bull by the horns.

You can disable the TLB correction in the AOD panel and you are back to "normal." Don't let the chicken littles tell you anything else about TLB. SHow me one journalist that has been able to identify the problem themselves? None.
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Wait, so just to clarify. Kyle, how is the performance with it disabled? Hopefully no one responds with "Intel is better" but i would like to know the performance at those speeds say compared to an equivalent speed dual core at 3.0
 
people who have no freakin idea what they are talking about normally spew in those comments.

errata has never effected a gamer as far as I can tell.

what the problem is the wattage usage for the lack of processing speed. that is something that cannot be fixed anytime soon. If amd was 15% slower on load but like 30% less wattage on idle, they would have a clear intel beater in many ways.

look at the 3870. it is selling out completely on sites. it is slightly slower in most cases than a 8800gt (when aa/af isnt cranked) yet I bought the 3870 over the 8800gt for its much better thermal characteristics and UVD.
 
Looks like buying ATI wasn't such a mistake afterall.... if AMD wants to survive they are going to have diversify. They need a miracle to even catch up to Intel let alone pass them in the CPU market
 
osalcido said:
Looks like buying ATI wasn't such a mistake afterall....
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Purchasing Ati wasn't a mistake, the timing was a mistake. Would AMD be in such hot water financially now if it didn't purchase Ati last year? Can anyone make an educated guess about that?
 
Gamespot doing hardware reviews? Oh god I laughed so hard I think I pissed on myself a little bit.
 
visaris said:
You pulled that "every few weeks" right out of your a$$. You have no clue how frequently the bug will be hit. Anyone who overclocks and at the same time flips out about this particular erratum is a hypocrite in my mind. Every Hz above stock risks a crash, just as dropping the BIOS patch will give double digit boosts for an infinitesimal chance of a crash.
Click to expand...



I am quoting you because I wanted to point out one thing, AMD WAS BUILT ON THE BACKS OF OVERCLOCKERS!!!!

You can search back as far as you like, that is one of the main selling points for their CPUs!!!
 
Leon2ky said:
Gamespot doing hardware reviews? Oh god I laughed so hard I think I pissed on myself a little bit.
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Dont see whats so funny about that.

PC IGN is what got me into this industry initialy. If it werent for their hardware reviews I probably would have never wound up here at the [H].
 
DemonDiablo said:
Dont see whats so funny about that.

PC IGN is what got me into this industry initialy. If it werent for their hardware reviews I probably would have never wound up here at the [H].
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Because Gamespot fires their editors that make honest reviews. :D
 
APOLLO said:
Purchasing Ati wasn't a mistake, the timing was a mistake. Would AMD be in such hot water financially now if it didn't purchase Ati last year? Can anyone make an educated guess about that?
Click to expand...

I don't get that...when would you have had AMD buy ATI? Time is not on AMD's side. You suggest they should've waited... then get to work on AMD fusion a year late?
 
osalcido said:
even if it does, that's not the mass market for cpus... I would guess that 90% of folders know Intel will outperform AMD.. wouldn't make sense to build a folder out of AMD parts
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I agree. A folding rig runs at full load 24/7. The goal in my eyes is to purchase what gets you the most performance for the electricity that the computer is using over time.

The Phenom uses slightly less power than a Q6600, but even the QX9650 uses noticeably less than it. The Q9450 will use even less, and be faster than any Phenom available still. Folders should wait for the other 45nm quads if they're considering adding to their boxen right now.
 
I thought folders used what wasn't being used. As in they use their main computer and those 10 past cpus and motherboards hobbled together into barely working machines because otherwise all that hardware would go to waste. You mean people buy EXTRA NEW computers just to fold with?!

The world's gone mad. ;)
 
havand said:
I thought folders used what wasn't being used. As in they use their main computer and those 10 past cpus and motherboards hobbled together into barely working machines because otherwise all that hardware would go to waste. You mean people buy EXTRA NEW computers just to fold with?!

The world's gone mad. ;)
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That would also be very poor usage in my mind :eek:
 
lol, it's already debatable as to what the RL benefits are for folding, buying new gear to speciifcally fold with would just be silly.
 
havand said:
I thought folders used what wasn't being used. As in they use their main computer and those 10 past cpus and motherboards hobbled together into barely working machines because otherwise all that hardware would go to waste. You mean people buy EXTRA NEW computers just to fold with?!

The world's gone mad. ;)
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I think you should head over to the DC forum. You'd be surprised what dedicated folders use to fold with. Yes some actually do purchase new computers for folding, myself included. Nevertheless, it's always with an overall cost objective in mind, of course. ;)

 
osalcido said:
I don't get that...when would you have had AMD buy ATI? Time is not on AMD's side. You suggest they should've waited... then get to work on AMD fusion a year late?
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Yes, that's exactly what I was suggesting, even if it would have delayed AMD two years or more. When you're faced with a prospect where your very survival is at stake, you do not take risky ventures. Would AMD be worse off now without Ati? Would Ati be worse off? I don't think so. In any case, one year is not sufficient to judge. We can revisit this controversial acquisition in Q3-Q4 next year, because by then the Ati purchase will pass its second birthday and we can better gauge what if any benefits the acquisition imparted to either company. Providing AMD can hold it together financially for another year at its current operational state. I fear the stock is not looking well of late...
 
So they are basically selling a chip that has bugs in which might cause it to crash. And by disabling certain bios features, the bug is fixed but you lose performance? Why would ANYONE want to buy this chip? AMD has gone downhill very fast.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
The difference is that I test for stability in Prime95 for 72 hours rather than the traditional 12 or 24. I also run my rig for weeks on end without rebooting. If it BSODs,
Click to expand...


HAHAH dont we all... we all say we run prime for at least 24 hours, and we all swear we use our machine to the max....

All though I agree, a stock system, at full preformence should be stable for weeks on end. (at stable as windows will let it be) At least when I crash from a overclock it my fault.
 
I don't think anyone actually ran into that problem while testing or using any Phenom CPUs so why the hell are we making such a big deal about it?

Anyway, going past that, the 9900 seems to be fairly close to the Q6700 clock-for-clock...so if indeed it'll cost around HALF, it could be a great deal. The problem is that Intel's new mid-range CPUs will probably be faster and also cost around $300-400...while using less power on top of everything.
 
Mr. K6 said:
So AMD has a CPU that still doesn't compete clock for clock with an intel design that's a year old? What the hell has AMD's R&D been doing? I'd like to see some competition come back to the market.
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They sent their R&D overseas. My Father lost his job because of it. THAT is what they did. :mad:
 
schizrade2 said:
They sent their R&D overseas. My Father lost his job because of it. THAT is what they did. :mad:
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The majority of R&D is still in North America, i.e. Sunnyvale, Austin, Santa Clara, Markham, Boston, Ft. Collins. The design centers in Bangalore and Dresden take on a minority share of the total R&D.
 
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