What are some of the features of the Phenom II?

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Limp Gawd
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I have already decided to upgrade from my Q6600 and get the new Phenom II x4 940 Next month. just to support AMD. but I am curious to know what sets it apart from the Intel chips. From what I can see it wont have hyper-threading support like the i7 which is a bummer. I know AMD always had IMC. which intel has now adopted. and Amd's are also true Quads, but what other features does the architecture have?
 
DDR3 memory support, 6mb of L3 Cache...45nm shrink= lower power consumption, generates less heat.

Your probably won't notice much in an upgrade from your Q6600. The important thing is AMD is making the move to DDR3, which is a future technology.
 
Phenom II is essentially a faster Phenom. There are no particularly major architectural changes, aside from some tweaks here and there and apparently a much better BPU. In short, to the end user, there really aren't any significant facts you need to know about the CPUs.
 
790FX+SB750 mobos look good, if Phenom II could match C2Q performance clock for clock and it can reach a higher clock speed easily, I think that it could be an upgrade path. DDR3 is still too expensive for Core i7.
 
I think from what I am reading a Phenom II on the 790FX/SB750 boards even with the DDR2 will be a good setup to compete.

Add the DDR3 into the mix it only improves it.
 
xdivenx said:
DDR3 memory support, 6mb of L3 Cache...45nm shrink= lower power consumption, generates less heat.

Your probably won't notice much in an upgrade from your Q6600. The important thing is AMD is making the move to DDR3, which is a future technology.
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I thought they were to have 8MB cache ? Also they will bring speeds of up to 3.0 GHz where the current Phenoms top out at 2.6 at stock speeds which is great as some of us don't overclock :)
 
Simmonz said:
I thought they were to have 8MB cache ?
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6MB of L3, 512KB of L2 per core = 8MB total. It's an increase of 4MB of L3 compared to Phenom, but the L2 is staying the same, which is why the poster you quoted only mentioned the L3.
 
Zero82z said:
6MB of L3, 512KB of L2 per core = 8MB total. It's an increase of 4MB of L3 compared to Phenom, but the L2 is staying the same, which is why the poster you quoted only mentioned the L3.
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That makes sense. On another note does anybody know what the highest speed of DDR3 RAM the Phenom II motherboards will support at stock ? I am expecting either 1066 or 1333 but I have not been able to find any articles to give an answer.
 
I'd guess 1600, considering they're launching enthusiast class motherboards and processors...
 
Drakan290 said:
I'd guess 1600, considering they're launching enthusiast class motherboards and processors...
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That would be nice. I was aiming low because the AM2 boards didn't support DDR1066 at stock (the AM2+ did but not the AM2).
 
I know my 780G board supports DDR2 1066, so i'd imagine they're going to go for the highest end they possibly can...
 
Drakan290 said:
I know my 780G board supports DDR2 1066, so i'd imagine they're going to go for the highest end they possibly can...
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The 780G was a AM2+ chipset if I am not mistaken, which was when 1066 support was officially added. The normal AM2 boards only officially supported DDR2 800 to my knowledge. I hope they support DDR3 1600 on the Phenom II boards, I will happily pay for DDR1600 RAM.
 
I think AMD is smart by still letting users pick DDR2 for their Phenom II's. A lot of people still aren't bought on it because of its high cost and little to no performance gain in the real, perceivable world.
 
any one know what the power consumption is conpared to core 2 duo? i want to switch to amd and sell my aging rig.
 
I guess both. im guessing better than 65nm but not beating 45nm.
 
From what it looks like Phenom II is simply going to be what the original Phenom was paper launched to be, with a die shrink and all its benefits. Honestly it looks like Phenom was not what they designed it to be, it was what they settled with due to all the hiccups and delays. Phenom II they took the time to actually implement their design and a few tweaks from lessons hard learned.
 
I have built low cost and "fast enough" SQL Servers using AMD. I needed fast but cheap and AMD provided that. Yea, I could have gone intel and got 10-20% more speed for 50% higher price.
 
am i the only person that never did, doesnt, and probably enver will care about power consumption for an enthusiast/gaming rig? sure lower is better, but it isnt a deal maker or breaker in any way.

about DDR3...i wouldnt go DDR3 until RAM rpices drop a lot. DDR2 still has headroom left for most current chips. i believe the main reason Intel went DDR3 with the i7 is b/c they didnt want to support 2 memory standards on each CPU's IMC. AMD had a LOT of memory compatibility concerns when they introduced the IMC, maybe Intel wanted it to go as smooth and stable as possible.

i'm all about supporting the industry no matter which company gets my money (ive owned way more AMD and ATI products than Intel/nVidia) but i dont think youll see ANY upgrade over your Q6600 assuming you OCed it somewhat. i do hope im wrong....really, but when the brand new 9850BE couldnt compete with the at the time 1.5 year old Q6600, AMD will have to prove they can run with Intel at the same price points.
 
well i didnt care about power consumption either, but i moved into an apartment and doing what i can to cut the heat being produced. since i dont game much anyway ima downgrade my video card also. To many other they might not care .
 
Since I just built my 9950 system, Will the Phenom 2 accept DDR2 memory also or is it DDR 3 only...
 
xdivenx said:
I think AMD is smart by still letting users pick DDR2 for their Phenom II's. A lot of people still aren't bought on it because of its high cost and little to no performance gain in the real, perceivable world.
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This....
 
Thing is that AMD already had a DDR2-compatible socket, and Intel didn't (not for Core i7 anyway, with an IMC). Intel would have to launch two new sockets, one for DDR2 and one for DDR3. The DDR2 socket would then probably be abandoned after a year or so, because DDR3 becomes mainstream... Doesn't make all that much sense, especially since Intel already offers a decent DDR2 platform with Core2.
 
Somnambulator said:
am i the only person that never did, doesnt, and probably enver will care about power consumption for an enthusiast/gaming rig? sure lower is better, but it isnt a deal maker or breaker in any way.
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If you care about cost, you care about power consumption. If at any point in your consideration you factor in cost, then power consumption effects things like price/performance.

If you build a system based on a fixed budget and you don't consider even the short-term total cost of ownership, you might make the wrong decision and not even know it.

If money is no object, then power consumption really wouldn't be relevant.
 
The latest from Fudzilla...

DDR3 Phenom will speed up 5 percent
Over DDR2
We’ve learned that once AMD launches its Phenom II DDR3 versions in AM3 socket, this might boost your overall performance by up to 5 percent.

This is not really miraculous, but all who go for a DDR3 platform might actually have a slight gain in performance. The price advantage still stays with ultra cheap DDR2 memory and if you are not latest greatest you would rather stick with DDR2 as it will be fast enough.

The upcoming AM3 chipset won’t overclock much better, it will offer the same overclocking performance as the same chipset for DDR2 and if you remember, AMD’s memory controller is inside of CPU. The Phenom II, Deneb core in AM3 has both DDR2 and DDR3 memory controller and if you plug it in AM3 you are stuck with DDR3, while the same CPU in AM2+ will be DDR2 only. This only works with Phenom II AM3 CPUs, while the first two to launch as AM2+ are limited to DDR2 only.

The DDR3 platform for Phenom II with new set of CPUs is scheduled for February launch.
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Source: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10821&Itemid=1

If that doesn't clear it up for those confused about the new
Phenom II's, I don't think anything will... ;)
 
Somnambulator said:
am i the only person that never did, doesnt, and probably enver will care about power consumption for an enthusiast/gaming rig? sure lower is better, but it isnt a deal maker or breaker in any way.

.
Click to expand...

Count me in. I never factor in power consumption, especially before performance. I pay for my hydro but if my PC needs to consume more power to give me better looking games than so be it.
 
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