The AMD Phenom II Review

by **agent047** Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:29 am

Ever since Intel launched its “CORE” series of processors, the designers at AMD have been
having sleepless nights. To keep themselves abreast of the competition, AMD has
now launched the Phenom II series of processors. These are available in
following models namely: X4 940 Black edition @3.0 Ghz, X4 925 @Ghz, X4 810
@2.6 Ghz, X3 720 Black edition @ 2.8 Ghz and X3 710 @ 2.6 Ghz.

The Phenom 2 has been built on the same architecture as that of its predecessor Phenom yet
has a 9.5% smaller die size. This
coupled with a L1 cache of 128 Kb, L2 cache of 512 Kb and a L3 cache of 6 Mb
(shared among all) does promise to give its rival a run for its money. However
the first setback here is that unlike the Intel i7, Phenom 2 cannot switch off
all its idle cores- thus increasing heat build up and electricity consumption.

The designer have come up with some neat architecture for this baby: AMD plans to
launch this series with a AM2+ socket followed by low voltage tri-core models
with DDR3 support. This means anyone with a motherboard based on AMD 780G, 790G
or Nvidia 780A, Nvidia 750 Sli support can run the Phenom 2 just by flashing
their BIOS. Here again the latter part is dangerous as one false move and the
MoBo would end up like the circuit board worn my Abhishek Bachhan as the black
monkey in Delhi 6.

All in all, backward compatibility, support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers, more
room for overclockers, new patented Cool’N’Quiet technology makes the Phenom 2
a worthy contender for the title of fastest processor on the block. But here
again we have to wait for further models and also wait for Intel’s answer for
the same. What would it be- the i7 successors or the Phenom II or better still
AMD’s Spider series of processors; that would steal the win. The winner takes
it all this year.

Post in your comments here so as what do you stand for- Intel or AMD? Or just give out
your rants for either of these Titans.