AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE & 945 AM3 Processor Review @ EOC!

[Jason]

EXTREME Overclocking has just posted a review on AMD's Phenom II X4 955 BE & 945 AM3 Processors.

AMD is stepping up its game with the launch of two new flagship AM3 processors to succeed the original Phenom II X4 940 & 920 AM2+ models. These processors will be known as the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (3.2 GHz) and Phenom II X4 945 (3.0 GHz).

Read The Full Review @ EXTREME Overclocking

Here's a list of other reviews for comparison (in no particular order):

• Tech Report
• Hot Hardware
• PC Perspective
• Anandtech
• Benchmark Reviews
• Bjorn3D
• Tech Spot
• NeoSeeker
• Overclockers Club
• Icrontic
• Guru3D
• ClubOC

It's really interesting to see the spread on overclocking, both in terms of speed & voltage needed.

[Mizzou]

Good review Jason. Getting 3.7 on stock voltage is pretty impressive, will be interesting to see if this processor running native on an AM3 board will be able to hit the 4.0 mark on a consistent basis.

[Jason]

One thing I noticed is that AMD lowered the max temp to 63C. I'm not sure if it was coincidence but I noticed when it hit that temp one of the cores cut out. Unfortunately I didn't get as much time to play with overclocking as I would have liked, but once my AM3 board arrives I'm going to dive back in with this chip.

The 955 BE is a nice chip, but the price drop on the older 940 BE makes it a very tempting purchase for a good & cheap AM2+ setup.

[danthompsett]

Its to soon im broke can't afford it besides be better to wait for 995, are AMD planning Triple Channel DDR3 support yet, if not there goner fall behind intel again, intel will doubtless be planning a new arctitecture supporting even faster version of DDR. Can the chip drop to 1066ddr from 1333ddr to up the FSB? Still not managed to stabily drop to 800ddr from 1066 to up the FSB with the 940

[Jason]

I don't think they are planning triple channel support for the Phenom II line. There might be a small performance gain but it certainly wouldn't be fully utilized. On the other hand, with Intel's Core i7 there was the inherent need for more memory bandwidth because of the design of the cores and HT so a quick fix was to add a 3rd channel. Anandtech has a good read in one of their older articles about why triple channel...

We are starting to see early demos of Istanbul (AMD's 6-core chip), but that is going to be for the server market and I do not know when that will trickle down to desktop.

[danthompsett]

6 core sounds good but whats up intel's sleave there still a menace on the horizon as far as performance is concerned, its only the huge price tags that lets them down.

[ether.real]

Originally Posted by Jason

One thing I noticed is that AMD lowered the max temp to 63C. I'm not sure if it was coincidence but I noticed when it hit that temp one of the cores cut out. Unfortunately I didn't get as much time to play with overclocking as I would have liked, but once my AM3 board arrives I'm going to dive back in with this chip.

The 955 BE is a nice chip, but the price drop on the older 940 BE makes it a very tempting purchase for a good & cheap AM2+ setup.

The max temp is the same as the 940 but less than the 720.

[danthompsett]

I foolishly ran the cpu without bleeding out bubbles when i had my old wimpy 87lph pump, thankfully that doesn't happen with 600-750lph pumps, temperature in bios shot up to 73'c, it was as if it wasn't pumping. But the chip clearly survived.

[CaligulaPwns]

Well now I know why the other thread disappeared...

Nice review. I saw over at XS someone got 4Ghz on stock volts (was stable) and then saw the previously "removed" review Ether did that couldnt hit 4Ghz...

Additional Comment:

Originally Posted by Jason

On the other hand, with Intel's Core i7 there was the inherent need for more memory bandwidth because of the design of the cores and HT so a quick fix was to add a 3rd channel. Anandtech has a good read in one of their older articles about why triple channel....

Thats an interesting take. Here is another POV describing the opposite:

We have seen today that dual channel memory on the Core i7 is more than enough to keep it fed with bandwidth, especially since the CPU and memory are communicating with each other directly. There is very little lost bandwidth and it makes better use of all of the dual channel memory than the triple channel memory. However, with Intel’s plans to increase speeds and allow heavier memory usage, especially with IGP based systems, the extra bandwidth will end up being welcomed.

Our moral to this story is if you’re planning on a Core i7 system, don’t just go out and buy triple channel memory straight away. If your budget allows for it, then by all means more memory will help, especially in Vista. However, with today’s results you can see that dual channel memory is more than capable of keeping up with the Core i7.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/16..._it/index.html

[Jason]

I just removed the other thread to keep the discussion on 955 reviews consolidated since I posted links to a dozen other sites too.

I'll agree there isn't *that* much performance lost if you run a current i7 in dual channel from the benchmarks I have seen. But from the "theoretical" throughput numbers that is why they went to tri-channel. It probably was also done looking towards the future as they drop the process to 32nm and speeds increase, also for six-core chips. Though by that time I'm sure there will be even newer chipsets out... *shrug*

It's all just an attempt to take our money!

[levathar]

Originally Posted by Jason

I just removed the other thread to keep the discussion on 955 reviews consolidated since I posted links to a dozen other sites too.

I'll agree there isn't *that* much performance lost if you run a current i7 in dual channel from the benchmarks I have seen. But from the "theoretical" throughput numbers that is why they went to tri-channel. It probably was also done looking towards the future as they drop the process to 32nm and speeds increase, also for six-core chips. Though by that time I'm sure there will be even newer chipsets out... *shrug*

It's all just an attempt to take our money!

Well, they insist to have their ands in our pockets eh eh eh.
But I am ok with older intel strategy, if they had not released 775 chips with diferent FSB sppeds I could not make decent rigs out of dual core cely and Q6600, with cheap G31 chipset boards.
Still got a 939 rig to upgrade but can't do it now.
Maybe after some aditional price drops?
EH EH EH

[nicky.82uk]

i've just order Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz , MSI 790FX-GD70 , SAPPHIRE HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E for my next rig