Phenom X3 8750 reviews and Overclocking

[Silverel]

You can find a whole bunch of reviews on the X3 line now. On average they OC rather well, around 2.8ghz. Lower results claimed they couldn't push past 2.6ghz, others got as high as 3.1ghz. Nice amount of variation, but more likely due to reviewers missing out on key OC elements.

At any rate, on of the more interesting reviews that I found was a comparison on the mid-range level. All the benchmarks include stock and OC'ed results for the X3 8750 @3ghz, and an X2 5000+ BE @3.4ghz. Other Phenoms at stock were tossed in the mix for deeper reference, and an Intel E6750 @ 2.66ghz.

Neoseeker

The differences between multi-threaded apps, and single-threaded apps are quite significant. An OC'ed 5kBE is still a damn good processor for the AMD camp.




For comparison to Intel processors, I had to hit up another site (PC Perspective). Unfortunately, they didn't include OC results with their benches, so you'll have to go with the previous relative placement to make a decent guess.

Our Lame MP3 encoding test really only uses two cores so the X3 8750 performs just as well as AMD's quad-core parts.

Games however are hit and miss across the board. It just depends on how the gaming engine handles multiple cores, and in reality is going to depend a whole lot more on your videocard.





Now, being that there's a dozen sites out there, all doing their own review with different benchmarks, there's a lot left to be analyzed and sorted out. So before I go any further, let me just make something rather clear.

Intel has better processors

With that comes better speed, top of every review chart out there, lower power requirements, and less heat dissipation. AMD can't beat them on any of these things, even price/performance is a gray muddy world, and really depends on the moment. Why bother reading any of this, or posting in the thread if you're a Intel fan? Well, simply don't.

I have an AM2+ board, with a 5kBE. These things are relevant to me, and a handful of others on this site. Try not to bog us down by stating the obvious aforementioned above. It simply makes more sense for me (and others) to continue with the platform that's already paid for and running. A single upgrade makes much more sense that a whole new system.

Now then, moving along.

I am curious as to personal experiences with an X3, if anyone has one up and running. Seems to me, on a general basis considering the dozen reviews that I've looked through, the price/performance is slightly less than an X4, until you consider the differences in overclocking. With a x4 9850 generally you can hit about 3 ghz. This is the same with an X3, 3ghz a little over. Considering the same architecture, where's the real benefit? The only thing I can think of that might make a difference is the L3 cache is shared between only 3 cores, instead of 4, and is the same size. (c0)512K+(c1)512K+(c2)512K+2048K= 3.5MB. The other thing, that would hopefully happen, is that they'll hit better yields by disabling the slowest core in a quad, and making for higher potential overclocking. Time will tell on that matter.

Where's the x3 Black Edition?

Ah, well, I'm stupidly interested in the X3, it's at a nice price point, shows better results in a handful of things than my 5kBE, and is a viable upgrade option for the summertime. Post your thoughts/observations, and OC results if ya got em.

Thanks!

[spearman914]

OMFG!!!! TRI-CORE is finally out!!

[cray86]

I was just checking out LegitReviews review on the 8750 and to me I'm quite impressed with its performance over the 5000 BE and then once overclocked to 2.9Ghz, almost the same performance as a 9850 BE!!

[Silverel]

Ah, another review site that I have a good amount of respect for is Bit-Tech.net

They managed to push the x3 8750 to a nice 3.3ghz


Not to mention they do their benches with OC'd results (@ 3ghz) and use a wide array of processors all in the same graph...

Unfortunately, they report using HTML instead of a pic, so ya'll will just have to go and check it out yourselves. In their conclusion it basically comes down to a matter of pricing. The X3 is too close to a quad to make any sense as an upgrade path, once it drops another 20-30$ or so, it'll be more in its place price-wise. Overclocking results look rather promising, and unlike some other reviews, it's more limited by heat, and the fact that AMD Overdrive didn't seem to be working correctly. Their HT link locked up at 2.2ghz, but if they could have pushed it further, with better cooling, overclocking may have continued well past 3.3ghz

What I found interesting in a handful of the benches was how high this X3 made it up the charts when OC'd. Half the time it topped out the AMD line, and clock for clock against an older X2, seems to have a ~15% performance advantage. This was all well and good until I got to one of the last pages and damn near burned out my eyes when I saw the amount of power this thing can suck on...

OC @ 3ghz, and 1.425v on the chip, when loaded, draws just about 350w of power.

Q6700 at 300w stock speeds
E8500 at 200w stock speeds

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

basically my cpu choice is dictated by my mobo. i dont care what else comes out on the market anymore .. im going q6700 and call it a day.

[suraswami]

"I have an AM2+ board, with a 5kBE. These things are relevant to me, and a handful of others on this site. Try not to bog us down by stating the obvious aforementioned above. It simply makes more sense for me (and others) to continue with the platform that's already paid for and running. A single upgrade makes much more sense that a whole new system."

Well said.

"I would say I.... Fanboys go sh.t on your own pants not here"

Hey good to hear the X3 are shaping up well. Hopefully Jetway releases a bios update to handle the X3/X4 soon.

[trog100]

it strikes me the phenon with an unlocked multiplier is the one to buy for anybody that wants one to go at its best.. i would guess a tri-core version will appear soon.. hopefully.. he he

trog

[Silverel]

Sharkey Extreme has a pretty good setup for their reviews, and more often than not overlook many releases of new hardware. Normally I use them for their weekly CPU and memory charts, but seeing as how they did a review of the X3, I decided to take a look.

Benchmarks are pretty similar to all the rest, I'd appreciate their layout if they ranked their results from best to worst, but at least they have the reviewed target standing out with a big red bar, with the amd and intel processors ranking in as green and blue respectively. Take a peek if ya like, but I've seen enough of where it stands at stock speeds.

Overclocked, they reached 2.94ghz before hitting their max, only using 1.25v and keeping a rather low temperature. Not bad for a release sample, and about the norm for B3 phenoms.

The core temperature of the 2.4 GHz Phenom X3 8750 was noticeably lower, sitting in the 35-38 degrees C at idle and 42-45 degrees C at load, compared to high 40's and low 50's, respectively, for a same-speed Phenom X4.

Another thing to note from their results was load power consumption at stock speeds. Lower compared to the X4 line, and even a handful of intel quads. Their idle consumption was a bit high, but considering the margins (10% more than a QX9650, 10% less than an X4) it doesn't seem so bad.




A little bit of respect goes a long way in my mind, and while they acknowledge that Intel is far superior, they still give the X3 some props for being a bit outside the box. I can't stand review sites that beat this processor to death for trying something different. It's been done before, and should really be left to the fan-boys of the world, and not a respectable reviewer.

As it is, their conclusion summed things up rather well.

Conclusion

The implications of the Phenom X3 8750 launch are very clear, and AMD is providing a "better than dual core" solution to compete directly against Intel's Core 2 Duo. This should also ring the dinner bell for systems using the low-cost AMD 780G chipset and its Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics. The Phenom X3 operates at lower thermal and power specifications than a quad core X4, making it a perfect match for the 780G and an attractive upgrade option for current AM2 owners. Budget minded gamers will like the 2.4 GHz clock speed, but at the end of the day, the Phenom X3 has done nothing to change Intel's stranglehold at the high-end.

Pros:

* Better-than Dual Core Multithreading
* Lower-than Quad Core Power and Thermal Requirements
* Good Overclocking
* Updated B3 Core
* Entry-level Pricing

Cons:

* Lackluster Gaming Performance
* 65nm
* 2.4 GHz Max Clock

[cdawall]

why is 65nm a con thats stupid 45nm will make no difference unless they change the volts along with the die size change. you can achieve the same exact effect by lowering the volts like AMD does with its E chips

[Silverel]

That actually makes me wonder how low you could take the voltage while keeping stock speeds actually... Might be able to lower power requirements without effecting performance. Would it be more attractive to anyone if those watt requirements dropped another 20w or so?

Mmm... Curious...

Otherwise, yeah cdawall, they're just looking at Intel 45nm process and imagining that it's going to make some huge difference. Doesn't have so much to do with the process as the architecture, and I don't believe for a minute that a smaller process on the same architecture would do anything besides lower temperatures by a marginal amount.

[Kei]

I'll keep popping my head in here from time to time to try to update you guys on how things are going with the testing.

Silverel, you're actually one of the reasons I started my X3 testing early. I didn't start until after you posted that these were out and for sale. I figured I could help others if they knew what the performance was like as well as give them more options if they needed.

That and of course to show that you still don't NEED 4 cores but 3 has a really good argument as of yet.

To the others you can check out full Phenom X2, X3, and X4 test results over here...

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=58746

K

[Bytor]

Hey Silverel you invited us to take a look at your thread and thought I would post a Vcore pic at stock speed. Its been running great since I booted it up at this Vcore 2 hours ago.

I know its not a 8000 series Phenom...

[suraswami]

Originally Posted by Bytor

Hey Silverel you invited us to take a look at your thread and thought I would post a Vcore pic at stock speed. Its been running great since I booted it up at this Vcore 2 hours ago.

I know its not a 8000 series Phenom...

did you stess test it? Orthos, 3DMark or played games?

[Kei]

I'm taking care of that part right now...but I'm doing it at 2.7Ghz just to show what can be done. 2.6Ghz (Phenom 9900 level) at 1.104v gave me no problems when I was running it though. I raised the voltage up a single notch to 1.136v to see if it's stable at that voltage. I did test 2.6Ghz at 1.168v though and had no problems in Prime95 after 43 minutes before I quit and moved on with the testing.

K

[Bytor]

Ran 3Dmark @ 2.5 ghz w/1.10v. Ran Prime95 for 1 hour and no problems and the best part was the CPU temp. My ambient room temp is 24c right now and my CPU is idling at 30c. After 1 hour of Prime95 my CPU temp only went up to 31c.

[suraswami]

"My ambient room temp is 24c right now and my CPU is idling at 30c. After 1 hour of Prime95 my CPU temp only went up to 31c" - The power of efficient water cooling?

[Bytor]

What are you running for a CPU loop?

Mine is as follows: D-Tek Fuzion w/washer, MCP355 pump w/petra's top, BIX 240 rad. w/141 cfm delta's on shrouds.. Thinking of moving to a BIX 360 for this loop.

[Kei]

Actually these things just don't put out a huge amount of heat when the volts are that low. I'm using air cooling (though I do have a beast Xigmatek) and my room temps last night were 22-23C and the temps for the processor never went above 33C. I can only imagine what it'd be like on water or...if I actually turned my fan on high.

I'm at Toliman X3 spec right now and idling at 30-31C (slight fluctuation) and under 100% load it only raised to an awesome 34C with the room at around 20-21C. Oh yea I'm on 1.184v and 2.7Ghz speed running beautifully after passing Prime95 torture test for 1 hour so far. I'll do the big test a bit later.

K

[nbarsotti]

Hello, I just put together a gigabyte 780g motherboard with an X3 8650 chip and some ddr800 EPP memory. I left all settings pretty much at auto, no overclocking.

I cannot run Prime95 v25.6 for more than about 10 minutes before all 3 cores quit. In my past experiences that usually means I overclocked too high. The CPU cores never go past 35c at full load. The AMD Overdrive stability test, Memtest86+, and Vista memory diagnositics will run for hours without problems. Should I be conserned that prime95 fails? Is there a known incompatibility?

[Silverel]

There might be some kind of incompatibility with it. Try a couple other stress-test tools before anything else.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...rime_2004.html is a pretty good one. Most people swear their stability on that one. If your temps are good for the other tests, you might need a little tap on the voltage, or Prime is just being stupid.

[nbarsotti]

Ok, I will give Orthos a try when I get home. Isn't Orthos just a repackaged version of Prime95 that was the first to support multicore without lauching multiple instances? Do people put any credibility into the AMD Overdrive stability test?

[Silverel]

Eh, Overdrive is new, the rest are time-proven. It'll get there, just needs time to establish itself. Yes, Orthos is a redesign of Prime95 to handle multiple cores. It might work better. The only stability testing I really bother with is gaming benchmarks, or better, playing games.

[btarunr]

Wow, Phenom X4 9900 looks promising.

[yogurt_21]

the tri cores are a nice idea, but they need to fix the pricing, taking alook over at the egg right now Is how the 8750 X3 at 215$ and the 9850 X4 at 235$ I dunno about you, but 20$ is well worth an extra core and 100MHZ increase in clock to me. lol

now if the 8750 was at say 160$, then it's be an option.

[Silverel]

Absolutely. lol. The sole reason I haven't bought one is the price. AMD has a way of letting things trickle down though. They've been out less than a month, by the end of summer I'm hoping to see one at 140$ or less.