Wednesday, September 10th 2008
Phenom X2 Churns out Roughly 15% Increments with Super Pi
Phenom X2 is intended to be the latest dual-core processor from AMD. It is based on the newer K10 architecture. The 65nm Kuma core is what sits inside the first to release models of the Phenom X2. Although based on K10 architecture and Kuma core, the initial batch being 65nm, AMD for some reason chooses to call it Athlon X2 saving the Phenom brand name perhaps for the 45nm batches? At least the sample Expreview got had the Athlon X2 etching on it. The chip carried the "AD6500" label and came with a 2.30 GHz clock speed.
Here's something to ponder: 6500 isn't a performance rating, it is just a model number. The Athlon 64 X2 6400+ had a 3.20 GHz clock speed. As performance evaluations will soon show, the Phenom/Athlon 6500 isn't anywhere close to the performance of the X2 6400+. However, architectural improvements meant that Kuma outperforms Brisbane (K8, 65nm) on a clock to clock basis. To ascertain this, Expreview used a Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition (Brisbane) that was underclocked to 2.30 GHz, the clock speed which AD6500 comes with. Super Pi 1M benchmark was run. While the Brisbane chip crunched it in 39.374 s, Kuma did it in 33.43 s indicating a performance increment of roughly 15%. The test-bed consisted of a NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI motherboard and GEIL 1GB DDR2-800 memory. Kuma AD6500 comes with a shared L3 cache of 2 MB apart from dedicated L2 caches of 512 KB per core. It uses a broader HyperTransport 3.0 system interface at 3600 MT/s. It supports DDR2-1066.
Here's something to ponder: 6500 isn't a performance rating, it is just a model number. The Athlon 64 X2 6400+ had a 3.20 GHz clock speed. As performance evaluations will soon show, the Phenom/Athlon 6500 isn't anywhere close to the performance of the X2 6400+. However, architectural improvements meant that Kuma outperforms Brisbane (K8, 65nm) on a clock to clock basis. To ascertain this, Expreview used a Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition (Brisbane) that was underclocked to 2.30 GHz, the clock speed which AD6500 comes with. Super Pi 1M benchmark was run. While the Brisbane chip crunched it in 39.374 s, Kuma did it in 33.43 s indicating a performance increment of roughly 15%. The test-bed consisted of a NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI motherboard and GEIL 1GB DDR2-800 memory. Kuma AD6500 comes with a shared L3 cache of 2 MB apart from dedicated L2 caches of 512 KB per core. It uses a broader HyperTransport 3.0 system interface at 3600 MT/s. It supports DDR2-1066.