Early Performance Projections for Phenom II X4 940 Trickle-in

[btarunr]

AMD would be releasing its desktop 45nm CPUs, starting with two models under the Phenom II X4 banner. At this point in time, there is a great deal of uncertainty about when AMD plans to stock retailers with the new CPUs. The company's own roadmaps pointed out to a Q1 2009 launch, with several sources reporting then, that an early January launch was likely, but now it seems unlikely according to sources, who suggest these processors to stock up in March or later.

Meanwhile, a slide showing what looks like the the company's performance projections for the Phenom II X4 940, made its way to Expreview. The Phenom II X4 940 quad-core processor (Black Edition variant) would serve as the company's flagship desktop processor in the months to come, until it gets a proper AM3 refresh, and taken over by Phenom II X4 945. In the slide, the Phenom II X4 940 is pitted against two seemingly mainstream quad-core processors by Intel: Core 2 Quad Q9300 and Core 2 Quad Q9400. A percentage comparison in the gaming performance across some games and 3DMark06 is shown.



With 3DMark06, the Intel processors are projected up to 20% slower, while the gaps widen with the three games: Lost Planet, Quake 4, and Unreal Tournament 3 (CTF-corebot). It is interesting to note AMD using Q9x00 processors as the competitor-reference in its projection charts. It should give us an idea about which Intel processor ends up matching the X4 940. AMD has already demonstrated overclocking potential never before seen for an AMD processor, with the Phenom II series.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[freaksavior]

sweet i want benches against the i7 though

 

[btarunr]

The way I see it (a very personal estimate): Phenom II X4 940 == Core 2 Quad Q9450.

 

[BOSE]

Phenom II X4 940 runs at 3Ghz. Core 2 Quad Q9300 at 2.5Ghz. This so called estimated numbers are total BS. AMD could have used the cheapest Intel mobo and slowest RAM to make them self look better.

Another marketing BS.

I will wait for a proper review before i i will trust these numbers.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

Another disappointment ....

 

[wolf2009]

Phenom II X4 940 runs at 3Ghz. Core 2 Quad Q9300 at 2.5Ghz. This so called estimated numbers are total BS. AMD could have used the cheapest Intel mobo and slowest RAM to make them self look better.

Another marketing BS.

I will wait for a proper review before i i will trust these numbers.

agreed.

as bta said , its going to be equal to Q9450 .

 

[BOSE]

agreed.

as bta said , its going to be equal to Q9450 .

Q9450 runs at 2.6Ghz. If it is equal then it will be another dark day for AMD.

 

[farlex85]

If it's only equal to the q9450 that will be rather disappointing, as by then prices of said proc will easily be able to match or drop lower than the 940. It sounds about right w/ the current trend of AMD being 6-12 months behind Intel. Hopefully they will be better than this.....

 

[PCpraiser100]

I'm cutting i7 out since the Westmere chips will most likely not be compatible with the x58 chipset as it will require 2 QPIs instead of one right now (Anyone like x68 chipsets?). I am excited in the Phenom though since it will still support DDR2 as well as a plus to DDR3. In this case, Phenom may have a better edge over the i7 since its mostly desktop class, other than Nehalem since it s actually going to be a Xeon processor so better pay up. I was thinking of adding the Q9400 on my upgrade list once 775 processor prices tags plummet under i7's. Now that Phenom 2 is up on the benchmarks, I dunno......

EDIT: By the way, I don't think AMD is targeting Nehalem or Bloomfield with this demonstration, I think the upcoming Lynnfields chips are the target...Nehalem, Westmere, and Bloomfield are too workstation-ish, besides Bloomfield will be a compatibility dud anyhow.

 

[panchoman]

disappointing. this is not a i7 fighter. this is a q9 fighter.

 

[Dehx]

The Phenom II X940 will be as expensive or less expensive than these two intel procs. $245 and $270 respectively for the Q9300 / Q9400. Its been rumored that the X940 Phenom will fall a bit below or within these price ranges.

Its more performance for your dollar, what it really boils down to.

 

[farlex85]

The Phenom II X940 will be as expensive or less expensive than these two intel procs. $245 and $270 respectively for the Q9300 / Q9400. Its been rumored that the X940 Phenom will fall a bit below or within these price ranges.

Its more performance for your dollar, what it really boils down to.

You can sure bet that intel will have no problem lowering their prices in a month or two to match these. A proc like this would have better suited us 5 months ago.

 

[laszlo]

i don't care if the new phenom can't compete with i7 for me is enough if beats c2 line in perf&price and if does is awesome for amd & us.

seems a good decision for me not to upgrade last year... seems i stick with amd

 

[PCpraiser100]

i don't care if the new phenom can't compete with i7 for me is enough if beats c2 line in perf&price and if does is awesome for amd & us.

seems a good decision for me not to upgrade last year... seems i stick with amd

Yeah, plus AMD will get a 6 month headstart to competing with Lynnfield, giving them some time to do their homework in new revision and steppings for Phenom 2. Which means even better overclocking capabilities for us, well, if the Phenom 2 looks good for me.

 

[suraswami]

Phenom II X4 940 runs at 3Ghz. Core 2 Quad Q9300 at 2.5Ghz. This so called estimated numbers are total BS. AMD could have used the cheapest Intel mobo and slowest RAM to make them self look better.

Another marketing BS.

I will wait for a proper review before i i will trust these numbers.

AMD didn't tweak the number of instructions executed per clock cycle, so they always need to be clocked more to compete with Intel counterparts.

Atleast its competing towards its dead end.

Lets hope there are new ones coming next year with matched instructions per cc and then it will be more competitive with Intel I7 stuff.

Anyhow this is good news if its true.

 

[PCpraiser100]

If the numbers still show against the Q9000 series on other titles like Half-Life 2 orCrysis on stock, there is no bad side on the Phenom 2. AMD might have moved to 45nm for a good reason, to keep the current socket alive. 775 is getting ditched by Intel when what they could've done was put the bloody CPU to a 32nm process. At least Phenom 2 is going to show at Best Buy if higher clocked.

 

[sideeffect]

From what I've read so far the Phenom performance does scale better than Intel Core 2 at higher frequencies and so at 3GHz+ and with the improved cache on Phenom 2 It should be getting pretty close clock for clock. Of course AMD won’t be catching i7 though.

Can't wait for the proper reviews.

 

[Lazzer408]

But will it blend?

 

[laszlo]

But will it blend?

yes it will;you can try on your c2 also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

 

[WarEagleAU]

This is awesome news. Sure it may be against the Q series, but hell the current Phenoms cant touch them. At least AMD is improving, shit, half you people dont see them kicking I7 in the nuts so you get mad and disappointed. That is just irritating. HEll if they can compete on some level with I7 that in itself is amazing. With them now having integrated Memory, its even harder to keep up with.

Not to mention the new Core i7s have been shown to only be a tad better in gaming and not really much else (though it is an improvement over the C2 and C2D series). Should be an interesting match. I think the AM3 procs will be better suited for the i7s.

 

[stinger608]

sweet i want benches against the i7 though

I agree!, I wish they would of put that up for some kind of comparison. But then again, it is all kind of a "sales pitch" so to speak.

Phenom II X4 940 runs at 3Ghz. Core 2 Quad Q9300 at 2.5Ghz. This so called estimated numbers are total BS. AMD could have used the cheapest Intel mobo and slowest RAM to make them self look better.

Another marketing BS.

I will wait for a proper review before i i will trust these numbers.

Yep, I see where you are coming from Wait until the early review samples start showing up, and then we will see where they go from there

i don't care if the new phenom can't compete with i7 for me is enough if beats c2 line in perf&price and if does is awesome for amd & us.

seems a good decision for me not to upgrade last year... seems i stick with amd

Yep, the price point will be the big factor for a lot of enthusiasts! It is the number 1 reason that I started purchasing AMD processors back in the killer Athlon 750mhz era!!! I have stuck with using AMD for several years due to this fact. In the not so distant past, even the motherboards were about 40-60% cheaper than the Intel supported counter parts!

 

[ShadowFold]

i7 is good for gaming? Where are you guys seeing this.

 

[MrMilli]

I checked a review which included Lost Planet.
These are the numbers i gathered:
X4 9950 < +2.5% > Q9300
Q9300 < +10% > Q9450
Q9300 < +19% > QX9650
Q9300 < +38% > X4 II 940

This would basically mean that a Phenom II X4 940 is faster than a QX9650. I think this means that the platforms are using a different videocard. If so, then the 3DMark06 CPU scores are the only valid ones. (Lost Planet & UT3 results in the same performance for the Q9300 & Q9400, suggesting that the videocard is the bottleneck)
This puts the X4 940 8% ahead of the Q9400 while being clocked 12.5% higher.
This would put it on par with a Q9550 in the 3DMark06 CPU test. That is, if this graph is real.
The 3DMark06 CPU test is not that sensitive to cache size, so performance will be different in real games.

 

[spearman914]

Phenom II X4 940 runs at 3Ghz. Core 2 Quad Q9300 at 2.5Ghz. This so called estimated numbers are total BS. AMD could have used the cheapest Intel mobo and slowest RAM to make them self look better.

Another marketing BS.

I will wait for a proper review before i i will trust these numbers.

Yea that's why comparing different brands are stupid. They should have made some rigs until both amd and intel have the same scores, then compare the "prices" to see which is more worth it rather then sh*t.

 

[KBD]

I checked a review which included Lost Planet.
These are the numbers i gathered:
X4 9950 < +2.5% > Q9300
Q9300 < +10% > Q9450
Q9300 < +19% > QX9650
Q9300 < +38% > X4 II 940

This would basically mean that a Phenom II X4 940 is faster than a QX9650. I think this means that the platforms are using a different videocard. If so, then the 3DMark06 CPU scores are the only valid ones. (Lost Planet & UT3 results in the same performance for the Q9300 & Q9400, suggesting that the videocard is the bottleneck)
This puts the X4 940 8% ahead of the Q9400 while being clocked 12.5% higher.
This would put it on par with a Q9550 in the 3DMark06 CPU test. That is, if this graph is real.
The 3DMark06 CPU test is not that sensitive to cache size, so performance will be different in real games.

yea, it looks like this is close to the truth. still if Phenom 2 is beating these CPUs and overclocks to 4GHz on air its still an achievment. At that speed it may be nipping at the heels of Corei7. I cant wait for some real benchies (not AMD marketing) comparing the Phenom 2 overclocked againgt intel i7 and C2Q in both games and programs.