AMD has unleashed the Phenom II (we hope to have our review up in a few weeks). The results were, shall we say, somewhat unexpected. According to Hard OCP:
The Phenom II performance speaks for itself. It loses to its old nemesis, the Core 2, which I think some folks will be surprised by. The Phenom II loses to the Core i7, which I think was to be expected. The Phenom II is a loser.
Scott Wasson over at Tech Report is a bit more optimistic, although suggests that this particular version of the Phenom II might be worth skipping for now:
Although the Phenom II is a marked improvement over the original 65nm Phenom, AMD still can’t match the fastest Core 2 Quads in clock-for-clock or outright performance. And obviously, the Core i7 is yet another step beyond the Core 2. With Socket AM3, though, AMD should have an infrastructure in place that’s very much like the one Intel plans to introduce with the upcoming Nehalem-derived mainstream desktop processors.
I just got in touch with AMD again after many years, and it looks like we’ll be working with them on reviews again.
There are some glaring problems with HardOCP’s assessment. For instance, take Kyle’s “result” that you need more than $1500 worth of CPU, mobo, and RAM to reach a point where you are no longer CPU bound in FarCry2.
Also note that, while evidently constrained by the speed of the CPU, a 17% overclock of both the Phenom-II and QX9770 result in a net gain in performance of less than 10% across all resolutions tested. If the performance is CPU-bound and not restricted by some other bottleneck, shouldn’t performance scale nearly 1:1 with clockspeed?
AMD is now competitive, don’t throw mud on them ,they don’t deserve it.
Phenom 2 might not be the fastest CPU on the market but it sure damn is the best price-performance ratio considering the motherboard and ram prices for it which is the ONLY thing that matters unless of course you like to waste lots of money for a 2% gain.