Bragging Rights
It seems like every time AMD makes progress in their battle with Intel, their rivals pull away even further. The Phenom II X4 9xx was a fantastic CPU series for the price, but then Intel introduced Core i3 and Core i5. After some new products and price adjustments, AMD now does very well in the $100-150 CPU price range. But then Intel blew everything out of the water with their 6-core, 12-thread monster, the Core i7 980x.
Sure, the 980x gives Intel some bragging rights, but who in their right mind wants to cough up over $1000 for a CPU? Certainly there is something to be said for the first CPU maker to come out with an affordable CPU with six cores, right?
AMD saw the opportunity, and jumped on it, creating the first six-core CPU that normal people can afford – Phenom II X6 (codenamed Thuban). The first two models in the lineup are the 1055T and 1090T. What does the “T” stand for? Why, turbo of course! That’s right, AMD has come up with their own version of dynamic overclocking. The implementation seems to be a bit simpler than Intel’s (at least it’s less ambiguous and should be more consistent).
Basically, what it does is make full use of its thermal envelope by overclocking individual cores depending on how many threads are being used. For instance, the 1090T has a base clock speed of 3.2 GHz. That is the speed it will run at when all six cores are loaded. But when one core is loaded, that single core will be overclocked up to 3.6 GHz while the remaining 5 cores are remain at the stock speed of 3.2 GHz. You can think of it as being a sort of Bizarro version of Cool n’ Quiet.
So with this bit of technology (if I recall, some people were calling it “cheating” when Intel introduced it) AMD has covered the issue of offering sufficient performance in applications that don’t make full use of six cores (and as we saw in our Core i7 980x review, this is a very common scenario).
As far as Thuban goes, that’s about it for the tangible changes. Of course it’s worth mentioning that these six-core chips share a similar thermal envelope to previous four-core Phenom II’s (and some of those were reaching upwards of 140W!). This is due to some tweaks in the SOI fabrication process at Global Foundries.
So does AMD have what it takes to compete with Intel at the $200-300 price range? Read on to find out!
[...] AMD Six-Core Phenom II X6 CPU Review AKPC_IDS += "1990,"; [...]
I was waiting for this review! ;)
AMD made a good chip, but the Core i7 is just too much for them to compete with. I was thinking of upgrading from my X4 945 but probably not worth it, I’ll just wait until my next build
Most reviews do not show the increases games get in minimum FPS at HIGH resolutions, there are one or 2 such reviews floating around and the minimum fps increase on both the 1055T and 1090T are impressive, compared to intel’s offerings(overclocked or not)
I’ve been wondering the same X6 1090T vs. i7 860 question. I don’t see a substantial performance difference in your review. However, I do wonder about multitasking, in the form of multiple applications running at the same time. For example: I use my machine as a Media Center Extender which is decoding video to the family TV, while at the same time I’m trying to perform work on my computer. There’s also background tasks that are running, which all start to add up when enough of them are running.
My hope is to eventually have a “mainframe” centralized computer in my home to service all our home’s computing needs. I’d rather have the computing power of 6 machines in a single machine. I think you can see advantages to administration, storage, shared resources, better utilization of idle resources, expansion, etc.
Also, power consumption is important too. I leave my computer running 24/7, and the power consumption adds up to a nice dinner at the end of the month.
Jake
Most of the tests in the SYSMark page are very highly multitasked, so you could pay particular attention to that section
The bad thing here is the fact that two more cores are sharing the same 6MB of L3 cache found in the quad core. That is why this 1090T is not a good step up from the 965 quad. That gives each core 1MB of L3 cache when all 6 open up. That is a really thin spread of butter on a big slice of bread. It has to be the slowest multi tasker in the world kinda like a big Truck. I bought a Phenom 2 550BE because of the fact that it is a 2 core with the same 6MB l3 and the 1 MB L2 for a total of 7MB shared on two cores. Its the most cache on any two core chip made and the 550 will beat a 965 quad in single and two core applications and I bet it beats out the 1090T in this area as well. The 550 represents a focus of power that no other chip can provide for single a dual core chips. An overclocked 550 doing 3.8mgz with all that cache has to be the fastest two core in the world kinda like a CorvetteZ. I think the 2 core 550 and the 6 core 1090t sit at the absolute opposite ends of the use scale.The 1090t as a workhorse tractor trailer truck. The 550 as the race car gamer. Oh yea, just one thing. The 550 can be unlocked to 4 core 945be in about a minute if your lucky.