First day of CES opened up with numerous reviews of AMD Phenom II processor and systems. Reviews came out at 6AM CET, while you can expect ton of GeForce GTX 295 reviews coming as well when the West Coast wakes up. The sites that posted detailed reviews of Phenom II processor are the following:
- Vikingreviews (Danish newcomer)
- AMDZone
- AnandTech
- Bjorn3D
- Legit Reviews
- Legion Hardware
- OverclockersClub
- Tech Report
After all the sites that gave their opinions out, I am singling out HardOCP’s view of this new processor – Kyle always speaks in his balls-out, guns-blazing attitude, thus you might appreciate an alternative to other site reviews…
As far as my own review go, I’ve been plagued by several issues, namely the fact that I had huge issues getting Phenom II X4 940 to work in dual-channel mode. Had no issues about getting the memory to pass DDR2-1066 tests stable, but the Gangbanged mode is just not there – tried on both GigaByte and ASUS 790GX-based motherboards. Regardless of that, my take will be ready by the end of the week.
When it comes to testing stability, I’ve decided to put my faith in a different stress-test, wondering what the reaction will be. So far, Intel Core i7 965 failed at 3.5 GHz, Phenom II 940 did the same at 3.4 GHz. As you’ve might have guessed it, the new site will introduce Linpack tests for both CPUs and the GPUs.I will also go to explain where exactly the complete K10 (K10.5 or Phenom II included) architecture fails.
One thing is clear, though. Compared to announcements given by AMD, we have yet to see a review featuring 4.0 GHz clock on air. In a way, seeing reviews peaking at 3.8 GHz gave right to Francois Piednoel from Intel, who openly questioned the presentation in Austin as “smoke in mirrors”. I find it odd that AMD at least didn’t supply the press with 4.0 GHz capable processors and scoring a major PR coup. It seems to me that 45nm process is not mature enough for stable 4.0 GHz overclocks, but it is more than mature for feeding the CPU core with absolutely horrifying voltages. Seeing 1.6V on 45nm on air is just terrifying and horrifying at the same time. Kudos to AMD engineers that created a CPU that can work stable at 1.6V – this brings great news for extreme overclockers.
However, if you expected that your $50-60 cooler will bring you to 4.0 GHz… well… not exactly. My highest stable overclock so far was 3.5 GHz 🙁
