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AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition is fastest Phenom part ever

AMD announced today its highest performance quad core processor to date. The new CPU is called the AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition. Along with the new Black Edition processor AMD also unveiled the Phenom X4 9350e and Phenom X4 9150e processors.

The high-end Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition is a quad-core processor with an unlocked multiplier running stock at 2.6GHz. The 9950 Black Edition carries a retail price of $235 and consumes no more than 140 watts.

The AMD Phenom X4 9350e runs at 2.0GHz and will retail for $195. The new AMD X4 9150e processor runs at 1.8 GHz and will retail for $175. Both of these CPUs consume no more than 65 watts of power under full load according to AMD.

AMD says that these three processors are perfect for systems that delivering the performance of four computing cores to small systems where power demands and heat buildup could be an issue. It remains to be seen how the Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition stacks up against high-end parts from Intel performance wise, however, price for the parts is certainly competitive.

All three of the processors have L1 cache size of 64K per core, L2 cache size is 512KB per core and L3 cache is 2MB shared. The processors AM2+ compatible like the other Phenom parts and all three new processors are built on 65nm process.

Gamers looking for a moderately price gaming system could pair the new 9950 Black Edition with the recently announced AMD Radeon 4850.

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Equivalent.
By excelsium on 7/1/2008 3:10:03 PM , Rating: 2
A supposedly high-end chip for $235 but which part from Intel matches it's level of performance?




RE: Equivalent.
By JasonMick (blog) on 7/1/2008 3:16:52 PM , Rating: 4
From early benchmarks, the Q6600 trades leads with it so:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

For $194.99, the Intel is still a bit better deal, but $30 is not a huge difference for individual buyers and the chip stably overclocks nicely with stock heatsinks to 3.1 GHz in samples.

I wouldn't call it quite competitive, but its a better effort from AMD at least, and should hold them over till the next round.


RE: Equivalent.
By homerdog on 7/1/2008 3:48:43 PM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't call it quite competitive at all. The Q6600 is clearly better at stock (equal performance, lower power consumption, cheaper), but it absolutely eats the 9950's lunch if you take overclocking into account.


RE: Equivalent.
By DeepBlue1975 on 7/1/08, Rating: -1
RE: Equivalent.
By daftrok on 7/1/2008 4:52:49 PM , Rating: 1
In other words, AMD really needs to pick up the pace for introducing a 45nm chipset. Intel already has 45 nm chips out in the market and are in the works for a 32 nm. Its a race against time and AMD has been one step behind for the past three years.


RE: Equivalent.
By Locutus465 on 7/1/2008 5:03:52 PM , Rating: 1
I don't know that AMD will ever be able to keep up with Intel as far as manufacturing processes go, so while yes they need the newer process online sooner rather than later they also need to look into what they can do with their core to make give it longer legs on a particular process. I think that one thing they can do is go Intel and widen the core up some more.


RE: Equivalent.
By kilkennycat on 7/2/2008 3:09:28 AM , Rating: 2
About to go two steps behind when Intel ships Nehalem its true 2nd-gen 45nm Processor. Likely to be at the same time or less than 3 months after AMD releases its first-gen 45nm processor. Public demos of Nehalem abound, with motherboard designs already complete. No sign of any public demos of the 45nm version of Phenom.


RE: Equivalent.
By DeepBlue1975 on 7/1/08, Rating: -1
RE: Equivalent.
By just4U on 7/1/2008 8:35:12 PM , Rating: 3
You forgot to mention that Amd has some pretty nice chipsets on the market right now which are also key selling points for their platform. It's not all doom and gloom after all and those Phenom chips are accually fairly decent just not quite at where some of us want them to be yet.


RE: Equivalent.
By ImSpartacus on 7/1/08, Rating: -1
RE: Equivalent.
By MonkeyPaw on 7/1/2008 11:13:13 PM , Rating: 3
I bought a 790X board recently. Why? Because it was only $55 (got a good deal). With my X2 4000+ OCed to 2.8ghz, I had plenty of performance for just over $100. Add $55 for 2GB DDR2, and I'm still well under $200 for a quad-ready, XF-capable board, dual core CPU, and fast DDR2. That leaves plenty of reserves for a quality graphics card--the biggest difference-maker for the gaming PC. Down the road, I can bump up to a quad if I want to (hopefully a 45nm K10.5), but there's no rush. I can also add a second 3870 (and they are getting cheaper by the day). Not bad for $55, I think.

quote:
The other problem I have with Phenoms is that they are only quads and tri's. I want a higher clocked dual like Intel's E8400. The tri's kind of fill that, but not very well.


I've heard that there's still a dual-core variant of K10 on the way. It will be L3-less, and I want to say it's due this year. However, there have also been rumors of its demise. That would be a shame, since I think the Puma platform would like the extra IPC (as would I).


RE: Equivalent.
By ImSpartacus on 7/2/2008 10:12:40 AM , Rating: 2
You already had a CPU so it was the most logical thing to do.

Most people won't be able to snag a $55 790x. I personally could only find one 790x motherboard under $100 (which is still a decent deal).

I'm not really seeing how 100 + 55 + 55 > 200, but I assume you omitted the CPU price since you already owned it.

As I said before, Phenoms are excellent budget quad cores, the Q6600 can't compete with their price, but I don't see the widespread need for cheap quads yet. When that need increases to mainstream then AMD will be a good position, but just not now.


RE: Equivalent.
By MonkeyPaw on 7/2/2008 6:47:36 PM , Rating: 2
Well, ~$55 for the board, ~$55 for the CPU, ~$55 for the RAM. That's about $165. The 4000+ was a Christmas gift, but it's still a cheap option today. Sure, you might have to pay more for the board, but even at ~$100, you're still very close to $200 total. Ironically enough, newegg is selling an open box 790x for $55.99 as I type this.


RE: Equivalent.
By DeepBlue1975 on 7/2/2008 11:47:05 AM , Rating: 2
There are always exceptions which justify buying a chip that's not that cheap for the performance it offers.

If you have an x2 setup with a phenom x4 capable motherboard, there's no point for you to ditch all that and get an Intel system, wasting a lot of money just for a a mild increase in performance when comparing the highest end phenom with a q6600. The cost/benefit ratio of doing that would be too damn low to justify unless you need the extra performance. I personally wouldn't, and in fact I didn't.

In my case I jumped from a single core athlon 64 3200+ s939 + ddr1 memory for a q6600 + 775 + ddr2 (I usually keep my computers for 2-3 years before upgrading, including the video card, don't feel the need to upgrade everytime something new comes to market).

The s939 platform was in no way compatible with a phenom and so for me the best (and almost also the cheapest) move was to get an Intel setup, because I would have had to ditch it all if I intended to go the phenom path anyway.
And that's valid for anyone who has no upgrade path from his current platform and wants the best bang for his buck.


RE: Equivalent.
By just4U on 7/2/2008 4:03:23 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
But who in their right mind would get an AMD chipset if they had to run a Phenom on it?


Just depends on what your doing.. If you take overclocking out of the equation then those Phenoms look pretty attractive. X3's are excellent and priced in and around the 7200. (slightly more for the higher clocked versions) Pair that up with Amd's chipset and you have the makings of a spyder platform which is not to shabby for stock gaming machines. Or move over to the 780G and you've got quite the HTPC build.

As to their dual core Phenoms .. well The 4600 - 5200 is priced at the same price points as the Pentium 2xxx lineup and beat the hell out of them at stock speeds. No need to have a X2 Phenom in that catagory "yet" Especially when you factor in the price AMD would have to sell them at to stay competitive.


RE: Equivalent.
By FaceMaster on 7/1/08, Rating: -1
RE: Equivalent.
By DeepBlue1975 on 7/1/2008 8:20:42 PM , Rating: 2
Don't waste your time, mate.

If the time comes when AMD's CPUs get faster than Intel's, you'll be called an AMD fanboy by Intel's fanboys.

And if nowadays you have a c2d based chip from Intel because you know it beats anything AMD can offer today and not even being really more expensive, you'll get to be called an Intel fanboy by AMD's fanboys.

There are too many out there who get married to a brand and doesn't pay enough attention to the actual product he's putting his money on.


RE: Equivalent.
By Flunk on 7/1/2008 10:17:02 PM , Rating: 3
Very true, a competitive AMD/Intel relationship is really what we need and luckily most of us realize that. The fanboys are a very small but unfortunately extremely vocal minority.

The very fact that we are comparing a brand new chip to one that was released more than a year ago seems quite strange doesn't it?


RE: Equivalent.
By just4U on 7/2/2008 4:14:40 AM , Rating: 2
No it doesn't seem strange at all.. Most of us couldnt even think of buying the Q6600 when it was released last year. NOW a year later it's a extremely popular chip even tho there are better ones out there because of it's price.

I consider it the standard by which other chips are currently measured.. so having the new Phenom compared to it seems perfectly reasonable.


RE: Equivalent.
By ImSpartacus on 7/2/2008 10:14:50 AM , Rating: 2
It's funny to think the Q6600 was like $900 when it was released and you had to be mad to get it when the unlocked QX6700 was just $200 more.


RE: Equivalent.
By maroon1 on 7/1/2008 3:29:16 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
A supposedly high-end chip for $235 but which part from Intel matches it's level of performance?


I believe that Q6600 does match the performance of Phenom 9950, but Q6600 is cheaper and have much lower power consumption as well


RE: Equivalent.
By hadifa on 7/1/2008 8:33:12 PM , Rating: 2
I checked a retailer and (www.msy.com.au) here in Australia and the Phenom 9550 (AU$185) is cheaper than the Q6600(AU$226). It's clear that the Phenoms are going for much less than the SRP. For

Relatively speaking , this price tells me it should go for around 150 to 165 US dollars in the US.

Can anyone please confirm this on other countries?

For that price, the Phenom seems a pretty good pick. (unless you already have an Intel compatible MOBO)


RE: Equivalent.
By just4U on 7/1/2008 8:46:57 PM , Rating: 2
Where I live (calgary canada) the 9850 and Q6600 are both 239.00 and the 9550 is 206. It's only been recently that the Q6600 came down to match the price of the 9850 and It's certainly not selling for $30 less here.


RE: Equivalent.
By hadifa on 7/1/2008 9:19:54 PM , Rating: 2
Probably the 9950 Black Edition has the higher price tag of $235 while the normal Phenom 9950 is much cheaper.


RE: Equivalent.
By darkpaw on 7/1/2008 10:01:05 PM , Rating: 2
All of the Phenom black editions have been been the same price as the stock ones.


RE: Equivalent.
By overzealot on 7/2/2008 12:38:43 AM , Rating: 2
That's why us aussies can't take price/performance data from the US for granted - we hardly get any cashback offers, and nowhere near the specials that they get.
People still recommend stuff based on overseas pricing data though.


RE: Equivalent.
By darkpaw on 7/1/2008 10:06:33 PM , Rating: 2
The 9550 isn't even in the same ball park as the Q6600 though. The price of the 9950 would be the one to compare, which is higher and it uses nearly 100 more watts. Due to the power requirements you also need a more expensive board for the 9950, which nullifies one of the traditional AMD strong points.

In the US the Q6600s have been selling for 180-200 for a while. The 9550 is currently listed on New Egg for 195. So there would be no reason what-so-ever to buy one.

This is coming from someone that owns a Q6600 (paid $200 for retail box in March) and a Phenom 9600 Black Edition (paid $100 a few days ago). The only reason I bought the Phenom is it was a closeout with the TLB bug and at that price is actually worth it.


RE: Equivalent.
By hadifa on 7/1/2008 10:15:31 PM , Rating: 2
Oh my bad, I mixed the two. You're right, the article talks about 9950 and I checked the 9550 price.

Thanks for the correction.


RE: Equivalent.
By sgtdisturbed47 on 7/2/2008 1:50:11 AM , Rating: 2
This isn't really that great of a processor. Sure, it has an unlocked multi for only $235, but the Q6600 still beats it clock for clock.

Price/performance is in favor of AMD's ATI 4870 and 4850 cards, and the 4870 X2 is turning out to be a beast. Price/performance for their CPU's on the other hand has been quite a bit worse than Intel's CPU's. Running my E8400 at 4.3 GHz on air with 1.33v is far better than anything AMD has to offer right now, and it's a monster in video games (which is what I built my system for, not for multi-tasking or for video/audio encoding, or else I would have grabbed a good 45nm quad).

It's not high-end by any means, and even with that unlocked multi I'm sure it won't OC very far. AMD chips are great for their memory handling, but for raw, noticeable power you can't beat a good Intel.


Ugh - Need to do better than that!
By Belard on 7/1/2008 3:14:50 PM , Rating: 3
140watts?!

Why should 600mhz require twice the power?

At the most, maybe the 89watt rating for the 2.6Ghz would be fine. With such power demands, heat, lack of OC ability and lower performance - its very hard to get even an AMDer to buy a more expensive CPU that is on par with Intel's bottom end $200 Q6600.

For a drop-in replacement, it's cheaper to buy the CPU and not a whole new computer, but most motherboards can't even handle that power requiremeents. They die.

At least there are now 65watt AMD Quads, but the performance needs to be there as well.




By codeThug on 7/1/2008 3:30:46 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah..

Just cup your hands around a 150 watt light bulb and you get the idea. That's a lot of heat on a small die.


RE: Ugh - Need to do better than that!
By nosfe on 7/1/2008 3:33:16 PM , Rating: 2
i think its for the "free overclock" that will come with SB750, a safety measure so to speak


By Belard on 7/1/2008 6:12:55 PM , Rating: 2
I consider the "free overclock" a gimmick. You buy a CPU - it runs at the rated speed or you manually cheat. But to say, well "if you buy a $150 board, we'll give you an extra 100Mhz or so"?


By tfranzese on 7/2/2008 1:20:16 AM , Rating: 2
Considering that power is proportional to frequency (CMOS dynamic) and the square of the supply voltage (bit more than that for CMOS short circuit depending on the transistor threshold) and comparing the two specifications between the processors you mention, then perhaps you can answer your own question. You may also realize how ridiculous you sound.


RE: Ugh - Need to do better than that!
By zpdixon on 7/2/2008 5:24:50 AM , Rating: 2
Looks like Shane made an error by quoting '140 Watts'. AMD's pricing sheet says 125 Watts . http://amd.com/pricing

I find AMD's two 65W processors a very good move, Intel has no quad-core desktop processor below 95W...


By maroon1 on 7/5/2008 4:23:00 PM , Rating: 2
But AMD 65W seems to consume more power than Intel 95W in actual tests

Please check my other comments


Not terrible....
By Locutus465 on 7/1/2008 3:20:41 PM , Rating: 2
I still think AMD needs to get to tweaking phenom core arch, open it up a bit more as it were but I guess small speed bumps at this stage are alright... AMD is a solid platform right now if you're looking for a mid level computing solution, but yeah... They need to speed up the phenom I think and recapture some of that athlon 64 glory.

At any rate, I'm very happy with my Phenom 4x 2.5GHz setup with Radeon 3870 graphics and AMD chip set, I'm able to play every game I want including Crysis on this rig with higher quality settings enabled (in the case of dx 9 games, quality settings fully maxed).




RE: Not terrible....
By Sulphademus on 7/1/2008 3:40:17 PM , Rating: 5
AMD NEEDS to get on the 45nm scale now. The 65nm Phenom just doesn't ramp up too well and 140w is the highest I have ever seen an AMD chip! From what I have seen the Phenom runs about 80 to 90% performance of a Core2, clock for clock. AMD just runs out of clocks halfway up the 2 to 3 GHz ladder. A 3GHz Phenom at 90w or less would be a damned good competitor to the Core2 Quads.


RE: Not terrible....
By Locutus465 on 7/1/2008 4:26:41 PM , Rating: 3
The problem is they quite simply don't have the luxury of being able to keep up with Intel when it comes the their manufacturing process, so they need to do well... Something... At any rate, it's definentetly about time for AMD to refocus on their CPU business, truely it is the heart of the AMD platform and if that can't keep up with Intel (particularly with an intel IMC on the horizon) then the platform as a whole is in trouble.

I think AMD has done the right thing by putting the rest of the peices in place, great graphics, great chipset etc... But now the CPU needs to be updated, no doubt about that.


RE: Not terrible....
By darkpaw on 7/1/2008 10:08:44 PM , Rating: 2
This isn't just a matter of keeping up on process. The Q6600 is a 65nm part and probably the best CPU Intel has produced in years. The Phenom is just a bad design that was very poorly executed.

Even comparing parts at the same process level AMD isn't competitive.


RE: Not terrible....
By Locutus465 on 7/2/2008 1:41:48 PM , Rating: 2
I have to disagree here.... The Phenom is not a bad desgin, the P4 with netburst was a bad desgin... I think the Phenom is more than salavable with some core tweaks, nothing could have saved netburst arch. That's the difference between a good desgin which needs work and a ground up bad desgin.


TDP isn't everything
By maroon1 on 7/1/2008 3:35:57 PM , Rating: 2
Lower TDP doesn't always mean that the processor have lower power consumption

Please check these
http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/amd-...

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1173/...

There might be some variable between the two charts because of the different motherboard test. However, both are showing that 65W phenom does NOT consumes less power than Intel quad core




RE: TDP isn't everything
By maroon1 on 7/1/2008 3:39:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
There might be some variable between the two charts because of the different motherboard test.


There might be some variables between the two charts because of the different motherboard test ed

Sorry I always do grammar mistakes, and I'm can't edit my comment !


RE: TDP isn't everything
By BSMonitor on 7/1/2008 4:00:09 PM , Rating: 3
Haha, look at the lowest power consumer on those charts.... The 45nm QX9650 at 3 GHz. Without overclocking, this chip destroys every Phenom in benchmarks and at 2/3 the power!

Everyone keeps saying, AMD needs a die shrink. A flawed processor design will not benefit from shrinking the transistors. Just means more wasted cycles in a smaller space. AMD needs a new processor design. K10 should have gone the way of K9.

Intel said that they were going to start thinking green with these processor revisions. Well, just shrinking the die isn't what they were talking about. Core 2 is damn efficient. And Penryn simply improved upon that.


RE: TDP isn't everything
By Amiga500 on 7/1/2008 5:24:29 PM , Rating: 3
A flawed processor design will not benefit from shrinking the transistors.

Barcelona is fundamentally a server chip.

It works very well in the server environment.

Unfortunately, it does not port over to the desktop as well as K8.

For what it was designed to do, its ok. But for what the majority of us want, its out of its element.


RE: TDP isn't everything
By Kaleid on 7/1/2008 7:00:33 PM , Rating: 2
Disagreed. Even if the Phenom's wont be able to match Intel's offerings (atleast not in speed) it will still offer many benefits.

Like:
-Lower cost of production, possibly more money to be earned per wafer for AMD and some of the cost cuts would likely also benefit the consumers since they can be sold cheaper.
-Lower temps making the chips more attractive for consumers since money can be saved by not having to have beefy PSU's, high RPM fans, expensive coolers and the smaller CPU's could also make it possible for higher speeds and better overclocking.

I think the scenario could be compared with Ati's transition from x2900xt to the better hd3870, the latter being much more interesting for purchasers.


RE: TDP isn't everything
By Kaleid on 7/1/2008 7:32:26 PM , Rating: 2
And btw

quote:
Just means more wasted cycles in a smaller space.


Quite the opposite infact. It would become more efficient.


No faster part in 9XXX series?
By eilersr on 7/1/2008 3:49:39 PM , Rating: 2
Seems AMD is running out of room in their numbering scheme.
Can't go much higher than a 9950 part number with 2.6GHz.
Guess they'll be launching yet another line once they figure out how to ramp clock speeds and/or migrate to 45nm.




RE: No faster part in 9XXX series?
By Belard on 7/1/2008 5:36:56 PM , Rating: 4
Yeah, the whole number system has been dumber than Intel since the begiining. The X2 5x00 still makes more sense.

They should have done something logical like:

AMD X1-1600C = single core, 1.6Ghz C power (65low )
AMD X2-2800B = Dual core, 2.8Ghz, B power (89watts)
AMD X3-2200B = Triple computer, 2.2Ghz
AMD X4-2600A = Quad core, 2.5Ghz, 125+watts

Then they could go with the "50" for revisions.

But that would be toooooo simple. Nobody would need a bloody chart to figure this crap out.


By MrBungle123 on 7/1/2008 6:19:48 PM , Rating: 2
I wish the numbering scheme was based on some sort of performance metric so it acutally meant something instead of some random number that the marketing team decided to pull out of their ass.


AMD's strategy
By excrucio on 7/2/2008 1:37:29 AM , Rating: 4
What you guys have to understand is that, AMD is in a deep hole because of the continues loss every quarter. Their company is extremely smaller than Intel's.

AMD can not compete with intel in a technology race. AMD is working one year behind Intel..just give time. AMD is pushing Intel and nVidia slowly..

AMD released a video card capable of competing with nVidia's...even though it lost a lot of the fill rate benchmarks, it came out very well.

AMD launches a Phenom, the fastest up to date, it of course does not match the intel's technology, but then again they are behind and out numbered...

So what AMD does? Well they go for the average customers, the average computer models. Why should they go fully into the high end, when high end is not as big as the average.

Let them take their time developing a fully new architecture to be displayed with glory. In the mean time release higher clocked CPU's aimed at the average.

Cheers...




By Rodney McNaggerton on 7/1/2008 7:43:46 PM , Rating: 2
Phenom won't really be what it was supposed to until 45nm with reduced latencies and increased single thread performance.




triple?
By 4wardtristan on 7/1/2008 6:51:18 PM , Rating: 1
so what price point will the triple cores be at?

this could get very interesting!




By pauldovi on 7/1/2008 10:37:55 PM , Rating: 1
Anyone else agree? Flashing sun light...




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