Nice to see fat blue ass thoroughly violated by green guys, haven't seen such exemplary Intel pwning for looong time. Now if only AMD could do the same in mobile CPU segment and replace their POS Turions with something competitive. *sighs*
Dear Pirks, AMD actually has really good Turions out right now if you buy the 45nm models. The one caveat is that their GPU solution stinks and generally you need to underclock the GPU to get decent heat/battery life.
Could you provide a link on the underclocking you mention? Would be very interesting to me, thanks :) And yes, it is definitely time for a 45nm Turion II review on Anandtech.
The 1090T averages 96.5% of the performance of the the 920 across the all the tests in the Anandtech bench. When it wins, it does so by an average of 8%. When it loses it does so by an average of 12%. The LGA 1366 platform averages twice the cost of AM3 and implements.
I think those stats would generally qualify as close in terms of pure performance, definitely in terms of value.
I wasn't aware that having 96.5% of the speed of a now-discontinued Intel CPU that was the very slowest in the entire i7 lineup was "pwning" anything. Not to mention that the 1090T doesn't really offer any cost savings like you claim...in fact it usually costs more money than the i7 930, let alone when the 920's were selling for $199.
I'm glad that you're supporting the underdog here (i.e. AMD) but summarily dismissing Intel's current offerings makes me think you're somewhat biased. The way I see it, AMD is in no way "pwning" Intel with these processors.
The bottom line is that people should strongly consider what their priorities are before they make their purchases. When you make that If content creation and multi-tasking are your priorities then AMD is the best choice. If price is a limiting factor then obviously AMD again is best. For many however, games and single-threaded apps are most important, and for them Intels offerings are the most suitable choice.
Personally, I don't mind if my MPEG's or MP3's take an extra 5 minutes to encode. I'd prefer to have the extra 5+ fps in games. There is no runaway winner here.
I absolutely agree with your point that intelligent choices should be made based on one's own real world usage rather than benchmarks which are designed to expose and exaggerate differences that often would n't even be noticeable in typical use.
I think opting for Intel for a 5 FPS advantage, or 8 or 15 for that matter would be a questionable decision for a couple of reasons.
1) The money saved with AMD over Intel could likely be used to raise the tier of video card used and provide a larger overall benefit.
2) The benefit in any case is something that potentially can't even be observed as most mid to upper range offering on either side couple with a video card of the same caliber can produce more than the many monitors can even display at typical resolutions.
Thanks Anand, I appreciate your hard work. I was wondering if you would do a more thorough Ocing analysis later next month? Perhaps matching an overclocked i7920 and OC'd1055T with its northbridge OC'd as well? Thanks for your efforts, keep up the good work!
This sounds like a tard question, but I looked for it in your review of the new Thuban cores: After OC-ing the 1090t, will the Turbo STILL kick in? Will it go from 4ghz to 4.5ghz if you're running a poorly threaded program?
It cannot do that. The CPU becomes unstable already at 4.1 GHz per the article, so... Though tt would be interesting to know whether Turbo Core can be enabled/disabled for an overclocked Thuban.
we need the AMD competition to keep Intel honest with their pricing, something I feel that Intel is back to taking advantage of again now that they hold the performance lead pretty firmly. As AMD ramps the GHz, Intel will be forced to either do the same to continue to enjoy their high margins, or they will have to reduce cost to compete. (or both).
The 3.8ghz 64-bit clock wall was removed with the C3 stepping. However, I'm still running a c2 965 so I can't wait to pick-up a 1090t and push past that magic 4.0. :D
Yup, Turbo still works when overclocked, as long as you have CnQ enabled. If you disable CnQ, you disable Turbo. For this overclock Anand would have had to disable CnQ for stability.
Just built a rig for someone using a 1055T and a Gigabyte 790XT-USB3. The 790XT-USB3 BIOS is a little finnicky, despite officially supporting the processor, and allows an additional 50-100Mhz Turbo (according to CPU-Z) than it should. Eg: Overclocked to 3.15GHz I would see it turbo up to 3.7Ghz with CnQ and overclocked to 3.4GHz I would see it Turbo up to 4Ghz. The BIOS reported the same values for Turbo when left on Auto. At stock speeds it turboed up to 3.3Ghz from 2.8Ghz jftr.
The 1055T was faster (higher average FPS and total score in 3DMark06 gaming tests - especially SM2.0, and Vantage) at 3.4Ghz with Turbo on than 3.7Ghz with turbo off.
I do not know why/how it can increase it's turbo, the multiplier is 16.5 vs the 14 stock, which would equate to only 500Mhz of Turbo. This may well be CPU-Z misreading the Turbo function, but the fact remains, even if it is 3.4Ghz with 3.9Ghz Turbo (2.43GHz NB), it is still faster overall than 3.7GHz solid (2.65Ghz NB) (except in extremely heavily threaded environments). It also pulls over 50W less at idle with CnQ/Turbo on @ 3.4 than with it off @ 3.7 same core voltage.
One other thing which frustrates me immensely is that all review sites simply overclock the multiplier, without raising the FSB (and thus the NorthBridge). There was a sizeable increase in performance going from 2.0Ghz NB to 2.43GHz NB on the 1055T. Northbridge clock DOES MATTER on these chips.
Hey Anand, it would be good to know how much 1055T could overclock, and if it's a Black edition with unlocked multipliers too! Usually overclockers tend to choose the cheaper part and try to reach or surpass the more expensive part, in this case we are talking about 205 Euros versus 299 Euros (these are prices in Italy, however it's available only on one shop)
He mentioned in the other article that they didn't actually have a 1055T, the only chip they received was a 1090T and they just underclocked it to show 1055T performance, which is why there were no 1055T power numbers.
Xbitslabs did a test and comparison with intel processors. It still looks like AMD is nowhere near the same league as Intel when it comes to performance.
Here is a quotation from what was specifically a comparison between the X6 1090T and the i7-930, both overclocked to 4Ghz:
"Therefore, there is only one possible conclusion here: microarchitecture of contemporary Intel processors makes them faster than AMD processors working at the same clock frequency. And even a 1.5 times increase in the number of computational cores can’t make up for that. That is why we again arrive to the same conclusion that AMD’s only weapon in the battle for consumers is their pricing policy."
One more thing that is not apparent here is that the i7-930 is very easy to overclock compared to the X6. I am able to reach 4Ghz with the 930 just with the default voltages.
Well, it's true that overclocked i7 930 is faster than overclocked X6 1090T, but it's also an inherently more expensive platform. Besides, 1055T should probably overclock close to what 1090T managed here, and it is around 60€/80$ cheaper than i7 920 (close to 100$ cheaper than i7 930). With AM3 boards being another 50€/60$ cheaper than X58, not to mention that for full potential X58 will need extra 2 RAM modules (to get triple channel memory), it slowly amounts to a tangible difference.. Perhaps a new hard drive, or one step better graphics card.. Basically it goes down to what a specific person needs, that's all. Just what Anand and Ryan and others are telling us.
For me personally, I'd really like to see some numbers from an overclocked i7 920 + HD5850 on cheapest X58 MBO, vs similarly priced AMD system with overclocked 1055T + HD5870 on 890GX MBO. That's roughly what I'm interested in.. and what I could afford at most. And I want great gaming @1920x1080 AND great threaded performance (video editing and H264 encoding) - all in one box. And for as little money as possible. I'm not interested in SLI/Crossfire and dozens of PCIe x16 slots, nor will I be water cooling, or anything even slightly extreme like that. But I want Full HD video encoding as fast as possible, and all current and up-and-coming games running smoothly in full HD as well. Everything else is less important to me. In this scenario, I think AMD has an upper hand I believe, as games will run smoother thanks to better graphics card, and heavy threaded apps like x264 encoder should be close enough for me not to care. Plus - the underdog gets a few extra $$ to keep Intel from bullying us altogether. And it sure would be worthy update for my E4400+HD4890 PC, and would cost me roughly 900-1000$ to get it all up and running..
Lets just hope this sends a clear message to Intel to back off their prices! I understand that new Fabs are not cheap (lol) but damn Intel, give us a freaking break! I would consider buying their 6 core offer if it were $500. That $200 premium over AMD would be well worth it, but a $600 premium... Congrats AMD for getting back into the game! Now fall in line Intel!
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Pirks - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Nice to see fat blue ass thoroughly violated by green guys, haven't seen such exemplary Intel pwning for looong time. Now if only AMD could do the same in mobile CPU segment and replace their POS Turions with something competitive. *sighs*Hacp - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Dear Pirks,AMD actually has really good Turions out right now if you buy the 45nm models. The one caveat is that their GPU solution stinks and generally you need to underclock the GPU to get decent heat/battery life.
KaarlisK - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Could you provide a link on the underclocking you mention? Would be very interesting to me, thanks :)And yes, it is definitely time for a 45nm Turion II review on Anandtech.
Hacp - Saturday, May 1, 2010 - link
Try K10stat or any other underclocking software.Makaveli - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
lol where do you see pwning?I see a really good chip for $300 that overclocks well, however it only comes close when doing thread heavy stuff.
If I was running an AM3 board I would purchase it in a heartbeat no doubt, but this is no i7 killer!
02J - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
The 1090T averages 96.5% of the performance of the the 920 across the all the tests in the Anandtech bench. When it wins, it does so by an average of 8%. When it loses it does so by an average of 12%. The LGA 1366 platform averages twice the cost of AM3 and implements.I think those stats would generally qualify as close in terms of pure performance, definitely in terms of value.
TekDemon - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link
I wasn't aware that having 96.5% of the speed of a now-discontinued Intel CPU that was the very slowest in the entire i7 lineup was "pwning" anything. Not to mention that the 1090T doesn't really offer any cost savings like you claim...in fact it usually costs more money than the i7 930, let alone when the 920's were selling for $199.Griswold - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
If you buy a 4 or 6 core processor and do not intend to do "thread heavy stuff", you're an idiot. Its the purpose of this CPU to do just that. Simple.godl!ke - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I'm glad that you're supporting the underdog here (i.e. AMD) but summarily dismissing Intel's current offerings makes me think you're somewhat biased. The way I see it, AMD is in no way "pwning" Intel with these processors.The bottom line is that people should strongly consider what their priorities are before they make their purchases. When you make that If content creation and multi-tasking are your priorities then AMD is the best choice. If price is a limiting factor then obviously AMD again is best. For many however, games and single-threaded apps are most important, and for them Intels offerings are the most suitable choice.
Personally, I don't mind if my MPEG's or MP3's take an extra 5 minutes to encode. I'd prefer to have the extra 5+ fps in games. There is no runaway winner here.
02J - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I absolutely agree with your point that intelligent choices should be made based on one's own real world usage rather than benchmarks which are designed to expose and exaggerate differences that often would n't even be noticeable in typical use.I think opting for Intel for a 5 FPS advantage, or 8 or 15 for that matter would be a questionable decision for a couple of reasons.
1) The money saved with AMD over Intel could likely be used to raise the tier of video card used and provide a larger overall benefit.
2) The benefit in any case is something that potentially can't even be observed as most mid to upper range offering on either side couple with a video card of the same caliber can produce more than the many monitors can even display at typical resolutions.
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
And here I thought you only thread crapped on Dailytech.yanfei - Sunday, July 25, 2010 - link
======= http://www.fashionshoppong.us=======Hacp - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Thanks Anand, I appreciate your hard work. I was wondering if you would do a more thorough Ocing analysis later next month? Perhaps matching an overclocked i7920 and OC'd1055T with its northbridge OC'd as well? Thanks for your efforts, keep up the good work!Makaveli - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pheno...This review has Amd's cpu and a 930 clocked at 4Ghz at the very end, the numbers shouldn't be that big of a surprise.
Hacp - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Did they overclock the northbridge?DJMiggy - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Thanks for the info man!Soutbeard - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
This sounds like a tard question, but I looked for it in your review of the new Thuban cores: After OC-ing the 1090t, will the Turbo STILL kick in? Will it go from 4ghz to 4.5ghz if you're running a poorly threaded program?<< is new here :D
KaarlisK - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
It cannot do that.The CPU becomes unstable already at 4.1 GHz per the article, so...
Though tt would be interesting to know whether Turbo Core can be enabled/disabled for an overclocked Thuban.
Iridium130m - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
we need the AMD competition to keep Intel honest with their pricing, something I feel that Intel is back to taking advantage of again now that they hold the performance lead pretty firmly. As AMD ramps the GHz, Intel will be forced to either do the same to continue to enjoy their high margins, or they will have to reduce cost to compete. (or both).formulav8 - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Definitely a good thing that the 3.8ghz 64 bit barrier has been broken. So many chips out there that would get to 3.8ghz and hit a wall....Jason
TheBlueChanell - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
The 3.8ghz 64-bit clock wall was removed with the C3 stepping. However, I'm still running a c2 965 so I can't wait to pick-up a 1090t and push past that magic 4.0. :Dkoremore - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Anand, how stable is stable? Prime95 stable? 24-hour burn in? Or just "up" stable, which obviously there is a difference.SandmanWN - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Its probably fully stable. TweakTown had a full review at 4Ghz and reported no problems.R3MF - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
the question about how effective turbo-boost is when overclocking is a good one.e.g. If i run the base clock of a 1090t up to 3.6GHz can i still expect to see the turbo go 400MHz higher on occasion?
My thanks
SquattingDog - Thursday, April 29, 2010 - link
Yup, Turbo still works when overclocked, as long as you have CnQ enabled. If you disable CnQ, you disable Turbo. For this overclock Anand would have had to disable CnQ for stability.Just built a rig for someone using a 1055T and a Gigabyte 790XT-USB3. The 790XT-USB3 BIOS is a little finnicky, despite officially supporting the processor, and allows an additional 50-100Mhz Turbo (according to CPU-Z) than it should. Eg: Overclocked to 3.15GHz I would see it turbo up to 3.7Ghz with CnQ and overclocked to 3.4GHz I would see it Turbo up to 4Ghz. The BIOS reported the same values for Turbo when left on Auto. At stock speeds it turboed up to 3.3Ghz from 2.8Ghz jftr.
The 1055T was faster (higher average FPS and total score in 3DMark06 gaming tests - especially SM2.0, and Vantage) at 3.4Ghz with Turbo on than 3.7Ghz with turbo off.
I do not know why/how it can increase it's turbo, the multiplier is 16.5 vs the 14 stock, which would equate to only 500Mhz of Turbo. This may well be CPU-Z misreading the Turbo function, but the fact remains, even if it is 3.4Ghz with 3.9Ghz Turbo (2.43GHz NB), it is still faster overall than 3.7GHz solid (2.65Ghz NB) (except in extremely heavily threaded environments). It also pulls over 50W less at idle with CnQ/Turbo on @ 3.4 than with it off @ 3.7 same core voltage.
One other thing which frustrates me immensely is that all review sites simply overclock the multiplier, without raising the FSB (and thus the NorthBridge). There was a sizeable increase in performance going from 2.0Ghz NB to 2.43GHz NB on the 1055T. Northbridge clock DOES MATTER on these chips.
agentsmithitaly - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Hey Anand,it would be good to know how much 1055T could overclock, and if it's a Black edition with unlocked multipliers too!
Usually overclockers tend to choose the cheaper part and try to reach or surpass the more expensive part, in this case we are talking about 205 Euros versus 299 Euros (these are prices in Italy, however it's available only on one shop)
wicko - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I agree, I would like to see some OC results for the cheaper chip as well. I usually tend to go for the cheaper part and make up for it by OC'ing.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
He mentioned in the other article that they didn't actually have a 1055T, the only chip they received was a 1090T and they just underclocked it to show 1055T performance, which is why there were no 1055T power numbers.SimpleLance - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Xbitslabs did a test and comparison with intel processors. It still looks like AMD is nowhere near the same league as Intel when it comes to performance.Here is a quotation from what was specifically a comparison between the X6 1090T and the i7-930, both overclocked to 4Ghz:
"Therefore, there is only one possible conclusion here: microarchitecture of contemporary Intel processors makes them faster than AMD processors working at the same clock frequency. And even a 1.5 times increase in the number of computational cores can’t make up for that. That is why we again arrive to the same conclusion that AMD’s only weapon in the battle for consumers is their pricing policy."
One more thing that is not apparent here is that the i7-930 is very easy to overclock compared to the X6. I am able to reach 4Ghz with the 930 just with the default voltages.
LuxZg - Sunday, May 2, 2010 - link
Well, it's true that overclocked i7 930 is faster than overclocked X6 1090T, but it's also an inherently more expensive platform. Besides, 1055T should probably overclock close to what 1090T managed here, and it is around 60€/80$ cheaper than i7 920 (close to 100$ cheaper than i7 930). With AM3 boards being another 50€/60$ cheaper than X58, not to mention that for full potential X58 will need extra 2 RAM modules (to get triple channel memory), it slowly amounts to a tangible difference.. Perhaps a new hard drive, or one step better graphics card.. Basically it goes down to what a specific person needs, that's all. Just what Anand and Ryan and others are telling us.For me personally, I'd really like to see some numbers from an overclocked i7 920 + HD5850 on cheapest X58 MBO, vs similarly priced AMD system with overclocked 1055T + HD5870 on 890GX MBO. That's roughly what I'm interested in.. and what I could afford at most. And I want great gaming @1920x1080 AND great threaded performance (video editing and H264 encoding) - all in one box. And for as little money as possible. I'm not interested in SLI/Crossfire and dozens of PCIe x16 slots, nor will I be water cooling, or anything even slightly extreme like that. But I want Full HD video encoding as fast as possible, and all current and up-and-coming games running smoothly in full HD as well. Everything else is less important to me. In this scenario, I think AMD has an upper hand I believe, as games will run smoother thanks to better graphics card, and heavy threaded apps like x264 encoder should be close enough for me not to care. Plus - the underdog gets a few extra $$ to keep Intel from bullying us altogether. And it sure would be worthy update for my E4400+HD4890 PC, and would cost me roughly 900-1000$ to get it all up and running..
7earitup - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Or you can get a i5 750 for $200 and a decent $100 mobo and over clock it to ~3.8 easily. Hell of a bang for your buck IMO.Blessedman - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Lets just hope this sends a clear message to Intel to back off their prices! I understand that new Fabs are not cheap (lol) but damn Intel, give us a freaking break! I would consider buying their 6 core offer if it were $500. That $200 premium over AMD would be well worth it, but a $600 premium... Congrats AMD for getting back into the game! Now fall in line Intel!unclebud - Sunday, May 2, 2010 - link
because competition is not only good, it's very necessary. here's hoping this processor can run gta IV eflc properly.