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Today AMD is launching its first hexa-core desktop processors, as we take the covers off the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition and 1055T processors for a round of testing. Based on the architecture codenamed Thuban, these new 45nm processors are designed to provide users with six working cores without breaking the bank...
When it comes to value AMD delivers in more ways than one, and their current lineup of Phenom II X4 processors are a perfect example of this. These processors offer high quality quad-core performance at an affordable price as the flagship model, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, is a sub-$200 US part that contends with the Intel Core i5 750 processor.
However going beyond the Core i5 750 to the more expensive Core i7 processors and Intel has no competition here, AMD simply does not have a processor fast enough to provide a challenge. Extending Intel’s performance lead further is the recently released Core i7 980 XE, which features six-cores with Hyper-Threading support for a total of 12 threads. This new Intel processor is blindingly fast, though it does have one weakness and that is the price, as Intel has set the MSRP at a jaw dropping $999 US. At this price few are going to lay their hands on a Core i7 980 XE processor, which leaves those hungry for more cores with limited options. That was of course until the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition and 1055T processors came along. Amazingly the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, which is a completely unlocked six-core processor, is said to be priced at around $300 US. Meanwhile the slightly slower Phenom II X6 1055T model is said to retail for around $220 US, making it only slightly more expensive than the Core i5 750. It would seem that AMD is continuing to be extremely competitive with their pricing, as there is really no way they could make the Phenom II X6 1055T any cheaper without hurting their Phenom II X4 range. Something we found interesting about these new Phenom II X6 processors is that they still feature the same 6MB L3 cache of the Phenom II X4 and Phenom II X2 processors. This is not entirely surprising, though had AMD made this cache a little more sizable things could have become very interesting, particularly given Intel loaded their hexa-core processor with twice as much cache. Still, with the 6MB L3 cache in place the Phenom II X6 processors do feature a total cache of 9MB, as there is also 512KB (512KB x 6 = 3MB) of L2 cache assigned to each core. This means overall the Phenom II X6 processors do feature 1MB more cache when compared to the Phenom II X4 processors. The Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition operates at 3.20GHz, while the 1055T works at just 2.80GHz. However both processors support a new AMD technology called “Turbo Core”, which is a hardware based C-State performance boost technology and is AMD’s equivalent of Intel Turbo Boost. The great thing about Turbo Core is that is does not disable Cool'n'Quiet in any way. The Turbo Core feature of the Phenom II X6 1090T can increase the operating frequency of up to three cores to 3.60GHz, which is a 400MHz overclock from the default operating frequency. The Phenom II X6 1055T on the other hand can boost itself from 2.80GHz all the way to 3.30GHz, which is a 500MHz frequency jump. In the end AMD says that the new Phenom II X6 processors are faster and more efficient than anything they have released to date, so let’s check out how they perform... |
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Nick |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 03:19 AM
Great stuff I am just going over the review now but I skipped to the overclocking because I couldnt wait and damn those are some nice results. |
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Vaughn |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 05:07 AM
Few errors with labels in the graphs. i5-750 has 2.66 Ghz default clockspeed not 2.8. And a few times you spoke about the i7-930 as having a 2.66ghz clock speed when its 2.8ghz. Other wise great write up. |
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Busta9 |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 05:54 AM
Thanks for the honest review. I have to say these six core processors are a little disappointing really. |
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Rusty |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 06:00 AM
Time for me to upgrade to some hexa-core action. The 1055T is the processor for me and thank you for all the hard work. |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 06:43 AM
Thanks for the corrections Vaughn. “Copy and Replace All” gets me into trouble all the time. Also thanks for all the feedback so far guys. |
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Calle2003 Posts: 16 Joined: 2010-04-27 |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 11:17 AM
Press release from AMD: "ASUS has started to distribute a new BIOS, 0602 – this actually provides degraded performance as well as issues with Turbo core. Please encourage press to use the 0505 BIOS that can be found on the FTP." Source: http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/11911-amd-ger-hardvarusajter-huvudbry (use google translate for all except the quote). BTW. What happened to my previous account and previous comments like for the excellent article Clock for Clock: Core i5, Core i7, Core 2 Quad and Phenom II X4 Performance. Database crash? |
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Razor |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 11:29 AM
Nice work. So pretty much these are only good if you require more than 4 threads which makes sense as you said. Not sure when we will see games that require that many threads to this is really only useful for those working with multimedia stuff. |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 11:33 AM
Posted by Calle2003 on 04/27/2010 12:17 PM
We tested with the original 0505 BIOS as this was all that was available at the time. That said I upgraded to the 0602 today and ran all the tests again. I did not notice any performance drops. As for your second question when did you create the account? A few months ago we upgraded the website and removed the old forums. |
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Skooda |
Posted on: 04/27/2010 11:52 PM
They are pretty good value really. Think its time for me to upgrade  |
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Calle2003 Posts: 16 Joined: 2010-04-27 |
Posted on: 04/28/2010 12:05 AM
Posted by Steve on 04/27/2010 12:33 PM
1. Seems like it's very hard to reproduce what AMD are stating, like the cold bug in Barcelona. 2. I created the account September or October 2009, I re-registered yesterday, so no worries, even though it would be nice to read the older posts. Shouldn't you preferably backup the database before upgrading the forum?  Some other thoughts: I use Firefox as my main browser, but the <- Reply -> Quote doesn't work in FF but I noticed it works in IE 8. To enter a code for every post in a forum is something new for me, but it's better than every post going through an admin before it shows up on the forum (like on bit-tech), I would prefer no code entries though and manual administration of the forum, just like all the Swedish forums. Have you been a victim of forum spammers on LH? Despite the small critism I still regard LH as one of my top hardware-sites, your reviews are something extra esp. the Clock for Clock: Core i5, Core i7, Core 2 Quad and Phenom II X4 Performance article. You could add the Phenom II X6 and Core i7 980X to the comparision, it would be a nice update.  Regards, Calle2003 from Sweden |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 04/28/2010 12:54 AM
Unfortunately we moved from the old review database system and forums to a completely new system that could only transfer the old reviews. The forums as such are gone, users can now only comment on the reviews so it was impossible to migrate the data. Thank you for reporting the reply bug, we are fixing a few other things at the moment as well. Also I will certainly update the clock-for-clock article very soon with these new processors. |
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tiger |
Posted on: 04/28/2010 03:14 PM
More and more cores, but no real gain. It's kind of disappointing to see the hardware skyrocketing with the software lagging sooo behind. I hope we'll get to see applications and games that really take advantage of multicore processors. Thanks for the nice review! |
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Garvey |
Posted on: 05/08/2010 09:55 AM
The results were a little disappointing but I am still keen to own one |
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Homey |
Posted on: 07/29/2010 04:34 AM
I don't think Excel is a good bench mark to use on any processor comparison. How many people in the world really have any spreadsheets that take any real time to compute even on a slow single core processor? I'm thinking a few thousand people on the entire planet! Handbrake, on the other hand, is much more indicative of a real world work load. The thing to take from this review is that you really should make sure that the software you run will take advantage of 6 cores before you drop the money on one of these processors, although the 1055t is priced at a point that it is probably the processor to buy if you are building a new AMD system (or upgrading an old one). |
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sniper444 |
Posted on: 08/04/2010 12:19 PM
You know what they say about assumptions right? Why would you think only few thousand people on the entire planet use complex Excel spread sheets? That is almost the most absurd thing I have ever read, where do you work exactly? I work for a large corporation and we have hundreds of massive Excel spread sheets that we are using on a daily basis. Not only do these processor make compiling complex spread sheets much faster they make using them much easier and smoother as well. Anyone that uses Excel to plot charts and things of that nature which is a large percentage of Excel users will know that systems lacking power will be choppy when trying to scroll through the data. Anyway I just think saying that Excel should not be used as a bench mark is crazy as many more readers are likely to use it when compared to software such as Handbrake. Though again that is an assumption and I do believe that Handbrake is just as valid for benchmarking as Excel anyway. |