DDR3-based Phenom II gets a showing

THE CHAPS at Tom's Hardware store in Taiwan managed to grab some early Phenom II X4 910 benchmark numbers and performed some synthetic tests showing DDR3 performance levels.

The X4 910 (quad-core 2.6GHz 2MB L2, 6MB L3) is the first Phenom II to be spotted with an integrated DDR3-1333 controller – current Phenom II X4 sport the DDR2-1066 mem controller – and it appears that performance seems to scale well with the added memory bandwidth. The THG Taiwan preview shows some very interesting scores in PC Mark that smash the Phenom II X4 940 and 920 memory Marks to bits, something that's to be expected from DDR3 vs DDR2, of course.

The team also managed to show off the processor's overclocking ability taking it all the way to 3.5GHz (that's a 900MHz overclock), at the same time overclocking memory to DDR3-1600 speeds. The performance jump was almost linear.

The Phenom II X4 910 is expected to be the 'slowest' Phenom II X4 in AMD's portfolio, which of course is good publicity for AMD, but bad for business, as this processor is exceeding the current high-end 940's performance. Knowing DDR3 offers such a jump in system scores, users may shy away from their current 940 and 920 editions.

On the other hand, buying a current 940 will still offer good performance without having to upgrade your platform.

Despite plans to lower production, Deneb-based Phenom II X4 processors with AM3 packaging are on schedule to hit shop shelves this coming month.

L'Inq
Tom's Hardware Store Taiwan