Derrick
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While life didn’t start off well at all for the Phenom line of CPUs, AMD has managed to fix the problems affecting earlier Phenoms, and has made a brilliant comeback with the newer Phenom processors.
AMD’s launch of the Phenom didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated and for the most part left end-users disappointed. While the improved CPU architecture provided performance improvements over the outgoing Athlon X2 CPUs, the clock speeds were low and the per cycle improvements, while tangible, were less than anticipated and resulted in the competition having the upper hand in raw performance.
These were minor problems, however, as the biggest problem was the announcement of a bug in the first Phenom CPUs, which was a problem that most users would never experience, but it garnered enough coverage to make it an influence in the purchasing decisions of people. This probably led to a slower adoption rate than expected.
However, AMD has made significant strides in improving the Phenom line of CPUs. The 9850 features a respectable clock speed of 2.5GHz, a very attractive price and is bug free. This not only makes the 9850 the highest-clocked Phenom CPU released, but because the CPU doesn’t suffer from the TLB bug, it is 10% to 15% faster than the older Phenom CPUs (which employed a workaround that degraded performance).
The performance of the 9850 is impressive, and despite a 700MHz speed deficit - when compared to the Athlon X2 6400+ - it manages to outpace the Athlon in several singlethreaded applications and outclasses it in applications that can take advantage of multi-core processors. This advantage is evident in general Windows tasks, but is more pronounced in WMV9 video encoding, where the 9850 can encode the same video 10% faster than the Athlon X2 6400+ when using two cores. When all four cores are engaged, the speed advantage is more than 50%.
The 9850 is particularly powerful in 3D rendering, where it shows even larger gains in performance over the Athlon X2 6400+. If you are making use of an AMD Athlon X2 for DTP, CAD or any other CPU-intensive application, the 9850 will offer significantly better performance, which would make the investment in the 9850 worth it.
However, when dealing with processors, it is unavoidable that comparisons between the two main CPU manufacturers will be drawn. The Phenom 9850 Black Edition sits firmly between the entry-level quad-core processor of Intel and the next CPU above in terms of CPU power. With that said, the 9850 costs the same as the basic quadcore CPU from Intel, and that makes the Phenom an attractive purchase - especially if you have already invested in an AM2 or AM2+ motherboard.
The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is a great CPU and is definitely value for money.
AMD’s launch of the Phenom didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated and for the most part left end-users disappointed. While the improved CPU architecture provided performance improvements over the outgoing Athlon X2 CPUs, the clock speeds were low and the per cycle improvements, while tangible, were less than anticipated and resulted in the competition having the upper hand in raw performance.
These were minor problems, however, as the biggest problem was the announcement of a bug in the first Phenom CPUs, which was a problem that most users would never experience, but it garnered enough coverage to make it an influence in the purchasing decisions of people. This probably led to a slower adoption rate than expected.
However, AMD has made significant strides in improving the Phenom line of CPUs. The 9850 features a respectable clock speed of 2.5GHz, a very attractive price and is bug free. This not only makes the 9850 the highest-clocked Phenom CPU released, but because the CPU doesn’t suffer from the TLB bug, it is 10% to 15% faster than the older Phenom CPUs (which employed a workaround that degraded performance).
The performance of the 9850 is impressive, and despite a 700MHz speed deficit - when compared to the Athlon X2 6400+ - it manages to outpace the Athlon in several singlethreaded applications and outclasses it in applications that can take advantage of multi-core processors. This advantage is evident in general Windows tasks, but is more pronounced in WMV9 video encoding, where the 9850 can encode the same video 10% faster than the Athlon X2 6400+ when using two cores. When all four cores are engaged, the speed advantage is more than 50%.
The 9850 is particularly powerful in 3D rendering, where it shows even larger gains in performance over the Athlon X2 6400+. If you are making use of an AMD Athlon X2 for DTP, CAD or any other CPU-intensive application, the 9850 will offer significantly better performance, which would make the investment in the 9850 worth it.
However, when dealing with processors, it is unavoidable that comparisons between the two main CPU manufacturers will be drawn. The Phenom 9850 Black Edition sits firmly between the entry-level quad-core processor of Intel and the next CPU above in terms of CPU power. With that said, the 9850 costs the same as the basic quadcore CPU from Intel, and that makes the Phenom an attractive purchase - especially if you have already invested in an AM2 or AM2+ motherboard.
The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is a great CPU and is definitely value for money.