Testbed and Methods
Frankly speaking you may doubt whether it makes sense to test Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition within this review. Our previous articles have already destroyed all illusions about Phenom performance. Besides we have already found out that their frequencies should be at least around 2.7-2.8GHz in order for AMD Phenom processors to successfully compete against the youngest quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad CPUs. At this time Phenom X4 9850 cannot boat anything like that.
Nevertheless, tests are an irreplaceable part of every processor review, so we couldn’t dare drop them. We decided to compare Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition against quad-core Intel processors offered within the same price range. Today Intel has two CPUs that fit the profile: Core 2 Quad Q6600 and a newer Core 2 Quad Q9300 from the Penryn family. Note that Phenom X4 9850 and Core 2 Quad Q9300 work at the same clock frequency of 2.5GHz, which may add some intrigue to our today’s test session.
Besides, our results also include the numbers for a more affordable Phenom X4 9750 and the top CPU on B2 processor stepping – Phenom X4 9600, with two types of results on the diagrams: with and without the TLB patch.
For our tests we put together the following testbeds:
AMD platform:
- CPUs:
- AMD Phenom X4 9850 (Socket AM2+, 2.5GHz, 4 x 512MB L2, 2MB L3, Agena).
- AMD Phenom X4 9750 (Socket AM2+, 2.4GHz, 4 x 512MB L2, 2MB L3, Agena).
- AMD Phenom X4 9600 (Socket AM2+, 2.3GHz, 4 x 512MB L2, 2MB L3, Agena).
- Mainboard: DFI LANParty UT 790FX-M2R (Socket AM2+, AMD 790FX).
- Memory: 2GB DDR2-1066 with 5-5-5-15-2T timings (Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF).
- Graphics card: OCZ GeForce 8800GTX (PCI-E x16).
- HDD: Western Digital WD1500AHFD (SATA150).
- OS: Microsoft Windows Vista x86.
Intel Platform:
- CPUs:
- Intel Core 2 Duo Q9300 (LGA775, 2.5GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 2 x 3MB L2, Yorkfield);
- Intel Core 2 Duo Q6600 (LGA775, 2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 2 x 4MB L2, Kentsfield).
- Mainboard: ASUS P5E (LGA775, Intel X38, DDR2 SDRAM).
- Memory: 2GB DDR2-1066 with 5-5-5-15 timings (Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF).
- Graphics card: OCZ GeForce 8800GTX (PCI-E x16).
- HDD: Western Digital WD1500AHFD (SATA150).
- OS: Microsoft Windows Vista x86.
