Enter The Dragon: AMD Phenom II X4 940

I am excited for this release....more competition in the CPU market is never a bad thing (and I've been Jones-ing for an AMD build for some reason).

I am worried however that AM3 mobos are going to be priced similiar to i7 mobo's .... anyone have word on this at all? I certainly do not mind spending $250 on a CPU but I will never spend more than $150 on a mobo (just me being stubborn I suppose).

Hopefully when the Phenom II CPU's are tested on the AM3 socket and with DDR3 memory, they'll beat, or match the Core i7 CPUs.

No official word on AM3 mobo pricing just yet, but I would bet the farm AMD will undercut Core i7 mobo pricing by a considerable margin.

Kinda underwelmed with the performance. For the price though wow. I'm not even considering the i7s because of the high price tag for the platform. I wonder if the DDR3 phenoms will edge out the core2quads?

looking foward in getting a AMD system :) and i know what to get thanks marc for that review!

Performance loox quite good actually... shows promise! While they may not be able to compete neck & neck with the i7 lineup, competetive pricing will make them a viable option. I've never had an AMD system before, but am not opposed to the idea. Once the platform has completely matured, I may get a top of the line Phenom II to replace my Intel dual core. Ultimately pricing will be the determining factor on what I get next and I suspect that AMD is well aware of this and will set prices accordingly.

For the money this is an excellent package. I may break my long going Intel run and build an AMD PHENOM II.

marco it was November of 2007, not 2008 when the spider platform came out lol. Im thinking you have had this article written before 2009.

Im glad you guys like to do benchmarks, but do you think you could do some that are not MADE for intel chips? POV and cinibench are heavily setup for intel based chips and can take advantage of more SSE instructions.

Good catch. Fixed. If you have other tests you'd like me to run moving forward, just let me know and I'll see if I can include them. But keep in mind, Phenom II supports SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and SSE4A instructions.

Good read. I think once AM3 comes out i7 will drop in price to match the AMD Mobo's. Still it looks like AMD is some what back in the game...

I must admit I do favor AMD over Intel, I guess I just go for the underdog, but your article seems to have overlooked one major thing, ddr3 vs. ddr2.

You do mention it in your article, but the way it is put in the article makes it seems like no big deal. All the Intel cpus are configed with ddr3 chip sets, and the AMD cpus are configed with ddr2 chipsets. Then at the end of the article you say when the new AMD cpus come out for the ddr3 chipsets, it should add a few percentage points to the test results. " A FEW "???  Everything I read about ddr3 cipsets states 20+ percent difference overall, and even more on some tests. To me, that would put AMD right there with  Intel in most tests. I just think you should "stress" the fact that these cpus are not being tested on a level  playing field to begin with, before stating witch is best.

Other than that, GREAT ARTICLE.

Thanks, Ronaldb3555