 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
||||
 |
|
|
| Introduction and Specifications | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As you probaly expect, the new AMD Phenom X3 8750 looks exactly like any other socket AM2+ processor outfitted with AMD's standard heat spreader. The chip also uses the same packaging and socket as current Phenom processors; it is only the silicon underneath that has changed. |
| Vital Signs and Overclocking | ||||
As we've already mentioned, AMD’s new Phenom X3 8750 processor look just like all current Phenom processors. It utilizes the same packaging and pin configuration. But underneath its heat-spreader lies a CPU die that has one of its execution cores disabled.
The latest version of CPU-Z correctly identifies and outlines the Phenom X3 8750's inner workings. As you can see, the processor is based on the Toliman core with socket AM2+ packaging. It is clocked at 2.4GHz (12 x 200MHz) and our particular chip is stepping "DR-B3". As you can see, the chip also supports all of the instructions sets listed in the aptly named "instructions" section. The processor’s 1.5MB L2 cache configuration (512KB per core) is 16-way set associative, but the processor's 2MB of shared L3-cache is 32-way set associative. Please note, that because one of the execution cores is disabled on the X3 it has 512K less total L2 cache versus a Phenom X4 and 128K less L1.
We know many of you are wondering just how much clock speed headroom the Phenom X3 8750 has left under the hood, so we spent some time overclocking our chip using a Gigabyte 790FX-chipset based motherboard. Because the Phenom X3 8750 is not a "Black Edition" processor, its multiplier cannot be increased for overclocking. That meant we could only overclock by altering the HT frequency, but we still had some pretty good luck.
|
| Our Test Systems and SANDRA | |||||||||||||||||
How We Configured Our Test Systems: When configuring our test systems for this article, we first entered their respective system BIOSes and set each board to its "Optimized" or "High performance Defaults". We then saved the settings, re-entered the BIOS and set memory timings for either DDR2-1066 (AMD) with 5,5,5,15 timings or DDR3-1333 with 7,7,7,20 timings (Intel). The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the Windows installation was complete, we updated the OS, and installed the drivers necessary for our components. Auto-Updating and Windows Defender were then disabled and we installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives, and ran all of the tests.
SiSoft SANDRA's various benchmark modules reported scores right in-line with logical expectations. The tri-core chip was more powerful than AMD's dual-core offerings, but note quite as powerful as a quad-core. The multi-core efficiency and various memory related tests all reported similar scores to quad-core Phenom X4 processors, which is to be expected considering they are the essentially identical. |
| PCMark Vantage | ||||
We ran a handful of processors and platforms, including the new Phenom X3 8750, through Futuremark’s latest system performance metric built especially for Windows Vista, PCMark Vantage. PCMark Vantage runs through a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including High Definition TV and movie playback and manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity. Most of the tests are multi-threaded as well, so the tests can exploit the additional resources offered by a quad-core CPU.
With the exception of PCMark Vantage's "Memories" test, the Phenom X3 8750 performed exactly as expected. In the "Memories" test, the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ finished slightly ahead of the 8750, but in all of the other tests the 8750 proved to be faster than any previous AMD dual-core chip, and right on par with the Core 2 Duos. Of course, the quad-core chips were fastest overall, but the Phenom X3 8750 put up a strong showing and its encouraging to see that applications are properly taking advantage of the odd number of cores. |
| LAME MT and KribiBench | ||||||||
In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a popular scenario that many end users work with on a day-to-day basis to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. LAME is an open-source mid to high bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is used widely around the world in a multitude of third party applications.
In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file (a hallucinogenically-induced Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-thread modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Once again, shorter times equate to better performance.
For this next batch of tests, we ran Kribibench v1.1, a 3D rendering benchmark produced by the folks at Adept Development. Kribibench is an SSE aware software renderer where a 3D model is rendered and animated by the host CPU and the average frame rate is reported. We used two of the included models with this benchmark: a "Sponge Explode" model consisting of over 19.2 million polygons and the test suite's "Ultra" model that is comprised of over 16 billion polys.
|
| Cinebench and 3DMark06 | ||||||||
Cinebench R10 is an OpenGL 3D rendering performance test based on Cinema 4D. Cinema 4D from Maxon is a 3D rendering and animation tool suite used by 3D animation houses and producers like Sony Animation and many others. It's very demanding of system processor resources and is an excellent gauge of pure computational throughput.
This is a multi-threaded, multi-processor aware benchmark that renders a single 3D scene and tracks the length of the entire process. The time it took each test system to render the entire scene is represented in the graph below, listed in seconds.
The Phenom X3 8750 didn't perform quite as well in the Cinebench R10 benchmark as it did in Kribibench, but the results were fairly good nonetheless. In this test, the dual core Athlon 64 X2 6400+ was faster in the single-threaded test and the Core 2 Duo E6850 pulled ahead in both the single-and multi-threaded tests.
3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded DirectX gaming metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems. This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are processed with a software renderer that is dependent on the host CPU's performance. Calculations that are normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the CPU for processing and rendering. The frame-rate generated in each test is used to determine the final score.
3DMark06's built-in CPU benchmark had the Phenom X3 8750 finishing well ahead of any of the dual-core processors we tested, but behind all of the quad-cores. And once again, the non-symmetrical number of cores seems to have had no ill effects in any off the applications we've tested thus far. |
| Gaming: Crysis and F.E.A.R. | ||||
For our next set of tests, we moved on to some in-game benchmarking with Crysis and F.E.A.R. When testing processors with Crysis or F.E.A.R., we drop the resolution to 800x600, and reduce all of the in-game graphical options to their minimum values to isolate CPU and memory performance as much as possible. However, the in-game effects, which control the level of detail for the games' physics engines and particle systems, are left at their maximum values, since these actually do place some load on the CPU rather than GPU.
Our low-res gaming benchmarks tell essentially the same story we've seen throughout this article - the Phenom X3 8750 finished of all of the dual-core chips with the exception of the Core 2 Duo E6850 in the F.E.A.R. benchmark. In Crysis though, the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ and E6600 were also able to pull ahead of the X3 8750. |
| Total System Power Consumption | ||||
Before we bring this article to a close, we'd like to cover a few final data points. Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored how much power our test systems were consuming using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the motherboards alone.
|
| Our Summary and Conclusion | ||||
Performance Summary: Somewhat surprisingly, AMD's new Phenom X3 8750 performed exactly as a triple-core CPU should in our battery of benchmarks. When the chips were first announced, we weren't sure how today's applications would react to a non-symmetrical multi-core processor, but all of the applications we tested behaved normally and simply took advantage of the additional processor resources.
AMD's new Phenom X3 8750 puts AMD is in an interesting position. Before we explain that, let's get some particulars out of the way... As you can see, AMD is pricing the X3 8750 and its lower clocked siblings at $195 and below in lots of 1000. That makes the chip we tested here today about $5 cheaper than the lower-clocked, 2.2GHz quad-core Phenom X4 9550, $20 cheaper than the similarly clocked Phenom X4 9750, and about $30 more expensive than AMD's fastest dual-core chip, the Athlon 64 X2 6400+. You'd expect the Phenom X3 8750 to be more affordable than AMD's current quad-core chips, but the prices are so close at the moment, there's no reason not to spend the extra 20 bucks for the extra core offered by the 9750 in our opinion, provided you've got a motherboard that can handle its 125W TDP. In light of Intel's current offereings, the Phenom X3 8750 is about $30 and $95 less expensive than the Core 2 Quad Q6600 and Q9300, respectively, and right on par with the Core 2 Duo E6850 or E8400. So again, if you've got the budget, the additional investment required for a quad-core chip makes sense considering how much faster they are with the right application workload.
|
When AMD first announced 
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
