AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition CPU Review

Name: AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition CPU Review - Page 3
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 12:00 AM EDT

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.

Futuremark 3DMark06

Synthetic DirectX Gaming

3DMark06 had the Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition finishing ahead of the other AMD-made quad-cores and the Core i5-750, but it couldn't touch any of the six-core processors, especially Intel's much more expensive Core i7-970 nor could it match the performance of Sandy Bridge.

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

Synthetic DirectX Gaming

3DMark Vantage tells the same story. The Phenom II X4 980 BE outpaces all of the other quad-cores we tested, with the exception of the Sandy Bridge-based Core i5-2500. All of the six-core processors were also faster than the X4 980 BE.

Tags: AMD, CPU, processor, phenom II, AM3, Black Edition, 980

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com