AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition CPU Review

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.


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