AMD Phenom X4 9850 – a top-end CPU at affordable price
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Date: 05.09.2008 |
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So far, Phenom X4 9850 which we are reviewing today, has been at the top end of AMD's quad-core processors. With the advent of the model Phenom X4 9950, it had to give in the honorable first place, but that does not belittle its merits at all. The difference in the clock speeds of these processors (2.5 and 2.6 GHz) is minor, and in view of the much lower price the CPU Phenom X4 9850 looks more attractive to the potential buyer.
This is how the CPU being reviewed looks.
Below, you can see the screenshots of the CPU-Z utility with the specifications of the CPU and the test platform.
     Before we move on to the tests, we say a few words on the rival which we selected for the contest – the quad-core CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300. We decided to take just that model for comparison, because Phenom X4 9850 and Core 2 Quad Q9300 are of the same clock speed – 2.5 GHz. This allows comparing the differences in performance related to their architectures. As we know, AMD Phenom processors offer L3 cache memory common for all the cores. At the same time, Intel's quad-core processors do not have 3rd level cache memory because physically they are two chips merged on a single substrate, so L3 cache is common only for each pair of cores. Another important distinction is in that AMD processors offer an integrated memory controller, whereas Intel processors communicate with the memory (RAM) via the "north bridge" of the chipset. We are now trying to find out which approach provides better performance.
Here are the major specifications of the processors which take part in this test:
| CPU |
Phenom X4 9850 |
Core 2 Quad Q9300 |
| Process technology, nm |
65 |
45 |
| Core speed, MHz |
2500 |
2500 |
| Cores |
4 |
4 |
| L1 cache, K |
4x64 |
4x32 |
| L2 cache, K |
4x512 |
2x3072 |
| L3 cache, K |
2048 |
- |
| Bus speed, MHz |
200 |
333 (1333 QP) |
| Multiplier |
12,5 |
7,5 |
| TDP, W |
130 |
95 |
| Price, rubles (1 USD = 23.5 rubles) |
~ 6000 |
~ 8200 |
The approximate prices are given according to www.price.ru for the "boxed" versions of the processors.
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