AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 27, 2010 12:26 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Phenom II X6
A very smart man once told me that absolute performance doesn’t matter, it’s performance at a given price point that makes a product successful. While AMD hasn’t held the absolute performance crown for several years now, that doesn’t mean the company’s products haven’t been successful.
During the days of the original Phenom, AMD started the trend of offering more cores than Intel at a given price point. Intel had the Core 2 Duo, AMD responded with the triple core Phenom X3. As AMD’s products got more competitive, the more-for-less approach didn’t change. Today AMD will sell you three or four cores for the price of two from Intel.
In some situations, this works to AMD’s benefit. The Athlon II X3 and X4 deliver better performance in highly threaded applications than the Intel alternatives. While Intel has better performance per clock, you can’t argue with more cores/threads for applications that can use them.
When Intel announced its first 6-core desktop processor, the Core i7 980X at $999, we knew a cheaper AMD alternative was coming. Today we get that alternative, this is the Phenom II X6 based on AMD’s new Thuban core:
It’s still a 45nm chip but thanks to architecture and process tweaks, the new Phenom II X6 still fits in the same power envelope as last year’s Phenom II X4 processors: 125W.
Update: AMD tells us that it gave us the wrong pricing on the 1090T. The part sells for $295, not $285, in 1000 unit quantities.
CPU Specification Comparison | ||||||||
Processor | Clock Speed | Max Turbo | L2 Cache | L3 Cache | TDP | Price | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T | 3.2GHz | 3.6GHz | 3MB | 6MB | 125W | $295 | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T | 2.8GHz | 3.3GHz | 3MB | 6MB | 125W | $199 | ||
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE | 3.4GHz | N/A | 2MB | 6MB | 125W/140W | $185 | ||
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE | 3.2GHz | N/A | 2MB | 6MB | 125W | $165 | ||
AMD Phenom II X4 945 | 3.0GHz | N/A | 2MB | 6MB | 95W | $155 | ||
AMD Phenom II X4 925 | 2.8GHz | N/A | 2MB | 6MB | 95W | $145 |
You also don’t give up much clock speed. The fastest Phenom II X6 runs at 3.2GHz, just 200MHz shy of the fastest X4.
When Intel added two cores to Nehalem it also increased the L3 cache of the chip by 50%. The Phenom II X6 does no such thing. The 6 cores have to share the same 6MB L3 cache as the quad-core version.
The Phenom II X6 die. Monolithic, hexa-core
There’s also the issue of memory bandwidth. Intel’s Core i7 980X is paired with a triple channel DDR3 memory controller, more than enough for four cores under normal use and enough for a six core beast. In order to maintain backwards compatibility, the Phenom II X6 is still limited to the same dual channel memory controller as its quad-core predecessor.
CPU Specification Comparison | ||||||||
CPU | Codename | Manufacturing Process | Cores | Transistor Count | Die Size | |||
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T | Thuban | 45nm | 6 | 904M | 346mm2 | |||
AMD Phenom II X4 965 | Deneb | 45nm | 4 | 758M | 258mm2 | |||
Intel Core i7 980X | Gulftown | 32nm | 6 | 1.17B | 240mm2 | |||
Intel Core i7 975 | Bloomfield | 45nm | 4 | 731M | 263mm2 | |||
Intel Core i7 870 | Lynnfield | 45nm | 4 | 774M | 296mm2 | |||
Intel Core i5 670 | Clarkdale | 32nm | 2 | 384M | 81mm2 | |||
AMD Phenom II X4 965 | Deneb | 45nm | 4 | 758M | 258mm2 |
The limitations are nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. While the 980X retails for $999, AMD’s most expensive 6-core processor will only set you back $285 and you can use them in all existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with a BIOS update. You're getting nearly 1 billion transistors for $200 - $300. Like I said earlier, it’s not about absolute performance, but performance at a given price point.
AMD 2010 Roadmap | |||||||
CPU | Clock Speed | Max Turbo (<= 3 cores) | L3 Cache | TDP | Release | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T | 3.2GHz | 3.6GHz | 6MB | 125W | Q2 | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1075T | 3.0GHz | 3.5GHz | 6MB | 125W | Q3 | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T | 2.8GHz | 3.3GHz | 6MB | 125W/95W | Q2 | ||
AMD Phenom II X6 1035T | 2.6GHz | 3.1GHz | 6MB | 95W | Q2 | ||
AMD Phenom II X4 960T | 3.0GHz | 3.4GHz | 6MB | 95W | Q2 |
We'll soon see more flavors of the Phenom II X6 as well as a quad-core derivative with 2 of these cores disabled. As a result, motherboard manufacturers are already talking about Phenom II X4 to X6 unlocking tools.
The new Phenom II X6 processors are aimed squarely at Intel’s 45nm Lynnfield CPUs. Both based on a 45nm process, AMD simply offers you more cores for roughly the same price. Instead of a quad-core Core i7 860, AMD will sell you a six-core 1090T. Oh and the T stands for AMD’s Turbo Core technology.
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SRivera - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Applications that will use that much memory and memory bandwidth. Off the top of my head, I can only think of moderate-heavy database use. Too many people tend to look over the 1156 platform over to 1366 because of triple channel memory when in reality, even more heavy gamers, you're just never going to fully utilize that much memory or bandwidth.I run a 4GB system, running games and oodles of apps at the same time, I've never seen my memory jump past 3GB or far past it.
So it really comes down to what your use for a system like the i7 9xx & X58 would be if you will really need the triple channel bandwidth and extra memory.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Uncompressed HD editing easily uses more than 4GB RAM. Anyone using an X58 with a
Quadro card for professional work should definitely have 6GB minimum.
Ian.
LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Zero. That's the amount you have contributed to this thread.chrnochime - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
Water closet? Haven't heard that term in YEARS.Peroxyde - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
For a machine used as a light VM Server, is AMD Thuban better than i5 750 ?Taft12 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
A light VM server should probably use your old PC in the corner gathering dust.ant_ - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I was hoping to see some benchmarks in Battlefield Bad Company 2. I thought Anandtech had added it to the gaming tests. We know the game scales well using a quad core vs a dual. I was curious to see the difference between 4 vs 6 cores.toolonglyf - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
ya I'm a bit disappointed not seeing it there... I think it would have shown something interestingKranZ - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I'd be curious to see how this stands up in the VM tests you did earlier this year. At face value, it seems VMs = more threads and this proc would be of value.Crypticone - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - link
I noticed the WOW benchmarks are missing from this CPU. Any chance of getting them added to the gaming page?