Quake ET
Crysis
In the gaming tests, the extra clock speed of the
X3 8750 puts it clearly ahead of the X4 9600 by a small margin.
Final
Words
We
didn't have enough time to run through our overclocking gamut,
but we were able to boost the HT clock to 229MHz on air without
any problems. Temperatures were also quite good, hovering in the
mid-30C using our Zalman CNPS cooler.
While some of the reviews today have followed AMD's
suggestion of pairing the CPU with a 780
series chipset, we think the 790FX gives a good idea of
how things can look at the higher end of the scale. We had some
difficulties gathering processors for a pure price point comparison,
what you'll be hearing a lot about today is there aren't any competing
offerings with more than 2 cores at the sub-$200 price point.
Actually, we'll discuss this further in a moment, but this is
certainly true of the X3 8650 and X3 8450.
There's obvious potential for improvement if you
venture in overclocking, and given the price point, that option
is certainly attractive. Gaming performance is decent, and the
chip is more than enough for basic needs such as office applications
and Internet surfing. Where we think the AMD Phenom X3 8750 Triple
Core Processor will really shine is in the HTPC space. The BE-series
of CPUs we've been using are excellent in that they use little
power and hence much cooler running. This allows us to use quieter
cooling which is a must when viewing multimedia.
The AMD Phenom X3 8750 uses more power and isn't
as cool as the BE, but it is less power consuming than the Phenom
X4 processors. Why use these CPUs despite being less power efficient
than the BE? Even though
the AMD Unified Video Decoder can offload CPU usage in HD playback
by putting the work on the graphics processing unit, if you're
running multiple tasks during HD playback, the system does struggle
if it doesn't have the horse power. We don't do it often, but
at times we'll be converting files into DivX for sharing, and
the CPU is completely maxed out, causing dropped frames during
HD playback. For the test files we used, the X3 8750 had
no problems with HD and file conversion.
While the new 50-series X3 chips are set to be at
the $200 price-point and under, what does this all really mean
in the retail landscape? While it's simple to point out "we'll
be cheaper by x amount", what is x in reality? If
the X3 were $100 cheaper than some of their competitors, even
AMD's own chips, we think the X3 would be very, very compelling.
The problem is, at the time of this writing, the Phenom
X3 8750 can be had for $219 online. The
Phenom X4 9600 is $213, about $6 cheaper. Now, shipping costs
vary and if you do extensive shopping around, you may be able
to find an X3 8750 in the $190 range, but the fact of the matter
is, AMD's own X4 is really not much more expensive, at least not
expensive enough where the price where be prohibitive.
Now, another thing to consider, when comparing against
Intel, the pricing between CPUs will be causing your head to spin
much like it does for AMD. Looking around though, the motherboard
prices are more clear cut. For a quality product, the 780 chipset
is consistently $30 to $40 cheaper than the P35. If you choose
the boards with onboard graphics, from experience, the 780G boards
perform much better than anything Intel has to offer at the moment.
When looking at a platform cost differential, the gap widens to
$60 to $80 real-world.
We find ourselves thus torn with the choices at
hand. As far as gaming is concerned, we like the X3 8750. If pricing
through the week levels out closer to AMD's MSRP, it becomes very
compelling. At this moment though, I'd personally take the X4
9600 which will be a little more expensive, or maybe even cheaper
depending where you shop. From a strict dollar standpoint, and
let's just say that you're holding both boxes in your hands, if
the difference is $20, I would not hesitate to grab the Quad core
X4.
If
you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
HOME
