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AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

AMD’s Phenom II X6 Six Core Processor 1090T

AMD

Introduction:

AMD has a new flagship processor labeled the Phenom II X6 1090T. The 1090T is the most powerful and vestal ever from AMD. The additional cores are always welcomed, though most applications are just written or “optimized” for Dual cores as seen in several benchmarks in previous reviews, but keep in mind, these are synthetic benchmarks to record specific tasks on every system. The new Phenom ™ II X6 1090T processor runs at 3.2GHz natively across all six cores, but when the processor detects that three or more cores are idle, the processor auto boost the three cores to automatically to 3.6GHz. AMD continues to trend of keeping the price low, the 1090T will be listed under $300, which is a welcomed site to see in present economy. Along with the release of the AMD Phenom™ II X6 processors, is the release of the new AMD 890FX chipset which we will also touch on during this review. So let us look at what the additional cores give us by taking a look at the standard benchmarks and some over-clocking of the 3.2GHz X6 processor to see how is matches up against the rest of the market today.

Specifications:

Processor Model Clock Frequency System Bus Package Profile CMOS Tech L2 Cache L3 Cache TDP Voltage Max Temp
AMD PhenomTM II X6 1090T 3.2GHz(3.6 GHz Turbo CORE)

4.0 GT/s

socket AM3

45nm SOI

3MB

6MB

125W

1.125-1.40V

62’C

AMD PhenomTM II X6 1055T 2.8GHz(3.3 GHz Turbo CORE)

4.0 GT/s

socket AM3

45nm SOI

3MB

6MB

125W

1.125-1.40V

62’C

Cache Sizes L1 Cache: 128KB (64KB Instruction + 64KB Data) x6(six-core)
L2 Cache: 512KB x6(six-core)
L3 Cache: 6MB Shared L3
Process Technology 45-nanometer SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology
HyperTransport™ technology links One 16-bit/16-bit link at up to 4000MT/s full duplex; or up to 16.0GB/s I/O bandwidth
Memory Integrated memory controller up to 21GB/sec dual channel memory bandwidth
Types of Memory Support for unregistered DIMMs up to
PC2 8500 (DDR2-1066MHz)
PC3 10600 (DDR3-1333MHz)
Die Size 45nm = 258mm2
Packaging 938-pin organic micro Pin Grid Array (micro-PGA)

windowstaskmanager

Task Manager showing all six cores

Though just sitting idle in this screen shot, we see the resources which are available. This reminds me of a car show with exotic cars. You see it your can hear it, but you can’t afford it, well, AMD has a Phenom™ II with six cores and it can really perform… and for under $300, you can afford it!! 

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Our Test Machine:

Asus Crosshair IV Formula Motherboard
8GB of OCZ DDR3 PC3-16000
NZXT Hades Crafted Series case
OCZ Solid 2 Series 60GB
AMD Phenom™II 1090T
NVIDIA GTX 280
Tuniq Ensemble 1200 Watt PSU
LG SATA DVD-RW with Lightscribe.

We took the liberty to use two RAM kits of 4 GB each to put this system up to 8GB RAM and with running a 64Bit operating system we were able to take full advantage of all 8 Gigs. Also using a solid state drive as the primary hard drive, the system was really responsive.

Software Parameters:

Windows 7 x64bit  Home Premium
Nvidia GeForce/Ion Drive Release 8.17.11.9745
All Operating system Updates

The New 890FX Chipset:

890fx-chipset

890FX chipset explained.

With the release of a new processor with six cores comes with the need to optimize the additional cores with the rest of the board. The release of new 890FX chipset does just what is needed.

Benchmarks:

CPU-Z

cpu-z-cpu

cpu-z-memory

CPU tab showing the processor name of K10 Memory specifications

cpu-z-cache

cpu-z-motherboard

CPU Cache

Motherboard specifications

Quick run through the CPU-Z screens shows off what the Phenom™ II 1090T Processor has to offer us. Looking over the listed specifications for the processor and the rest of the test system, we expected some impressive numbers and from the benchmarks we about about to show you, we weren’t let down.

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Benchmarks Continued:

SiSoft Sandra

sisoft-cachememory

sisoft-memorybandwidth

The 1090T’s Cache Memory takes the title here against the Core i7 in both bandwidth and speed. The 1090T wasn’t too far behind its rival in memory bandwidth benchmark.

The handling of memory can be the deciding factor when it comes to performance over multiple cores. The going standard in today environment is to have at least one gigabyte of RAM per processor core; having anything less will likely leave the processor with a free clock cycle. This is well documented in the virtual server realm where virtual servers are trimmed down to the bare minimum processors and memory requirements. Now, we are not saying that the one must have six GB’s RAM for their AMD Phenom™ II X6 1090T day one, but it will sure wake up your system if you are pushing the system to the limits of processor.

Note: Users with Windows 7, 32bit operating systems will only be able to see and address maximum of 4GBs of RAM (Click here for specifics).

sisoft-memorylatency

sisoft-multicore-efficiency

Memory Latency

Multi-Core Effeniciency

The memory latency benchmark shows the latency is a real close across the board, but the speed factor on our test rig the speed factor is much further behind its competitors. This can be simply adjusted by the type of RAM that is installed in the system.

sisoft-power-management-efficiency

sisoft-proc-arithmetic

Power Management Efficiency Benchmark Processor Arithmetic Benchmark

The Power Management Efficiency benchmark is where the 1090T does very well, with the ALU Power Performance and Power Efficiency coming out ahead of the Intel Core i7 965, not to mention the dual cores from Intel and AMD alike. The point to be made here is with six cores the 1090T is more efficient per core than a dual core processors, so one would ask why buy a dual core?  The Arithmetic benchmark shows us another close race between the Intel Core i7. The arithmetic benchmark is usually where the Intel Core i7 would leave the AMD Phenom™ II in the proverbial dust.

sisoft-proc-multimedia

Sisoft Multimedia benchmark

The multimedia benchmark is another close one with Intel’s Core i7, though what the AMD 1090T lacked in Multi-Media Float benchmark, the 1090T made up for it and then some with the Multi-Media Int (megapixel/s).

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Benchmarks Continued:

Crysis Warhead:

logo-homepage

crysis-2010-04-25-21-22-44-72

crysis-2010-04-25-21-20-57-09

While playing the game Crysis Warhead, the frame rates did not drop below 34Fps. This is actually very reasonable considering the resolution of 1280X800 with 4X AA at optimal settings (gamer settings). It should be noted that video games, and especially Crysis, are much more video card dependent than CPU.  As such unless the game is coded to take advantage of multiple cores beyond 4 you will not really see much speedup with the introduction of six core processors. We would expect that to change quickly as the gaming industry will want to start using all the processing power at their disposal.

3DMark06

3dmark06

3DMark06

Though the score is primarily dependent on the video card, 3DMark06 does dedicate a portion of the score to the CPU and as such is included in testing. We should not that this is the first time this reviewer has ever seen higher than 2fps when the benchmark was running the CPU only segment of the 3DMark06.

ScienceMark2.0

sciencemark20

ScienceMark 2.0

The ScienceMark 2.0 benchmark came back with a very impressive number in comparison to the AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition Quad Core Processor score of 197155 shown here. Note: Though the test system is running with a x64Bit operating system like the 965 BE Quad Core review, the 1090T review is also running more RAM and also a solid state drive which will assist with this score.

windows7basescore

The Windows 7 Base score of 6.7

The Windows 7 Base score can be useful to some users out there to assisting them with picking the software that will work the computer system and what software will likely be too demanding. We figured we would post our score showing that even with a solid state drive, 8GB of RAM and a six core processor; we only get a 7.5 out of 7.9 scale. Now we ended up with a 6.7 overall due to the graphics card, but we will attest that we have played several of the latest games which are very demanding when it comes to PC performance and what we experienced was nothing less than 7.8 across the board.

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Conclusion:

AMD has a new flagship and it is very impressive to say the least. The Turbo CORE Technology which is built into the processor to monitor the workload and autonomously adjust the processors core speeds of three cores that are under load to a higher clock speed is just unthinkable. Also the release of the new 890FX chipset which includes the performance points of the new six core processor is something to experience to appreciate. The price point for this new flag ship at the time of this review is to be under $300 which makes the 1090T a very affordable processor for the consumer market which is a couple hundred dollars less than an Intel Core i7. This AMD Phenom™ II X6 1090T is a processor that is worth every penny for the price and the performance.  We would like to thank AMD once again for giving TechwareLabs the opportunity to benchmark their latest processor. The 1090T is the one awesome processor for the money and easily worthy of your hard earned cash!

Awesome Hardware Award

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