Thoughts and Conclusion
AMD’s stated goal with the 910e was to bring us a high-performance CPU that stays light on the power draw. While the synthetic benchmarks rank it behind Intel’s comparable offerings by a small margin, those benchmarks don’t tell the whole story. In every demanding application that I’ve run on this system in the past weeks, the 910e has consistently delivered, with the only slowdowns happening on hard drive-dependent loads.
The low thermal output is also worthy of note: using nothing more exotic than a large heatsink and fan, load temperatures have stayed consistently below 55 degrees Celsius. At idle, it stays at 35 C, a bare 5 degrees above room temperature. This allows for a machine that has the best of both worlds: whisper quiet cooling with fast, uncompromising performance. Those with a taste for overclocking will enjoy the low power draw of the 910e which has traditionally led to great overclocking CPU’s when using nothing more than a decent after market air cooler.
In the end, AMD has delivered a solid performer in the Phenom II X4 910e. With the right hardware to support it, this CPU will deliver performance when you need it most.
Do you peferr Intel over AMD or vice versa. I peferr Intel still even though AMD is clearly starting to give them a run for their money. I don’t particularly like Asus boards. I had bad experiences with Asus in the past. I peferr MSI, Intel, and Gigabyte.