Memory analysis and HEXUS.PiFast
SiSoft SANDRA's memory bandwidth benchmark provides a look at how efficient the memory-controller on each processor is at streaming data. Our results show that the Phenom X4 9850 BE comes out slightly ahead of Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600.
Interestingly enough, AMD's newly-revised 2.4GHz Phenom X4 9750 doesn't fare as well as the older 2.3GHz Phenom X4 9600. Though, there isn't much between the two.
Memory latency is still proving problematic for AMD's Phenom X4s. Our in-depth look at AMD's new and improved pre-fetching design gave hope that Phenom X4s would excel in this area, unfortunately, they fall significantly behind Intel's Q6600. It should be noted that this is a synthetic benchmark and isn't representative of real-world performance.
All cores aside, our single-threaded HEXUS.PiFast test alludes that the Phenom X4 9850 BE's performance is lacking when compared to Intel's Core 2 Quad.
Though AMD's Phenom X4 9850 BE closes the gap, it should be noted that it carries a higher clock speed of 2.5GHz, compared to the Q6600's 2.4GHz. The significant gap in performance is, quite frankly, inexcusable.
