Review: AMD Phenom X4 9850: Phenom fixed, but not phenomenal

Final thoughts

Nearly six months after the launch of its ill-fated Phenom 9500 and 9600, AMD has rectified TLB erratum 298 and provided a welcome addition to the Phenom X4 range, the Phenom X4 9850 BE.

The problem facing AMD today is, how does the troubled semiconductor manufacturer restore trust in its fanbase? Though we, and just about every other tech-savvy user, will accept that the TLB erratum in the initial Phenom X4s was blown out of all proportion, how can AMD convince consumers that its 50-series of Phenom X4 processors won't be plagued by similar issues?

It could be argued that only over time will the TLB erratum be forgotten. Time is something that AMD doesn't have plenty of as it continues to play catch-up with Intel. We believe that this batch of erratum-free Phenom processors needed to be available in November - and AMD will no doubt agree.

Today, the fact remains that although AMD has raised Phenom's clock speed in the form of its X4 9750 and X4 9850 Black Edition parts, they still can't compete on a clock-for-clock basis with Intel's 15-month-old Core 2 Quad Q6600.

In November, our Phenom 9600 review concluded: "the immutable fact remains that AMD's fastest quad-core offering is slower than Intel's slowest. Compounding this depressing statement for AMD is the January 2008 launch of Penryn-based Core 2 Quads, furthering Intel's performance dominance."

Phenom X4 9850 BE, AMD's new fastest quad-core offering doesn't provide the performance needed to change that fact. AMD's fastest Phenom X4 is still slower than Intel's slowest Core 2 Quad.

With AMD seemingly incapable of competing on a performance basis, its challenge could have materialised in terms of pricing. Unfortunately for competition's sake, that potential threat hasn't materialised at all. AMD's Phenom X4 9850 BE, depending upon where you live, is today priced at around, or higher than, Intel's better-performing Core 2 Quad Q6600. AMD needs to drop its Phenom X4 9850 BE processor to, say, below the £130 mark in order to provide a reasonable alternative to Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600.

The Phenom X4 9750 and forthcoming X4 9650 could be suited to a budget quad-core system if they were to drop below the £120 mark. If that were the case, AMD's Phenom X4s would provide decent quad-core performance at sub-£120. A price which no Intel quad-core part is currently occupying.

It all makes for grim reading, but it should be mentioned that the Phenom X4 9850 BE is better than any processor we've seen from AMD for quite some time. Though unable to dethrone Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600, it puts AMD firmly back in the battle. For the enthusiast, the multiplier-unlocked Phenom X4 9850 BE offers enough overclocking headroom. Our HEXUS labs were able to raise the Phenom X4 9850 to 2.9GHz, but with its stock TDP of 125W, expect plenty of heat for your overclocking efforts.

AMD's move to its 45nm Deneb can't come soon enough. The problem is that Intel is already there, with its 45nm Core 2 Quads shipping and providing an even bigger threat to AMD's late-to-battle Phenom X4s. We're convinced that the Phenom X4 9850 BE is a reasonable processor, but, reasonable just isn't good enough.

HEXUS Awards

AMD users clinging to the AM2+ socket will find a pleasant quad-core upgrade path now awaits in the form of the Phenom X4 9850 BE. In addition, enthusiasts will find the chip to be a fun overclocking experience. However, despite the fact that AMD continues to take steps in the right direction, HEXUS still believes Intel's Q6600 to be a better purchase.

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Editor's take

Tarinder Sandhu, Editor of HEXUS.net, gives you his take...

Our review has found that, on balance, the 65nm-based AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition's performance still lags behind the popular Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

We're not going to see too many speed-grade bumps before the transition to 45nm production of the Deneb core, later on this year, so the status quo will remain, we forecast.

Intel's lower-than-expected etailer pricing for 'Q6600 processor, currently at around £145 for the G0 stepping, also means that, inevitably taking performance into account, AMD - and by extension its retail partners - has had to cull its asking price for the fastest desktop quad-core processor it's produced in volume - right down to a roughly Intel-matching £150.

Gone are the days that AMD's partners could have, and did, charge £600 for a single processor. Intel holds absolute sway in that domain with its exceedingly expensive Extreme Edition quad-core CPUs.

AMD's inability to compete on the performance front and therefore charge exotic premiums for its desktop-class CPUs has the unenviable knock-on effect of reducing per-SKU profits. We're sure the company's representatives would counter with the argument that increased volume, by dint of competitive pricing, counteracts such a supposition, but if AMD could charge £350+ for the '9850 BE, believe us, it would. Just take one look at how tightly-bunched retail Phenom X4 pricing is and you'll appreciate the box that Intel has effectively confined AMD in to.

The real winner from Intel's aggressive pricing and AMD's lack of clock-speed on the Phenom X4 parts, though, is you, the consumer, really. AMD's late to the (fixed) quad-core party and it's paying for gatecrashing. The UK-oriented volume space is still dominated by dual-core processors, where Intel's Core 2 Duos outmuscle AMD's price-comparable, ageing Athlon 64 X2s. AMD reckons that Phenom X3s may well change that landscape soon; we'll tell you whether it succeeds or not.

Move up a rung and Intel's quad-core ship set sail over a year ago, meaning that S.I.s who wanted to jump on the four-core bandwagon have already done so. The question is, how will AMD convince them to switch on over from the Q6600-based systems to their, well, slower CPUs. Drop the tray pricing even further? That's purely a short-term solution to a bigger problem that won't go away.

On a related note, should we pass judgement on a processor in isolation, solely comparing it to the competition's and thereby excluding platform considerations? The answer is yes, but with a hint of caution.

The choice of processor dictates the platform. AMD's Spider-forming components - 7-series motherboard and HD 3800-series graphics cards - may well offer more than the Intel equivalent at a lower price, and we applaud AMD for continually being first with innovation such as PCIe 2.0, but the Intel vs. AMD processor-to-processor performance-gap needs to close further before the cheaper Spider makes implicit sense, and that's only going to happen once we see 2.6GHz- and 2.7GHz-clocked Phenom X4s in the channel soon, real soon.

Ultimately, thinking about it solely in terms of CPUs, and starting a-fresh, we'd take the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 over the AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition: the former is faster at default speeds and overclocks higher. Considering the platform with pricing taken into account, Spider crawls a lot, lot closer to the Intel/Intel or Intel/NVIDIA alternatives, however.

Does that make the AMD Phenom X4 9850 BE a bad processor? No, not at all, and it's a genuine alternative, but it's only Intel's overly aggressive pricing on the Q6600 that makes AMD's best look wanting.

An important point to note is that users already tied into an AM2(+) platform would be best-served by opting for the Phenom X4 9850 BE; the change to an Intel-based platform isn't worth the incremental performance benefit that the Q6600 provides, really.

AMD, please, please release faster quad-core Phenoms and exorcise the lingering ghost that is the Core 2 Quad Q6600. But you know what will happen if AMD actually does as we request, right? Intel will simply drop the price of its (now) readily-available 45nm Core 2 Quad Q9300 to, say, £125 and we're back to square one again. How does AMD compete against a company which is further ahead on the technology curve and can cannibalise pricing on an apparent whim? Answers on a postcard, please!

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