AMD Phenom II Dragon Review

Equipment Used

For testing AMD sent us an ASUS M3A78-T Motherboard, ATI Radeon HD4870 Graphics card and a Phenom II X4 CPU (Black) which was running at 3GHZ and is unlocked for overclocking.

We then added ourselves a 160GB SATA 5400rpm Hard Disk (Running Vista), a SCYTHE CPU cooler and 4GB of DDR 2 667Mhz memory (Samsung).

The above was then tested against our MESH Test PC which featured the same memory and graphics card but was running with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU (2.4Ghz), Asus P5N-E-SLI Mobo and a 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard disk instead.

Motherboard

The Processor itself utilises an AM2+ socket, so in theory your existing AMD motherboard may be able to handle the CPU with a BIOS upgrade. But for testing the ASUS board that we were sent is geared up to support the CPU from the off and we have to admit for around the £100 mark it certainly boasts a wealth of modern features.

Specs

Chipset: AMD 790GX

Form Factor: ATX

Dimensions (WxDxH): 30.5 cm x 24.5 cm

Chipset Type: AMD 790GX / AMD SB750

Multi-Core Support: Dual-Core / Triple-core / Quad-core

Max Bus Speed: 2600 MHz

Processor: Socket AM2+

Compatible Processors: Athlon 64, Sempron, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon X2, Phenom X4, Phenom FX, Phenom X3

64-bit Processors Compatibility: Built-in

3 PCI Express Slots

RAM: 0 MB (installed) / 16 GB (max)

Supported RAM Technology: DDR2 SDRAM (Has native DDR2 1066 Support)

Supported RAM Integrity Check: Non-ECC, ECC

Storage Controller: ATA-133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA port

USB Ports Configuration: 12 x USB

Storage Ports Configuration: 1 x ATA, 5 x SATA, 1 x eSATA

FireWire Ports Configuration: 2 x FireWire

Graphics Controller: ATI Radeon HD 3300 - Shared Video Memory (UMA), HDMI, DVI and D-Sub connectors.

Audio Output: Sound card - 7.1 channel surround

Networking: Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet

Manufacturer Warranty: 3 years warranty

Support for ATI Hybrid CrossFireX - Allows the system to combine the onboard card with the dedicated PCI Express card.

Software Included with Mobo - Small example

Norton Internet Security 2008

AMD Overdrive utility for overclocking

Marvell Yukon Virtual Cable Tester that diagnoses and reports LAN cable faults.

ASUS Cool'n' Quiet - Adjusts CPU Fan automatically to limit noise

Cyberlink PowerBackup

Ulead PhotoImpacy Image editing software

ASUS MyLogo 2 for designing your own boot logo

ASUS PC Probe II - monitors PC

ASUS Suite for quickly launching AI Gear2 (4 Preset performance boost settings), Booster (Overclock CPU in Windows instead of BIOS), NAP (Minimise Power consumption)  and Q-Fan2 utilities (Set performance of the CPU or chassis fan) -

ASUS Express Gate - Instant on-environment that allows access to the Internet from initial PC Boot.

CPU Specs

True Quad-core Desktop Processor

3.00GHz clock speed

2MB L2 cache

6MB L3 cache

DDR2-1066 support

45nm process technology

Integrated Memory Controller

Fast Hypertransport 3.0 technology

Cool & Quiet v3.0

True Multi-core Processing

Direct Connect Architecture

Integrated Dual-Channel Memory Controller with up to

AMD Balanced Smart Cache

AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator

AMD Memory Optimizer Technology

AMD Digital Media Xpress 2.0

AMD Virtualization with Rapid Virtualization Indexing

Testing

All our tests we carried out on Vista (SP1) with the virus checker running in the background to provide a more realistic real world test.

Additionally we used FRAPS for recording FPS (Frames per second) during real game sessions and 3D Mark 06, 3D Mark Vantage and PC Mark 05 for synthetic tests.

First up was 3D Mark 06, here we saw that the CPU and motherboard did produce a better score in all areas. Note the test was set at 1280 x 1024 resolutions.

Next we tested the systems using 3D mark Vantage (on High setting 1680 x 1050). Again the extra CPU power did shine through in terms of score.

Last up on the Synthetic tests was PC Mark 05 - it's all we had unfortunately - which will at least show the differences in CPU scores. It's interesting to see that there is not a massive difference in score between the two CPU's here. The HDD, graphics and memory score are predictable due to the motherboards bus speed being slightly faster.

Note: All tests are included in the Gallery at the base of the review.

We then compared the AMD's performance in games such as Call of Duty 4 (COD4), Rainbow 6 Vegas (R6V), Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) and Left 4 Dead (LFD). Note all the of the latter was run at the highest resolution supported by our 22" screen (mainly 1680 x 1050) and with detail set to max).

Our FRAPS tests were not an exact comparison, in that we played slightly longer on the Intel platform or vice versa, but we just wanted to give you a rough idea of the similarities that we witnessed when running through some of the games levels.

To be honest the majority of games gave us a near identical FPS score, though the AMD did seem to be able to maintain smoother gameplay (from our own observations). It's scores do show the games dependance on the graphics card or the game itself locking the FPS to a certain level.

For example even with the CPU overclocked to 3.8Ghz, in games such as LFD we were getting the same 60fps regardless. However UT3 did show a larger increase in FPS score and a few other games we played outside the main tests did show improvements.

COD 4 - We played on the opening section of 'All Ghillied Up', with the on-screen action kept as close to each other as possible, but as you can see we played for slightly longer on the AMD platform.

LFD - Played on the 'No Mercy' chapter. This time we played on the Intel Platform slightly longer, but again FPS was almost identical.

R6V - Min FPS (Intel) was not recorded for some reason in this test.

UT3 - The only game that we witnessed a slight shift in AVG FPS.

Overclocking: Here is one area that the AMD chip does excel at, as we found that even with our basic OC skills we could get the CPU running at 3.6GHZ without breaking sweat! (using the AMD Over Drive Windows tool). In terms of performance increase, 3D Mark 06 CPU score went up to 4760 from 4210 and in 3D Mark Vantage to 11950 from 10028.

With the CPU OC'd to 3.6GHZ we then played Far Cry 2 and was able to get these figures running at 1680 x 1050 res, 4 x AA and everything set to very high...

Just last night we then went to see if we could push the CPU even further and after several failed attempts we finally got the CPU to run at 3.8Ghz (see the image gallery for settings used).

We then played through Crysis and ran additional synthetic benchmarks to ensure the CPU was stable. 3D Mark Vantage CPU score went up to 12503 from the intial 10028 score.

Crysis could also run at 1680 x 1050 with Very High detail enabled and we got around 30FPS according to FRAPS, but on other occations we mainly witnessed 27FPS or with heavy on-screen action this went as low as 16fps, however most of the time it was playable! Not bad for a PC that is cobbled together with various low to mid priced components....

Summary

Compared to the Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 CPU that was installed on our first test PC, there is not a massive difference in terms in of average FPS games performance when set to its default clock speed, so we would not recommend you ditch your Intel CPU just yet, especially if the game relies on the graphics card heavily. However when it comes to games or applications that need raw processing power the AMD will be ideal, especially as its overclocking potential is excellent. We also noticed just how cool the processor was and with only a small increase in voltage we could push the CPU to 3.8GHZ.

We were also impressed with how stable the platform was, a vast improvement from our earlier experiences with AMD's. As the Intel CPU costs around £160, for the extra £35 that the AMD will cost you, it's overclocking ability out the box to a stable 3.8GHZ does give you a great power/price ratio and for AMD upgraders or potential new users it’s a fantastic buy. 8.5/10.