AMD Phenom-II X4-840 Propus Processor Review

Phenom-II X4-840 AM3 Features

AMD Direct Connect Architecture

An award-winning technology designed to reduce bottlenecks that can exist when multiple components compete for access to the processor bus. Competing x86 systems use a single front-side bus (FSB) which must carry memory access, graphics, and I/O traffic. Eliminate the FSB, and you can reduce delays that competing access requests can cause.

45 nm Process Technology with Immersion Lithography

More efficient process technology with cutting-edge lithographic performance puts more transistors in less space.

AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator

Doubles processor bandwidth from 64- to a full 128-Bit Floating-Point math processing pipeline that can double many of the bandwidth paths that help keep it full.

AMD Digital Media XPress 2.0 Technology

Provides support for SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, and MMX instructions for digital media applications and security.

CPU Architectural Features

True Multi-Core Processing

The extensive AMD64 architectural optimizations and features enable thorough integration of multiple cores within the same processor, with each core having its own L1 and L2 caches.

AMD Dedicated Multi-Cache

Each core has its own dedicated L2 cache, which enables simultaneous independent core access to L2 cache, eliminating the need for cores to arbitrate for cache access. This helps reduce latency on L2 cache accesses.

AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) Technology

Silicon feature-set enhancements designed to improve the performance, reliability, and security of both existing and future virtualization environments.

AMD PowerNow! 3.0 Technology

The latest power management technologies that deliver performance on demand when you need it, and power savings when you don't.

HyperTransport 3.0 Technology

Third-generation HyperTransportTM interface improves performance, supporting transfer speeds up to 4.4GT/s.

Simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit Computing

AMD64 technology enables a breakthrough approach to 64-bit computing that doubles the number of registers in the processor and allows PC users to use today's 32-bit software applications while enabling them to also use the next generation of 64-bit applications.

Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 Technology

Up to eight different performance states help enhance power efficiency. Simplified performance state transitions can reduce latency and the software overhead of performance state changes.

AMD Dynamic Power Management

Each processor core, and the integrated memory controller and HyperTransportTM controller, is powered by dedicated voltage planes.

Integrated Dual-Channel Memory Controller

Directly connects the processor to memory for optimum performance, low latency, and high throughput.

Multi-Point Thermal Control

The next-generation design features multiple on-die thermal sensors with digital interface. Automatic reduction of p-state when temperature exceeds pre-defined limit. Additional memory thermal management interface.

AMD CoolCore Technology

Coarse and fine transistor control that can automatically reduce processor energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor.

HDX840WFGMBOX Specifications

• Model Number & Core Frequency: X4-840 @ 3.2GHz
• TRAY OPN# HDX840WFGMBOX
• PIB OPN# HDX840WFGMBOXBOX
• L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (384KB total L1 per processor)
• L2 Cache Sizes: 512KB of L2 data cache per core (1.5MB total L2 per processor)
• Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller *
• Memory Controller Speed: 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management
• Types of Memory Supported: Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066MHz) -AND- PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333MHz)
• HyperTransport 3.0 Specification: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.0GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2)
• Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth: Up to 37.3 GB/s bandwidth [Up to 21.3 GB/s total bandwidth (DDR3-1333) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)]
• Packaging: Socket AM3 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA)
• Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 Module 1
• Process Technology: 45-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology
• Approximate Die Size: 169 mm2
• Approximate Transistor count: ~ 300 million
• Max Temp: 71 Celsius
• Core Voltage: 1.05-1.4V
• Max TDP: 95 Watts
• AMD Codename: "Propus"
• MSRP: $102

  *Note: configurable for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes

Closer Look: Phenom-II X4-840

The Phenom-II X4-840 is really an interesting processor and it deserves a closer look. The first word I got about the Phenom-II X4-840 was that AMD was bringing back the "800-series moniker" with a budget priced quad-core Phenom-II without the L3 cache. What that sounded like to me was a Deneb based CPU that didn't quite meet production standards on the L3 cache, so it was disabled. I was looking forward to getting my hands on one of these chips, especially to see if I could unlock the L3 cache and make it a full-fledged Phenom-II, cache and all.

As I started getting more information on the Phenom-II X4-840, I realized it wasn't quite what I had expected. Even with the Athlon-II X4 series, you will occasionally come across a chip that was made on a Deneb die with a failed L3 cache, but they are generally built on the Propus die. Well, come to find out, the Phenom-II X4-840 is also built on the Propus die, although I am sure that some X4-840s will be shipped from failed Deneb dies.

With all that in mind, lets a take a look at the technical specifications of the Phenom-II X4-840 and see how they match up to other Phenom-II CPUs.

Propus Die - Athlon-II X4 Processors

Again, the Phenom-II X4-840 is built on the Propus die according to the specs released by AMD, but the Deneb die based on CPUZ. The Propus die is 169mm2 and is built on the now common 45nm process with the Athlon-II X4 average of around 300 million transistors. That's a far cry from the Phenom-II X4 series' 758 million transistors and 258mm2 die size. The max TDP of the Phenom-II X4-840 also matches the Athlon-II X4 series at 95W rather than the 125W of the Phenom-II X4 series. The rest of the specifications match both the Athlon-II X4 and Phenom-II X4 series. Processor bandwidth is up to 37.3GB/s with DDR3 memory, supported memory is at 1066MHz for DDR2 and 1333MHz for DDR3, the memory controller doesn't change, nor does the HT link at 4.0GHz full duplex. Really, the only other difference is the lack of the L3 cache, which is present for all other Phenom-II X4 processors.

Deneb Die - Phenom-II X4 Processors

To be clear, the Phenom-II X4-800 series isn't a new thing. Back in early 2009, AMD was releasing Phenom-II X4-800 series processors in their complete line-up of CPUs. Back then, the Phenom-II X4-800 series was built on a Deneb die (like all other Phenom-II X4 processors) and had 4MB of L3 cache, compared to the 6MB of L3 cache on the 900 series. Around the end of the summer of 2009, AMD stopped releasing the Phenom-II X4-800 series.

Fast forward to January 2011 and we see the first Phenom-II X4-800 series processor released in over a year, but with significant changes. The 800 series now looks like a Athlon-II X4-600 series with a different name. In fact, if you go by the numbers, the Phenom-II X4-840 should be named the Athlon-II X4-650. The only difference between the X4-840 and the X4-645 is the standard 100MHz clock speed bump.

Call it whatever they want, if the Phenom-II X4-840 releases at $102 as has been announced, it now becomes faster than the highest speed Athlon-II X4 processor and will sell for about $17 less (as of December 28, 2010, the Athlon-II X4-645 was selling on Newegg.com for $119). Let's see what the tests say about the Athlon-II X4-650. Whoops, I meant Phenom-II X4-840.

The most recent Athlon-II and Phenom-II processors have been great overclockers. There is a lot of headroom and it isn't uncommon to see a 20% increase in clock speed for a stable overclock. Though I'm still not really sure what to call the Phenom-II X4-840, I'm going to treat it like an Athlon-II X4 CPU. The Athlon-II X4-645 went from 3.1GHz to 3.8GHz overclocked, and I expected similar results from the Phenom-II X4-840. Since the X4-840 isn't a Black Edition processor, the multiplier is locked out at x16. This doesn't stop us from overclocking, we just have to work around the multiplier by increasing the CPU/HT reference clock speed.

Many of our readers have recently asked me about undervolting a CPU in order to make it as utility friendly as possible. Not much is getting cheaper these days, and the price of electricity is on the list of utilities that continue to increase in price and make our lives that much more stressful. When a CPU can run at stock speeds but on less voltage than it is set for, you will see a decrease in the amount of energy the processor uses. With the Phenom-II X4-840 processor, I was able to set the voltage to 1.2v, down from a normal 1.4v, and run it stably at the stock speed of 3.2GHz.

Testing and Results

Before I begin any benchmarking or overclocking, I thoroughly stress the CPU and memory by running Prime95 on all available cores for 12 hours. If no errors are found, I move on to a gaming stress test. To do this, I use Prime95 again to stress the processor, while running an instance of FurMark's stability test on top of this. If the computer survives this test for 2 hours without lockup or corruption, I consider it to be stable and ready for overclocking. After achieving what I feel is stable overclock, I run to these tests again for certainty. The goal of this stress testing is to ensure the clock speeds and settings are stable before performing any benchmarks. I adopted this method from another writer here at Benchmark Reviews and it seems to do a great job of flushing out what only seem to be stable overclocks.

Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proves extremely important in the many gaming benchmarks, as the first run serves to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article.

We are going to focus here mainly on comparing the test results from the Phenom-II X4-840 against the Athlon-II X4-645 since that is the processor that the X4-840 relates to most closely. Also, the two will be competing directly in price when the X4-840 releases. The difference between the two in clock speed is 3%, everything else is exactly the same.

Intel H67 Test Platforms

• Motherboard: Intel DH67BL with BIOS 1596
• Processor: 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) Intel Core i5-2500K
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Yasya
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

Intel X58 Test Platform

• Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro LGA1366 Intel X58 ATX
• Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield/Nehalem BX80601920 ($280)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
• System Memory: Kingston 6GB (3 x 2GB) KVR1333D3K3/6GR DDR3 1333MHz (PC3 10666) (CL7-7-7-20)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

AMD 890GX Test Platform

• Motherboard:Biostar TA890GXB-HD (890GX/SB850)
• Processor: 3.6GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-975BE HDZ975FBK4DGM (MSRP $195)
• Processor: 3.2GHZ AMD Phenom-II X4-840 HDX840WFGMBOX (MSRP $102)
• Processor: 3.3GHz AMD Phenom-II X2-560BE HDZ560WFK2DGM ($100)
• Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X4-645 ADX645WFGMBOX ($119)
• Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X3-445 ADX445WFK32GM ($77)
• Processor: 3.2GHz AMD Athlon-II X2-260 ADX260OCK23GM ($79)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

Benchmark Applications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1
• PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0b1019
• Futuremark PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 64-Bit
  • TV and Movies
  • Gaming
  • Music
• SiSoftware Sandra 2010.1.16.92 CPU Test
• Maxon CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
• Street Fighter IV benchmark
• x264 HD Benchmark 3.19
• Handbrake 0.94 video transcoding

AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1 Benchmark Tests

In November, 2010, FinalWire acquired and discontinued Lavalys EVEREST, updated it, and released it as AIDA64. AIDA64 is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes AIDA64 a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC.

All of the benchmarks used in our test bed rely on basic x86 instructions and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. While the AIDA64 CPU tests really only compare the processor performance more than it measures platforms, it still offers a glimpse into what kind of power each platform possesses.

In the Queen tests, the Phenom-II X4-840 gives about a 2.8% increase over the Athlon-II X4-645, just what we would expect from the 3% bump in clock speed. When overclocked, the X4-840 increases its own performance by almost 23% and comes within a few thousand points of both the Core i7-920 and the Core i5-2500K.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used. The AIDA64 Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

I have noticed over time that the Photoworxx test, unlike most of the other AIDA64 tests, depends a lot on the L3 cache. In this test more than any other, the CPUs that have an L3 cache perform a lot better than those that do not. Curiously, the Phenom-II X4-840 falls slightly behind the Athlon-II X4-645 in the Photoworxx test, although at an interval of less than 1%. When overclocked to 3.9GHz, the performance increases by over 20%.

The Zip Library test measures combined CPU and memory subsystem performance through the public ZLib compression library. ZLib is designed as a free lossless data compression library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The ZLib data format is itself portable across platforms and has a footprint independent of input data that can be reduced at some cost in compression.

In the ZLib integer test, the Phenom-II X4-840 comes out just over 3% ahead of the X4-645, which is right where it should be. When overclocked, performance is increased by over 22.5% and the Phenom-II X4-840 at 3.9GHz reaches a ZLib performance above that of the much more expensive, but stock clocked, Intel Core i7 and i5 CPUs.

The AES integer benchmark measures CPU performance using AES data encryption. It utilizes Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Paulo Barreto's public domain C code in ECB mode and consumes 48 MB of memory.

While I normally like to put both of the Everest integer performance tests on one graph, the Core i5-2500K made that impossible this time. With the new Sandy Bridge and Lynnfield series of processors, Intel made some major changes to the way their CPUs handle AES compression. This new processing is a boon to webmasters everywhere, as well as anyone who deals with compressed files on a regular basis. With that in mind, the Core i5 processor completely destroys the competition in the AES test. The Phenom-II X4-840, while not competing in any way with the Core i5 processor, does outpace the Core i7-920 processor, even when both processors are at stock speeds. It also outperforms the Athlon-II X4-645 by 3% and boosts its own performance by over 22% when overclocked to 3.9GHz.

The floating point tests take us straight back to the normal 3% increase in performance for the Phenom-II X4-840 over the Athlon-II X4-645. All three tests, the 32-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit keep almost exactly the same level of increase, lending validity to the tests. All three floating point numbers are increased by about 22.5% when the Phenom-II X4-840 is overclocked to 3.9GHz. Interestingly enough, in the 32-bit Julia and 64-bit Mandel tests, the overclocked X4-840 outperforms the stock Core i7-920, although it doesn't reach the Core i5-2500K levels. The 128-bit SinJulia tests show the Intel CPUs still on top, even after overclocking. Still, it's not a bad performance for a CPU set to release at $102.

Passmark Performance Test

PassMark Performance Test is a PC hardware benchmark utility that allows a user to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems. The Passmark Performance Test CPU tests all benchmark the mathematical operations, compression, encryption, SSE, and 3DNow! instructions of modern processors.

In our tests there were several areas of concentration for each benchmark, which are combined into one compound score. This score is referred to as the CPU Mark, and is a composite of the following tests: Integer Math, Floating Point Math, Find Prime Numbers, SSE/3DNow!, Compression, Encryption, Image Rotation, and String Sorting. For this review, we've also decided to run the memory benchmark, which results in a composite score based on the following tests: small block allocation, cached read, uncached read, write performance, and large block allocation.

In the Passmark tests, the Phenom-II X4-840 gives us a surprise showing and outperforms the Athlon-II X4-645 by nearly 7% in the CPU test suite and 5% in the memory test suite. This is quite a bit more than the expected 3% increase due to the clock speed and we are not disappointed with that at all. As with the AIDA64 tests, overclocking the Phenom-II X4-840 to 3.9GHz gave us significant increases in performance over the stock X4-840 with a 21% increase in the CPU tests and 21.8% in the memory tests.

PCMark Vantage Benchmark Tests

PCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. PCMark Vantage is well suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista/7 PC: from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops, to dedicated workstations and high-end gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has decided to use a few select tests from the suite to demonstrate simulated real-world processor usage in this article. Our tests were conducted on 64-bit Windows 7, with results displayed in the chart below.

TV and Movies Suite

• TV and Movies 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback: HD DVD w/ additional lower bitrate HD content from HDD, as downloaded from net
• TV and Movies 2 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 19.39 Mbps terrestrial HDTV playback
• TV and Movies 3 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD Media Center
• TV and Movies 4 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Video transcoding: media server archive to portable device
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 48 Mbps Blu-ray playback

Gaming Suite*

• Gaming 1 (CPU=30%, GPU=70%)
  • GPU game test
• Gaming 2 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD: game HDD
• Gaming 3 (CPU=75%, RAM=5%, SSD=20%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • CPU game test
  • Data decompression: level loading
• Gaming 4 (CPU=42%, RAM=1%, GPU=24%, SSD=33%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • GPU game test
  • CPU game test
  • HDD: game HDD

Music Suite

• Music 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=3%, GPU=13%, SSD=34%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • Web page rendering - w/ music shop content
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player
• Music 2 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
• Music 3 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: MP3 -> WMA
• Music 4 (CPU=50%, SSD=50%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Audio transcoding: WMA -> WMA
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player

* EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully our readers will carefully consider how relative PCMark Vantage is as "real-world" benchmark, since many of the tests rely on unrelated hardware components. For example, per the FutureMark PCMark Vantage White Paper document, Gaming test #2 weighs the storage device for 100% of the test score. In fact, according to PCMark Vantage the video card only impacts 23% of the total gaming score, but the CPU represents 37% of the final score. As our tests in this article (and many others) has already proven, gaming performance has a lot more to do with the GPU than the CPU, and especially more than the hard drive or SSD (which is worth 38% of the final gaming performance score).

The PCMark Vantage test are all over the place. This is likely due to the fact that much of the testing relies on components other than the CPU. While we kept the test systems as similar as possible, because of the different hardware required, it wasn't possible to only change the CPU. In the overall average PCMark score, the Phenom-II X4-840 scores 20% better than the Athlon-II X4-645. When overclocked to 3.9GHz, its own score only increases by 1%. Within the test suites, only the music suite shows the X4-840 with any type of valuable increase over the Athlon-II X4-645, and it scores 47% higher. When overclocked, the music suite score drops by 17% for the Phenom-II X4-840.

SiSoftware Sandra

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

The SANDRA DhryStone and Whetstone tests are CPU tests that run completely within the CPU + cache memory itself. These tests are perfect for seeing general efficiency per processing core. Dhrystone is basically a suite of arithmetic and string manipulating programs and is an older CPU tests. Even so, it remains a simple and accurate way to show RAW CPU processing performance. The whetstone benchmark primarily measures floating-point arithmetic performance.

The Dhrystone test suite results once again show the Phenom-II X4-840 outperforming the Athlon-II X4-645 by 5.5%, over the standard 3% from clock speed increases. At 3.9GHz, this $102 processor boosts its own performance by another nearly 20% but it still can't come close to the Intel CPUs.

The Whetstone tests put the Phenom-II X4-840 at 3.4% better than the Athlon-II X4-645 with another 21% increase when overclocked. In this suite, the Phenom-II X4-840 actually approaches the much more expensive Core i5-2500K, but doesn't quite reach it.

Cinebench R11.5 Benchmarks

Maxon Cinebench is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. Cinebench is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. Cinebench Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward.

The Cinebench R11.5 test scenario uses all of a system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes" the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The OpenGL graphics card testing procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase with which the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode is measured. During the benchmark tests the graphics card is evaluated by way of displaying an intricate scene that includes complex geometry, high-resolution textures, and a variety of effects to evaluate the performance across a variety of real-world scenarios.

In the CPU Single Core tests, Cinebench focuses on a single thread of processing, so all of the AMD CPU scores are based nearly completely on their clock speeds. You can see this clearly from the results if you exclude the Core i7 and i5 processors. The Phenom-II X4-840 at 3.2GHz sits right between the 3.3GHz Phenom-II X2-560BE and the 3.1GHz Athlon-II X4-645. The performance gain over the Athlon-II X4-645 is about 2.5%. Overclocking gives a 20% increase on the performance of the Phenom-II X4-840. The Intel processors seem to be preferred even by the Single Core Cinebench test. This test focuses on a single thread, so it is surprising that the 2.66GHz Core i7 performs as well as it does. The Core i5-2500K, at the same clock speed as the Phenom-II X2-560BE, easily outperforms all other CPUs.

Street Fighter IV Benchmark

PC-based video games can depend heavily on the CPU if the attached GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is less powerful, or the graphics settings are configured so low that they create no strain on the video card and must rely purely on system processing speed; a phenomenon known as CPU-dependence. The opposite is true when the video game has a powerful video card installed, and can handle all graphical demands without receiving assistance from the CPU. Benchmark Reviews has proven consistently that, with a high end GPU in use, frame rates are not often noticeably impacted by changes in processor or RAM.

Capcom's Street Fighter IV is part of the now-famous Street Fighter series that began in 1987. The 2D Street Fighter II was one of the most popular fighting games of the 1990s, and now gets a 3D face-lift to become Street Fighter 4. The Street Fighter 4 benchmark utility was released as a novel way to test your system's ability to run the game. It uses a few dressed-up fight scenes where combatants fight against each other using various martial arts disciplines. Feet, fists and magic fill the screen with a flurry of activity. Due to the rapid pace, varied lighting and the use of music this is one of the more enjoyable benchmarks.

Street Fighter IV uses a proprietary Capcom SF4 game engine, which is enhanced over previous versions of the game. In terms of 3D graphical demand, Street Fighter IV is considered very low-end for most desktop GPUs. While modern desktop computers with discrete graphics have no problem playing Street Fighter IV at its highest graphical settings, integrated and mobile GPUs have a difficult time producing playable frame rates with the lowest settings configured.

While PC games are generally playable regardless of CPU, the Street Fighter IV game is surprisingly dependent on the CPU. That is why it is included here.

It looks like Street Fighter IV really gives the advantage to the Intel Core processors, with the Core i7-920 taking the cake here. You can see, though, how CPU performance makes a significant (though probably not recognizable by the human eye) difference in the frame rates of SFIV. Oddly enough, the Phenom-II X4-840 is outperformed by the Athlon-II X4-645 in this test.

Video Transcoding Tests

x264 HD Benchmark 3.19 Test

Tech ARP's x264 HD Benchmark comprises the Avisynth video scripting engine, an x264 encoder, a sample 720P video file, and a script file that actually runs the benchmark. The script invokes four two-pass encoding runs and reports the average frames per second encoded as a result. The script file is a simple batch file, so you could edit the encoding parameters if you were interested, although your results wouldn't then be comparable to others.

In the AVI format transcode, the Phenom-II X4-840 boosts performance over the Athlon-II X4-645 by about 3.3%, pretty close to what we would expect. Four cores gives the Phenom-II X4-840 a good level of performance in the transcoding test. When overclocked to 3.9GHz, the performance is increased by nearly 25%. This would be an obvious benefit to anyone interested in transcoding video.

The MP4 test shows a similar story to the AVI test, but with slightly less impressive gains. The Phenom-II X4-840 performs 2.8% better than the Athlon-II X4-645 and improves its own performance by almost 22% when overclocked to 3.9GHz.

Handbrake 0.9.4 Video Transcoder

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder program designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file in MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4) or Matroska (.mkv) containers. The program is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on portable media devices and with most media players. While Handbrake was originally developed for BeOS, it is now available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Handbrake is a readily available program that easily handles and utilizes multiple CPU cores and threads. This makes it an ideal program for us to use to test CPU performance. The amount of time it takes for Handbrake to convert a media file scales very nicely based on the clock speed and available cores of the CPU. For this test, I used a 4.34GB home video file of a little over 2 hours to be converted to MP4 format using the "iPhone &iPod Touch" presets. I recorded the total time in (min:sec) that it took to transcode the video file.

The Handbrake video transcode tests again show the Phenom-II X4-840 with an improvement of 50 seconds over the Athlon-II X4-645 processor. When overclocked to 3.9GHz, the Phenom-II X4-840 shaves almost 4 minutes off the time it took to transcode this file. At around 16 minute for a 2 hour video, the Phenom-II X4-840 is quite competitive as a media friendly CPU. Of course, it can't come close to the Core i5-2500K at only 13 and a half minutes for the transcode.

AMD Phenom-II X4-840 Final Thoughts

If the Phenom-II X4-840 really releases at an MSRP of only $102 (of which I am skeptical), it will become the fastest quad-core CPU in its price range. It will actually be less expensive than the Athlon-II X4-645, the flagship Athlon-II quad-core processor. This will make it a great buy, and it would be a great move on the part of AMD right in line with the release of the Sandy Bridge platform.

One thing that just bugs me about the Phenom-II X4-840 is its name. I can't complain about the performance, because it's right in line with where the specifications put it. What I am complaining about is AMD calling this processor a Phenom-II CPU. It's not. The Phenom-II X4-840 is clearly a renamed Athlon-II X4-645.

AMD said that it was bringing back the Phenom-II X4-800 series moniker with the X4-840. Unfortunately, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. One thing that I have always appreciated about the incremental upgrades in Athlon-II and Phenom-II CPUs was the transparency in the naming convention. We saw the Athlon-II X4-635 replaced by the X4-640, then the X4-645. The same thing took place up and down the line of Athlon-II and Phenom-II processors; until now.

The Phenom-II line has always had an L3 cache. That's what you think of when you buy a Phenom-II processor. Quite honestly, if I were browsing around online, looking for a good deal on a processor, and I hadn't read any reviews of the Phenom-II X4-840, I would be in trouble. I would see the Phenom-II X4-840 for close to $100 and I would automatically think it was a Phenom-II X4-800 series processor, complete with the Deneb die and the 4MB of L3 cache. I just can't help but think it's kind of shady to market this processor as something that it clearly isn't.

On another note, if this processor were called the Athlon-II X4-650, I would enthusiastically put my support behind it. The Phenom-II X4-840 specifications fall right in line to make it the new flagship Athlon-II processor and its set to be priced to sell. If the highest level of Athlon-II X4 processors starts selling for $102, I can see a lot of competition coming, even with the release of the Sandy Bridge platform.

AMD Phenom-II X4-840 Conclusion

IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.

As was evidenced by our test results, the Phenom-II X4-840 offers great performance for its price range. It competes very closely in performance with processors costing a lot more. It competes in price with processors like the Phenom-II X2-560BE, which it absolutely destroys in performance. The most important thing, however, is just the simple fact that it can get the job done. The only thing holding the Phenom-II X4-840 back is its name. While the name implies an L3 cache, there isn't one. This might make the Phenom-II X4-840 suffer a little in some areas, but as far as everyday uses and even extreme gaming are concerned, the X4-840 is a great CPU for a great price.

The Phenom-II X4-840 is well-built processor. It's built on the Propus die and should, therefore, be called an Athlon-II, but it maintains the high quality standards of recently released Athlon-II processors. I really put the Phenom-II X4-840 through the riggers when I was trying to overclock it. The X4-840 spent days under huge amounts of pressure from programs like Prime95 and Furmark running at the same time. Even after all of that stress, the processor was still rock solid and ran great.

One of the nice things about AMD processors is that you don't have to upgrade your entire system to accommodate them. A lot of talk is going on right now about the Sandy Bridge platform. One of the drawbacks is that you will have to upgrade not only the CPU, but the motherboard as well. When AMD goes to a 32nm process, that will be the case again for their processors. As for now, though, if you have an AM2+ or AM3 motherboard, you can simply plug in the Phenom-II X4-840. This means you can upgrade one piece at a time, instead of breaking the bank on a whole new system.

The Phenom-II X4-840, with its 45nm process and relatively low TDP of 95W, is an good overclocker. This is common amongst Phenom-II and Athlon-II processors, especially the higher yield ones that being released now at faster clock speeds. The X4-840 is not a black edition processor, so we were working with a locked multiplier of 16. We could lower the multiplier through the BIOS, but not increase it. Even so, just using the bus speed and voltage, we were able to get the Phenom-II X4-840 to 3.9GHz cooled only with air using the Scythe Mugen II CPU cooler. This represents nearly an 22% increase in the clock speed of the X4-840. A quad-core processor running at 3.9GHz represents a great contender in our benchmarks. In some cases, the overclocked Phenom-II X4-840 came close to the top our charts. At an MSRP of $102, the Phenom-II X4-840 would be a great place to start for any would-be overclocker.

Pros:

Cons:

- Calling it a Phenom-II makes me want an L3 cache

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.00
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.00
• Overclock: 9.20
• Value: 9.50

Final Score: 9.24 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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