| AMD Phenom-II X6-1075T CPU HDT75TFBGRBOX |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Processors | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 21 September 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AMD Phenom-II X6-1075T CPU ReviewAMD is introducing several new processors, filling out holes in the low-to-mid-range of their desktop AM3 product line. The 6-core Phenom II X6 1075T HDT75TFBGRBOX slots neatly in between the $199 2.8GHz 1050T and the $299 3.2GHz 1090T Black Edition with a clock speed of 3.0GHz and a lower-than-expected price of $239.00. Like its six-core stablemates, the 1075T uses Turbo Core technology to boost its clock speed from 3.0 to 3.5GHz (which is just 100MHz shy of the 1090T's Turbo Core speed) when three or fewer cores are in use. Benchmark Reviews tests the new 1075T against a collection of Intel and AMD processors in gaming and computing performance. Although many have forgotten it now, there was a time when AMD processors (starting with the Athlon 64 series) handily outperformed their Intel equivalents. AMD was the first company to ship a processor with a stock clock speed of 1GHz, back in 2000 (Intel's 1GHz Pentium III shipped a few days later). A few years later, I built a system using the then-new dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor for encoding video, and it absolutely stomped my existing dual-processor Pentium III-833 system. But that was then, and this is now, and AMD has ceded the high end processor market to Intel, while working on their position in the low-to-mid end of the market. For enthusiasts, this has been a boon, since desktop processors reached the "fast enough" mark some time ago, and money saved on a CPU can be invested in other parts of the system, often with better overall performance results. Paired with AMD's new 800 series chipsets, which offer extra PCI-E lanes for SATA 6G and USB 3.0 without needing expensive add-ons like the NVIDIA NF-200, AMD's Thuban processors offer the enthusiast a way to build an affordable, yet very powerful and versatile, 6-core production or gaming system.
As current manufacturing techniques hit a "megaHertz wall" at about 4GHz a few years ago, Intel and AMD have been working on making multi-core CPUs, and it's a rare system these days that's not equipped with at least two cores. As software evolves to take advantage of the performance benefits offered by multiple native threads, we'll see the performance of multi-core systems continue to improve. By driving the cost of 6-core processors downwards, AMD's Phenom II X6 line keeps the price of these capabilities within reach of the average enthusiast.
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Advanced Micro Devices. Phenon II X6 1075T FeaturesThe following information is courtesy of Advanced Micro Devices. Turbo CORE TechnologyAMD Turbo CORE technology enables maximum performance for any given task; depending on the application workload. AMD Phenom II X6 processors can power extreme multitasking for productivity across 6 cores or shift power to three cores and boost frequency. AMD Turbo Core technology runs seamlessly in the background within the provided TDP limits and works with your Windows operating system automatically to maximize performance. AMD64 with Direct Connect Architecture
AMD Balanced Smart Cache
AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator
HyperTransport Technology
Integrated DRAM Controller with AMD Memory Optimizer Technology
AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) Technology With Rapid Virtualization Indexing
AMD PowerNow! Technology (Cool'n'Quiet Technology)
AMD CoolCore Technology
Dual Dynamic Power Management
Specifications
Testing and ResultsBenchmarking processors is difficult, since it's hard to isolate the CPU performance from the rest of the system. This is especially true when testing the performance several processors across multiple platforms, since things like the motherboard and chipset used will affect the results. In this review I'm running various synthetic and application benchmarks across three different platforms: Intel P55, Intel X58, and AMD 890FX. As one example of the differences between these platforms, the P55 and 890FX use dual-channel memory, while the X58 platform uses triple-channel memory and thus benefits from higher memory bandwidth. Still, the tests are valid in the sense that anyone using an Intel Core i7-930 will be using it in an X58 system, while Core i5-860 and AMD 965BE processors will likewise be on motherboards with their respective chipsets and architectures. Most of the benchmarks I've chosen should favor raw CPU performance, and I've tried to minimize the intra-system variables by using the same memory, hard disk, and video card for all three platforms. But be aware that it's impossible to completely isolate a processor from the rest of its system in these tests. All processors were tested at their stock clock rates, but I also tested the Phenom II X6 1075T processor at the highest stable overclock I could achieve, 4.15GHz. This overclock was with the Turbo Core feature disabled, since I like to reach the highest speed all cores can sustain, and Turbo Core could cause the system to crash when it suddenly ramps up the CPU multiplier. Intel P55 Test Platform
Intel X58 Test Platform
AMD 890FX Test Platform
Benchmark Software
CINEBENCH R11.5 BenchmarksMaxon CINEBENCHis 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, and all the rendering is performed by the CPU: the graphics card is not involved except as a display device. There are two versions of the test: one version uses only a single CPU core; the other version uses as many cores as the processor has, including the "virtual cores" in processors that support Hyper-Threading. The resulting "CineMark" is a dimensionless number only useful for comparisons with results generated from the same version of CINEBENCH.
In the single-core test, the overclocked AMD Phenom II X6 1075T takes the lead with a score of 1.25, with the Intel 980X in second place at 1.21. The next three places belong to the AMD camp, with the 965BE, 1075T, and 1090TBE all turning in scores within a tenth of a point or so of each other. The remaining Intel processors being up with rear with scores about 5%-8% lower than the AMD processors. Things change with the multi-core test: the mighty 980X's ability to spawn 12 threads puts it solidly in the lead with a score 22% higher than the second-place overclocked 1075T. The other 6-core AMD processors come in next, followed by the four-core Intel CPUs and the AMD 965BE. Let's see how things look on a "Dollars per CineMark" basis, based on current Newegg prices:
The AMD 965 Black Edition wins the "dollars per CineMark" comparison for single-core performance, while the overclocked 1075T wins in multi-core performance value. The Intel Core i7-980X, despite its prodigious performance, is by far the worst bang for the buck. SPECviewperf 11 testsThe Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation is "...a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers." Their free SPECviewperfbenchmark incorporates code and tests contributed by several other companies and is designed to stress computers in a reproducible way. SPECviewperf 11 was released in June 2010 and incorporates an expanded range of capabilities and tests. Note that results from previous versions of SPECviewperf cannot be compared with results from the latest version, as even benchmarks with the same name have been updated with new code and models. SPECviewperf comprises test code from several vendors of professional graphics modelling, rendering, and visualization software. Most of the tests emphasize the CPU over the graphics card, and have between 5 and 13 sub-sections. PCT Pro/ENGINEER WildfireThe proe-05 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire5.0 application from PTC. Model sizes range from 7- to 13-million vertices. This viewset includes state changes as made by the application throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. Siemens Teamcenter Visualization MockupThe tcvis-02 viewset is based on traces of the Siemens Teamcenter Visualization Mockup application (also known as VisMockup) used for visual simulation. Models range from 10- to 22-million vertices and incorporate vertex arrays and fixed-function lighting. State changes such as those executed by the application— including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes— are included throughout the rendering of the model. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
In Pro/ENGINEER, the AMD processors dominate (although not by much), with only the Intel 980X beating the AMD 965BE and stock-clocked 1075T and 1090T, although its advantage over the much cheaper 1090T is a fraction of a point. The overclocked 1075T wins overall. Multiple cores don't seem to have any advantage in this test; pure clock speed seems to be the critical factor. The processor rankings swap in the Teamcenter Visualization mockup results, with every Intel processor beating every AMD processor, even to the point of the low-end Core i5-750 posting a better score than the heavily overclocked 1075T. If nothing else, these two tests provide a real-world reminder that some code runs better on AMD CPUs, while other code runs better on Intel CPUs. While the differences are typically minimal enough not to matter to the typical gamer or enthusiast, those who spend their days in front of professional workstations should take note. LightwaveThe lightwave-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workloads generated by the SPECapc for Lightwave 9.6 benchmark. The models for this viewset range in size from 2.5- to 6-million vertices, with heavy use of vertex buffer objects (VBOs) mixed with immediate mode. GLSL shaders are used throughout the tests. Applications represented by the viewset include 3D character animation, architectural review, and industrial design. CEI EnSightThe ensight-04 viewset represents engineering and scientific visualization workloads created from traces of CEI's EnSight 8.2 application. CEI contributed the models and suggested workloads. Models ranging from 36- to 45-million vertices are included in the viewset using display list paths through OpenGL. The last model uses GLSL shaders. State changes as made by the application are included throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
The EnSight results appear to be relatively processor-insensitive; neither clock speed nor number of cores affect the results significantly. This is not surprising since this test relies mainly on the graphics card's OpenGL driver. The overclocked 1075T turns in the highest score, but it's a mere 3% better than the lowest score (the Intel Core i7-930). The Lightwave results are quite interesting, and seem to favor Intel. Performance scales well in the Intel camp, with scores going up with both clock speed and number of cores. In the AMD arena, extra cores don't seem to buy you much, with the stock-clocked hexacore 1075T and 1090T turning in results only very slightly better than the quad-core 965BE. The overclocked 1075T wins, but not by anywhere near the margin one would expect from the 33% improvement in its clock rate. Dassault Systemes CATIAThe catia-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIAV5 R19 and CATIA V6 R2009 applications from Dassault Systemes. Three models are measured using various modes in CATIA. Phil Harris of LionHeart Solutions, developer of CATBench2003, supplied SPECgpc with the models used to measure the CATIA application. The models are courtesy of CATBench2003 and CATIA Community. The models, ranging in size from 6.3- to 25-million vertices, use a variety of common CATIA graphics modes. Both CATIA V5 and V6 are represented using fixed pipeline and ARB vertex and fragment shaders. MayaThe maya-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the SPECapc for Maya 2009 benchmark. The models used in the tests range in size from 6- to 66-million vertices, and are tested with and without vertex and fragment shaders. State changes such as those executed by the application— including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes— are included throughout the rendering of the models. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
The Catia benchmark results show little difference between the processors. While the results are not as similar as the EnSight results, there's still very little spread between the various CPUs. In either case, clock speed seems marginally more important than the number of cores. As with the Seimens Teamcenter Visualization test, the Maya test favors Intel processors, but even more heavily. The modest 2.66GHz, quad-core Intel Core i5-750 handily beats the 4.15GHz, hexacore AMD 1075T. In the AMD camp, clock speed seems to count for more than number of cores, with the stock-clocked 3.0GHz 1075T falling slightly behind the 3.4GHz 965BE. Solidworks 2009The sw-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Solidworks 2009 SP2 application from Dassault Systemes. Model sizes range from 2- to 20-million vertices in a variety of commonly used SolidWorks render modes, including RealView, which makes use of GLSL shaders. State changes as made by the application are included throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. Seimens NXThe snx-01viewset is based on traces of the Siemens NX 7 application. The traces represent very large models containing between 11- and 62-million vertices, which are rendered in modes available in Siemens NX 7. State changes such as those executed by the application— including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes— are included throughout the rendering of the model. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
Solidworks results scale nicely with the Intel processors, but are flat for the AMD processors. This makes sense when you look at the clock speeds: the AMD 965BE, 1075T, and 1090T all fall in the 3.0-3.4GHz range, while the Intel processor results scale almost perfectly with clock speed (I say "almost" because the 2.8GHz Core i7-930 turns in noticeably better results then the Core i7-860, even though both are clocked at 2.8GHz). The overclocked AMD 1075T barely edges our the Intel Core i7-980X in this test. The results for the Seimens NX test are "flat", with little difference between the processors. The winning 980X turns in a score only 9% better than the bottom performing stock-clocked 1075T. As with the EnSight test, it seems as though system factors other than the processor (i.e. probably the video card) make the most difference. PCMark Vantage TestsPCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. It's 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 simulate 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
Gaming Suite*
Music Suite
* 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 TV and Movies suite concentrates on video playback and transcoding, but only uses two threads at a maximum, so hexacore processors have little advantage over quad-cores. The results scale pretty much with clock speed, and tend to favor Intel slightly. It's interesting that the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X processor beats out the 4.15GHz AMD 1075T since the other results scale closer to the clock speed differences within each camp. The Gaming benchmark relies on the hard disk and video card for over 50% of its score (see the Editor's Note above), and we're using the same HDD and video card for all platforms, so the Intel processor's decisive win in this test simply means that Vantage's gaming code is more optimized for Intel processors. Bear in mind, however, that most "real world" games will not show this difference; generally, in games, your video card matters most, followed by the clock speed (not number of cores) of your processor. The PCMark Vantage gaming test can use up to 16 threads, but very few commercial games will take full advantage of multicore processors. In the Music test, we see that more cores is definitely better, and unlike the Gaming test, these results have more real-world relevance, since multithreading is much more common in music transcoding applications than it is in games. AMD processors do better overall in this test, with the overclocked 1075T eking out a very narrow win (less than 1%) over the mighty Core i7 980X. Futuremark's weighing of the various system components in each test is the subject of some debate; and some of their choices (such as the Gaming tests's use of a 1024x768 resolution with no anti-aliasing or texture filtering being "representative" to the "consumer experience") seem odd to me, but the TV and Movies and Music benchmarks are reasonable predictors of overall system performance. Everest Ultimate TestsLavalys EVEREST Ultimate Edition 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 EVEREST Ultimate Edition a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC. All of the benchmarks used in this test— Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, and AES— rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very low system memory while also being aware of Hyper-Threading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Of all the tests in this review, Everest is the one that best isolates the processor's performance from the rest of the system. While this is useful in that it more directly compares processor performance, readers should remember that virtually no "real world" programs will mirror these results.
Queen and Photoworxx tests are synthetic benchmarks that operate the function many times and over-exaggerate by several magnitudeswhat the real-world performance would be like. The Queen benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and misprediction penalties of the CPU. It does this by finding possible solutions to the classic queen problem on a chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. Here we see the $164 AMD 965 Black Edition handily beating the $195 Intel Core i5-750, while the $245 AMD 1075T and $299 AMD 1090T run pretty evenly with Intel's $280 i7-860 and $285 i7-930. The overclocked 1075T beats everything except the i7-980X, which runs away from the pack with results 35% better than the next closest competitor. 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 EVEREST Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:
Here, we see some interesting results: the lower-end processors tend to do as well as or better than most of their higher-end brethren. This is especially obvious in the AMD camp where the 965 Black Edition performs better than the overclocked 1075T. The worst performance is turned in by the Intel i7-860, and the best, as usual, by the 980X. The reason for these seemingly odd results is that the higher end processors tend to have longer pipelines and more advanced out-of-order execution and branch prediction capabilities. These features can result in substantial performance improvements much of the time, but the longer pipelines come with a penalty: speculative execution of code initiated by a branch predictor is all wasted if the branch goes the other way, so not only did the processor waste thousands or millions of clock cycles executing code it didn't need to, it must also re-load its pipeline with the instructions it was supposed to execute. Developers using Intel compilers should read the several white papers Intel has written about how to structure code to minimize this problem. 
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. 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. Both of these tests are much more applicable to the "real world" than the previous tests. The results of the Zip compression test scale almost linearly with processor clock speed on the quad-core Intel side, but there's some threading going on as can be seen with the Core i7-980X results, where two extra cores and and extra 530MHz or so virtually double the performance of the 2.8GHz it-860 and i7-930. Extra cores help on the AMD side, too, with the stock-clocked 3.0GHz 1075T handily outperforming the 3.4GHz quad-core 965 Black Edition. The AES encryption test is utterly dominated by the Core i7-980X, whose performance is 6.7x better than its closest competitor. The reason is Intel's Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI), which dramatically accelerate AES code. AES-NI aside, the AMD processors uniformly perform better than the Intel processors without this feature. Video Gaming TestUbiSoft's Far Cry 2 game features a vast African landscape which you can wander freely about, choosing your own path through the game without being constrained by the developer's idea of how it should progress. The lack of distinct "levels" within the game encourages the player to explore multiple paths and goals. The "Dunia" game engine developed by UbiSoft's Montreal development team purportedly makes good use of multi-core processors to leverge its real-time lighting effects and advanced vegetation rendering. Far Cry 2 has a handy built-in benchmarch that allows you to define a set of parameters and run one of several demos automatically using different settings. For these tests I chose the "Ranch Small" demo and ran it at 1280 x 1024 with minimal settings and no anti-aliasing, and at 1920 x 1280 with all settings maxed out and 8x anti-aliasing. All tests were run in DirectX 10. 
Low-resolution gaming tests make the video card less of a factor since any high-end video card like the Radeon 5870 used in these tests can easily handle them; differences here are more biased towards processor horsepower. The Intel Core i5-750 brings up the rear here, with only about half the performance of its i7-860 and i7-930 brethren. For the minimum frame rate, the i7-980X adds 19% to the performance of the next-closest i7-860, but that's exactly the difference in clock speeds between the two processors, so it seems that the Dunia engine doesn't scale well (or at all) beyond four cores. The differences between the two are less dramatic in the average and maximum Intel frame rates, shrinking to a little over 9%. As can be seen from the AMD results, this game favors Intel processors pretty heavily, at least at low resolutions: the only time they're in the lead is in the minimum frame rate, and then they only outpace the underdog i5-750. 
At a more reasonable resolution, the minimum and average frame rates are virtually identical across all the CPUs being tested, indicating that the Radeon 5870 video card is now the limiting factor. Only in the maximum frame rates is there any difference, and although the Intel family wins again, even the slowest CPU (the stock-clocked 1075T) returns frame rates that are far beyond what's needed to be very playable. The differences in the maximum frame rate inside each processor family scale almost linearly with clock speed, with the hexacore processors showing no advantage over the quad-cores. Video Transcoding TestFew consumer applications will make good use of a six-core processor, or even a four-core processor. Extra cores can give you a system that remains responsive when performing a computationally-intensive background task, but will rarely accelerate the execution of an individual program. There are several reasons for this:
All that said, media transcoding (converting to a different format) is something that does scale well with the number of available cores, and the free and open-source Handbrake 0.94 video transcoder is an example of a program that makes full use of the computational resources available. For this test I used Handbrake 0.94 to transcode a standard-definition episode of Futurama to the "iPhone & iPod Touch" presets. The times are presented as mm.ss since the charting program will not let me use colons as in mm:ss... 
Here we finally see a real-world program that can fully utilize multi-core CPUs. The AMD processors do themselves proud, equalling or beating the Intel processors in all but one case, and the miniscule performance advantage the i7-980X has over the stock-clocked AMD 1090T in no way justifies its four-times-higher price. One might ask why the 980X didn't do better, since its Hyper-Threading feature gives it 12 virtual cores, and the answer is simply that a virtual core is an abstract contstruct wherein the processor tries to schedule code to make the best use of available execution units; it's not the same as a real extra core. The results depend on the task and the code, and Handbrake code just doesn't benefit much from Hyper-Threading. You can compare the bang-for-the-buck performance of these CPUs in Handbrake 0.94 by making a "dollars per reciprocal second" measurement: in other words, we're looking for the best combination of low processor price and low encoding times.
The overclocked 1075T wins this comparison, with the AMD 965 Black Edition getting second place. It's telling that none of the AMD processors exceed 200, while none of the Intel processors are under 200. In this admittedly ad-hoc measurement, the base clocked AMD 1075T is 3.5 times "better" than the 980X, which is reasonably close to the 980X's 4.1x-more-expensive price differential. The overclocked 1075T gives by far the most bang for the buck, with the 965 Black Edition and stock-clocked 1075T coming in close behind. Phenom II X6 1075T OverclockingUnlike the 1090T Black Edition and 965 Black Edition, the 1075T has a locked multiplier, and thus the only way to overclock it is to raise what ASUS calls the "CPU Bus Frequency". I know from my previous review of the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula motherboard that this motherboard is capable of supporting very high overclocks, so I started raising the bus frequency from its standard 200MHz pretty aggressively. I settled on 277MHz, which resulted in a stable 4.155GHz, although I did have to tweak the CPU voltage to 1.46V to make it through all the tests in this review. I always disable auto-overclocking features like Turbo Core when I overclock, since I'm trying to reach the highest frequency all cores can sustain and don't want a system suddenly crashing when the CPU tries to crank things up a few hundred MHz. For cooling, I used a CoolIT Systems ECO A.L.C. Eco-R120 CPU cooler. 
AMD may have shot themselves in the foot here, since the frequency I reached is actually slightly higher (for all cores) than the frequency reached in our AMD Phenom II 1090T Black Edition review. While there's never a guarantee how far an individual processor/motherboard combination will overclock, it's likely that most 1075T CPUs can be overclocked to be very close if not match or exceed an overclocked 1090T Black Edition. That being the case, there's little reason to pay $55 more for the 1090T Black Edition, unless the extra versatility of the unlocked multiplier is worth it to you. But it probably isn't: if you had a DDR3-1600 kit, you'd have to drop the memory speed to 1477MHz (the next step up, 1847MHz, probably isn't reachable by most DDR3-1600 kits) with a 277MHz bus, and while the 1090T's unlocked multiplier would let you maintain DDR3-1600 speeds, you won't notice any real world difference between that and 1477MHz. There is one caveat: while any 890FX motherboard should be able to hit this overclock, you probably won't do as well with previous-generation 700-series or older AM2+ motherboards. In the next section, I'll explain my conclusions about the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T processor. AMD X6-1075T Final ThoughtsAMD has played catch-up to Intel for many years now. For a brief period in the early years of the decade, AMD was the undisputed CPU performance champ, easily trouncing Intel's "NetBurst" CPUs, but those days are long gone. Although AMD fanboys argued that their "true" multi-core CPUs were more elegant and sophisticated than Intel's initial crude attempts, which involved simply putting two separate CPU dies in a single package (and later, two dual-core dies into a single package) and forcing the cores to communicate across the front-side bus, at the end of the day the Intel CPUs were simply faster. In certain circles, AMD-bashing is almost as common as Apple or Microsoft-bashing; one review site even has an editorial titled "Are All AMD Fans - Idiots?", the idea being that AMD parts are simply inferior to Intel parts and that AMD perenially plays catch-up to Intel by adopting their own inferior variants of new technologies years after Intel. But there's one thing that a lot of people (even reviewers) out there seem to miss: while Intel does indeed continue to hold the performance crown, AMD is the undisputed leader in performance per dollar. And this is quite significant now that desktop processors have long since hit the "fast enough" point, where additional performance is unnoticed in most applications. AMD's current processor lineup is much closer to Intel's in terms of performance than it has been in a while, as many of the tests in this review show: for example, the $165 AMD 965 Black Edition beats the $195 Intel Core i5-750 in CINEBENCH, 6 of 8 SPECviewperf tests, the Vantage Music test, all Everest tests, and is equal or slightly better in most other tests, with the main exception being the average and maximum frame rates in the low-resolution Far Cry 2 benchmark, which isn't terribly realistic anyway. The chart below shows the first and second place finishers in each test, and the percent difference by which the second place finisher was slower than the first place finisher. The 980X wins 11 of the 20 tests, with the overclocked 1075T winning 7 and the Intel 930 and AMD 965BE taking one each. But notice that in the cases where the Intel 980X wins over the overclocked 1075T, the average performance difference is only 18.1%, and that drops to 10.5% if we exclude the Everest AES test. Something to think about the next time you're in the market for a new CPU...
AMD has another advantage: while Intel seems to delight in coming out with new supporting chipsets and CPU sockets (your new Sandy Bridge Socket 1156 processor won't work in your existing Socket 1156 motherboard, sorry!), AMD has done an excellent job of maintaining compatibility with its AM2/AM2+/AM3 platform; the very latest AMD 6 core processors will work just swell in your years-old AM2+ motherboard. And the top-end AM3 motherboards like the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula used in this review cost much less than most X58 motherboards, and is price-competitive with high-end P55 motherboards, but offers superior SATA 6G and USB 3.0 support without compromising the performance of other parts of your system due to a lack of PCI-E lanes. The performance of your processor is only one facet of the performance of your system, and in most cases it's not the most important once you've hit the "fast enough" line. If you've a processor in the AMD 965BE/Intel 930 class, your performance dollars are better spent on a good video card or SSD rather than a fancier CPU. While six cores are of little benefit to most users, if you want a hexacore CPU for media transcoding or just bragging rights, AMD gets you in the door for a fraction of Intel's price. HDT75TFBGRBOX ConclusionBenchmark tests should always be taken with a grain of salt. It's difficult to try and isolate the performance difference a single component in a computer system makes, especially when it's necessary to compare across different manufacturers and platforms. Complicating the matter is the fact that benchmarks change, a manufacturer may change the technical details of a product, and the retail price may change as well. So please use this review as just one piece of information, and do your research before making a buying decision. That said, the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T AM3 HDT75TFBGRBOX processor rocks. Its low price is $199.99 at Amazon or NewEgg, and combined with its excellent overclocking ability make it one of the best "bang for the buck" CPUs you can buy. In fact, it's so good that it represents a better value than the Phenom II 1090T Black Edition, which costs $55 more. As our benchmarks showed, the overclocked 1075T was able to match or beat the 4-times-more-expensive Intel Core i7-980X processor (albeit at its stock clock rates) in several of the tests, and was within 20% or so in most others. Another surprise was how well the $165 Phenom II 965 Black Edition aquitted itself: if you're not doing a lot of music or video encoding, you can get slightly better stock performance with the 965's 400MHz clock speed advantage over the 1075T. In the majority of these tests both the 965 Black Edition and stock-clocked 1075T beat the more expensive Core i7 860 and Core i7 930 processors. 
There are still reasons you might want to "go Intel": perhaps you need the incredible performance of the AES-NI features of their latest CPUs, or you want to run an NVIDIA SLI setup (which, due to some weird polittical wrangling between AMD and NVIDIA, you cannot now and probably never will be able to do). Intel continues to reign at the highest performance levels, but if you need multi-core goodness at a price you can actually afford, then the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T is your baby. Pros:
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Comments
i wold like to see some temperatures with 1075t OC
=> Slight typo...The mainstream desktop version of Sandy Bridge uses LGA1155. It has a different electrical layout to the current LGA1156. They aren't compatible with each other...I checked with an Engineering Sample.
I have an ASUS board in my Wish List at NewEgg that supports AMD Hex-Cores and SLI together. I had planned on using the GTX460's in it and 1090T Hex-Core once I have the cash saved.
LINK: #bit.ly/9yDKcf
Is Intel good? You bethcha skippy. Could they be in any rig I build? I'd enjoy that. But my last few MB/CPUs have been AMD due to the "bang for the buck" factor. Looks like my next upgrade in that category will be also. Thanks for playing Intel. We have some nice parting gifts for you. Maybe down the road....
"any clue how the mighty i7 980x is beaten by 930 in UGS Visualization mockup?"
Nope. I runs the tests, I reports the results, I speculate on the reasons when I can. This one's a mystery.
Yep, you can do a lot of transcoding on an overclocked 4-core proc; but more cores are still better. It's arguable whether the extra performance is worth the money; I suppose it would depend more on whether one was in a hobby or production environment...
I thought this was a review of the
AMD Phenom-II X6-1075T CPU HDT75TFBK6DGR CPU.
Please clarify. Thanks.
MRFS
Max TDP: 125 Watts
And yes, they are efficient in the regard that they don't have the luxury of 32nm and yet keep the TDP at low 125W as stated in the article. Just remember two facts that the 1st gen Phenom 2s were rated 140W and 32nm six core Intel i7 980x/970 have an envelope of 130W. And you'll see efficiency in 125W.
you talk like a child who is ashamed of coming to school in reebok shoes when all the other kids have nike and adidas, like the choice of processor comes down to its process granularity in a trendy fashion way.
If you disagree with technical issues in the review, fine; if you just don't like my writing style, go start your own hardware review site and show us how to do it.
only with my memory i'm exceed amd
#service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=355908&compareResultType=18
THEREFOR SOME ONE PLEASE SUGEST ME A COMPLITE SOLUTION FOR HIS SYSTEM
OBLIGED
It has answered some of my questions about the new AMD hex cores. Mostly to do with performance @ same clock speeds of these processors.
However I would still like to know, how the 1035T & 1055T shape up against the 1075T/1090T/1100T.
Are these all essentially the same processor, with different clock speeds or is there some real difference when dropping from the 1075T to the 1055T?
What would be the difference of OCing a 1055T @ 4GHZ (is this possible, with a stable system?) Vs a 1075T @ 4GHZ, if all other hardware was the same?
In fact, I may not even feel the need to overclock it (the "fast enough" thing), but it's so comforting to know that if I do, I can possibly get near-980X performance for a fraction of the price...
Another good question would be power consumption. I have read that when you overclock X6's they start gushing up power like mad, reaching up to 300 watts (yes, just the processor, not the whole PC) at around 4 GHz. That's something to consider as well, when deciding if it's worth to overclock it and to what extent.
Finally, a more straightforward question: you said similar results would probably only be possible with an 890FX mainboard. I'd love to have one, but they are prohibitively expensive here. So, I have the crippled version of it, an 890GX mainboard. Do you think the GX could yield similar results?
Thanks a lot!
While I have found that it is possible & with a stable system, the rest of my question still remains.
Also I am now wondering about the effects OCing a 1055T this high would have on the longevity of the CPU & whether this would differ for the 1075T at all? (I realize that any answer to this would be mostly speculation & also be dependent on cooling solutions etc.)
But that is not in my plans for now. I have found that even at stock speeds, it is scaringly fast! I simply don't need to overclock it, and don't think I will need it any time soon. I'm also impressed at the thermal efficiency: when idle on a not so hot day (I live in a subtropical latitude and it's summer here down South now), CPU temperature gets as low as 21°C, and I'm yet to see it go over 44°C under stress. Well, I wanted a PC to last several years, and I've got one. I'm very happy. Thanks a lot for your help!
If I understand it right, both these versions OCd to 4GHZ would draw the same power under load but at idle with power saving enabled, the 95W version should draw less power.
So I bought the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO (8+2 phase) and I reborned with it. I reached 4,0GHz in a minute with 1,425V. Max for 3D bench is 4,2-4,3GHz and the most i got with this combination on air is 4,5GHz @ 1,596V. That was very unstable but enough for one round of super pi 1M and then BSOD.
For 24/7 I am holding it at 3,8GHz @ 1,375V. I use Scythe Mugen 2 and temperatures are very good. About 45C in games, 52-53C in occt. With 4GHz 55-57C in OCCT. Scythe Mugen 2 is very very silent cooler i recommand it.
Dont use X6 processor on 4+1 phase motherboard if you want to overclock. 4+1 phase is only OK for stock 3.0GHz nothing more.
Sry for bad english.
Nice job.