| AMD Phenom-II X6-1100T CPU HDE00ZFBRBOX |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Processors | |||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||||
| Tuesday, 07 December 2010 | |||||||||
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Page 12 of 14
AMD Black Edition CPU OverclockingLike the 1090T Black Edition and 965 Black Edition, the 1100T has an unlocked multiplier, so while you can overclock it in the classic fashion by increasing the core frequency (which ASUS calls the "CPU Bus Frequency"), it's easier to simply increase the multiplier. Although the processor seemed to run stably at 4.2GHz (achieved with a multiplier of 21) with the voltage set to 1.5V, it wouldn't complete the SPECapc Lightwave benchmark at this setting (after three attempts), so after several tries at some dangerously high voltages, I was forced to drop the multiplier to 20.5 for a final speed of 4.1GHz with a 0.1875 overvolt. 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's Turbo Core feature works so well that even enthusiasts may wish to consider if overclocking a Thuban-core CPU is worth the extra energy and cooling required. In several of the benchmarks in this review you'll notice very little difference between the scores returned by the stock-clocked and overclocked 1100T. The reason is that if the benchmark uses three or fewer of the six available CPU cores, the cores will be running at up to 3.7GHz, which is less than 10% slower than 4.1GHz. Since the CPU can dynamically vary the clock speed of the cores as the computational load changes, the processor will run at its most efficient settings in most cases, only cranking things up when it's needed. For applications that actually stress all six processor cores, you can expect performance to increase almost linearly with clock speed, but since few applications do this, you might just want to let Turbo Core handle this for you. The overclock certainly won't make any difference in gaming. 
If you've read Benchmark Reviews' previous coverage of the AMD Phenom-II X6-1075T Processor and the AMD Phenom-II X6-1090T processor, you'll see the 4.1GHz overclock achieved with the AMD Phenom-II X6-1100T Black Edition processor is very close to the 4.155GHz reached with the 1075T and the 4.0GHz (with Turbo Core enabled) reached with the 1090T Black Edition. At the time of this writing, the Newegg prices for these three processors are:
Now, there's never a guarantee that any given Thuban-series processor will reach the same overclocks I did (and if you're overclocking a non-Black Edition CPU like the 1075T, you'll need a good quality motherboard and RAM to hit the highest overclocks), but I'd be very surprised if you couldn't at least reach 3.9GHz or 4.0GHz on any hexacore AMD CPU. That being the case, there's no reason to spend more money for the 1100T Black Edition when its $70-cheaper sibling 1090T Black Edition is just as fast, and the $100-cheaper 1075T can be just as fast if you're using a good-quality AMD 800-series motherboard like the ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme I used in this review. Even with all CPUs running at their stock clock speeds, you'll notice very little difference in most benchmarks. Still, the whole point of overclocking (originally, anyway) was to make a less-expensive part perform like a more expensive part, and the overclocked AMD Phenom-II X6-1100T Black Edition provides most of the performance of the much more expensive Intel Core i7-980x Extreme, as I'll show in the next section where I'll explain my conclusions.
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Comments
It's good to see Big Green as strong as Intel again, or close enough to be called such. It's taken 6 years, but AMD is back. I bought one of the first AMD x64s (4800) back in 2004 and loved it. I gave it to my nephew and it's still going strong.
I doubt any processor maker will ever deliver the knock out blow to its competition that AMD did with the first x64s to Intel. But you never know.
When I needed more power than the old x64 4800 had, I was stuck because Intel still wasn't putting the north-bridge controller on the chip, and I hated that for performance and heat reasons, and in 2008, AMD just didn't have the power I wanted. Then the Core ixx series came out. I couldn't beleive my eyes when I saw the OC potential of those CPU's.
The Core i-series processors are incredible, and even though AMD is the cost per clock ratio winner, if you want the best dollar to performance ratio, it's hard to beat the i7 920 clocked to 3.8Ghz on air.
Also, comparing CPUs for gaming performance is like comparing race cars for seating comfort... FAIL.
What's really funny is that the Core i7 920 is so popular now that it's selling for 25 dollars more than it did two years ago, up from 270 to around 300USD. If I were buying today, I might go with AMD since I do TONS of heavy multitasking, such as having Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, split tab browsers with 20 tabs each open, Eve online, Team Speak, Winamp streaming, video software for my outdoor cams, etc. so the more threads the better.
L2 benchmark, then come back.
I bet my Athlon-II X2-260 can get great FPS on Crysis. Oh, could it depend on GPU?
Being in the market for a CPU and Mainboard right now, I have to say that I'm looking hard at these while holding out to see what value Sandy Bridge brings to the table. I'm glad to be looking at buying parts now, and not a year ago. So much has changed,........
I think that at this point, the fight is between the 1100T, the i7 930, and perhaps the i7 860. I'll be waiting until next year though, to upgrade my current q6600 to either the Fusion or X68 platform.
sometimes i do that.
good review.
i don't give a f**k about biases. these are somehow inebitable in time, i have mines too, but: the most important thing is: NO MONOPOLY!
retards like Toeringsandthong can't understand that.
Am I reading it right that the test for the I7's are using triple channel. How about another test with the I7 running on dual channel.
Overall I like the article.:-)
It's not that I am a fan of Intel over AMD (as if I have to even prove myself, which is ridiculous - but for what it's worth I own a 1075T which, un-overclocked, is just about the best performance per dollar that money can buy for the work loads that I encounter), but I would really appreciate seeing meaningful comparisons rather than meaningless comparisons, regardless of which processor comes out on top.
You want eyeballs on your reviews and hits on your advertisements, then you need to work to have high quality reviews worth visiting. I'm not saying this review was bad, I read all the way through it because it was interesting, but you need to take my point seriously rather than trying to dodge it. Not overclocking the 980X made all of your comparisons against the overclocked 1100T meaningless, and if you think people are going to return to read more reviews if you keep it up, think again.
I didn't write this article, evidenced by the 'written by' credits listed in bold on every page. So when you repeatedly tell me what it is I should be doing, you should be careful not to make claims that I'm dodging your points.
Not sure what you mean about addressing complaints anonymously though; my name is right there. And since there are no other Bryan Ischos on the entire planet, I should be pretty easy to find (as you have noticed).
I don't know how you came to the conclusion you came to for (4). I would expect that anyone willing to overclock would be willing to overclock whatever processor they buy so I don't know why you categorize 1100T overclocking differently than 980X. And, I think the real point that should shine through here is that the 980X was the wrong processor to compare the overclocked 1100T to. You should have compared it to an overclocked i7 that is approximately the same price as the 1100T.
In terms of the amount of time it takes to benchmark these processors, I think that is a good reason to have left the 980X out of it altogether. I think that an overclocked i7 of the same cost as the AMD would have been more interesting in place of the 980X.
And - there are no shortages of reviews putting the 1100T through the standard set of benchmarks. I got here from the amdzone.com front page and the list of reviews just for the 1100T was like 20 long. I picked your site's review to read because I like the site name :) My point being, that you can "challenge" me to find an 1100T review that compared against an overclocked 980X, but challenging me to find a review that is tangibly different than yours doesn't really seem to have made your time in making the review worth it. Meaning, if what you're saying is that you don't do anything different than the other guys, then why are you bothering to repeat what has already been done over and over again? Comparing against an oc'd i7 of the same cost would have been different and interesting.
Forget about oranges to oranges: there are so many random influences on overclocking performance, that it is a risky proposition to compare OC to OC results between competing products. Yeah, you can get results, but no two people are going to get the same results, so the individual data is of little value.
The best you can really do, is to compare the one product under test at stock speeds and overclocked. Then you can see how far the reviewer was able to overclock the one processor they have, with the equipment they have, their OC knowledge and experience, and some measure of their risk tolerance. That's about all you can glean from the single-sample testing that every site performs. If you want to go out and get 100 of each processor and test them in a half dozen environments to get a true statistical understanding of the processor's overclocking potential, the world will laud your efforts and your diligence. Oh wait, that's not right. Someone else will be duty-bound to come onto your site and tell you you did it wrong. Oh, well....
Exceptions are out there, sure. The NVIDIA GTX 460 is a good example; they ALL overclocked like mad. Very consistent results were obtained across the population for that one product, but that's not the norm.
For what it's worth, here are the things that I find I most want to see in benchmark reviews that so often are left out or overlooked:
- Comparisons only between processors at similar price points
- Ideally, taking into consideration the overall cost of the processor + motherboard if possible
- Comparisons only of oc'd versus oc'd or non-oc'd versus non-oc'd parts
- Inclusion of compiler benchmarks (i.e. benchmarks of parallell compilations of very large software code bases)
- Investigation into the compiler optimizations used for 'standard' benchmarks. I always get the feeling that many benchmarks that favor Intel highly often do so in part because the compiler that was used to compile the benchmark program favors Intel. I think that the gcc compiler toolchain is fairly agnostic and usually Linux based benchmarks show a different picture than Windows based ones because of this. I really would like to see a site explore this issue further, especially because 99% of the software I run is compiled by gcc and so gcc-compiled code is what I really care about.
A site that answered some or all of these questions would definitely get my loyal readership!
* Which motherboard? There are dozens available for each chipset. X58 motherboards alone range in price from $179 to $699. You seem to think that we have access to every possible processor and motherboard, and we don't: we only have what vendors send us to review.
* I explained before why comparing multiple overclocked processors wasn't feasible given the time frame for the article. As I explained earlier I'm still unconvinced it's ever a good idea.
* Compiler benchmarks? As a programmer, I might find them interesting, but I think most of our readers could care less.
* Investigation into compiler optimizations: Now, this is a good idea, but it's beyond the scope of a simple processor comparison; it needs its own article. While 99% of the software you run may be compiled by gcc, 99% of the software most other people run isn't.
I also include the premise that people generally have a target price range that they are willing to pay for individual components of their system. Now this is a little less solid of a premise because I can certainly see people saying "I'd like to spend $200 on a processor, but if there is a processor for $300 that is twice as fast, I'd seriously consider it". However, if that person was willing to go up to $300 to pay for the twice-as-fast processor, then they'd probably also want to consider all of the other $300 processors available to see if there is an even better processor at that price point. In either case, the most useful comparison to make is for processors in the same price range, because whatever dollar figure a system builder ends up at, they would want to make sure they're getting the best deal at that price; or at the very least, that they're not passing up a much better processor should they be willing to stick with a slightly slower part for other reasons (brand loyalty, already owning compatible components, etc).
Given those two premises, I see the most useful information to someone looking to purchase a processor being comparing similarly overclocked processors (i.e. not overclocked, or overclocked with the same effort and cost put into it), at similar price points.
Now, not every article has to be about this type of value comparison - an article can certainly be about something less practical like "how far do you have to overclock an 1100T - costs be damned - to match the performance of a stock 980X", but this was not that article. This article attempted to make lots of value comparisons while violating both of the premises I set forth previously.
Hence, my conclusion that the comparisons were meaningless (for someone who is actually considering buying either processor). If you accept my premises, they were. If you are just looking for comparisons in the abstract without any value considerations, then the article was fine - except that in that case it wasted too much verbage actually making value comparisons that were not the point of the article.
We can't please everyone, and with the time constraints for most projects we aren't afforded the opportunity to dig as deep as we'd like.
If x, then meaningless. Meaningless means "has no meaning." Even if we take your premise as true, people may still get useful information out of the article, and thus your premises don't follow directly to the conclusion, and you have an invalid argument.
I along with others are still awaiting a reply, to my comments/questions, on your review of the 1075T.
Could you please spare some time to answer my queries there, thank you.
Ty,From Turkey..