AMD Athlon II X4 620 & 630: The First $99 Quad Core CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 16, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
3dsmax 9 - SPECapc 3dsmax CPU Rendering Test
Today's desktop processors are more than fast enough to do professional level 3D rendering at home. To look at performance under 3dsmax we ran the SPECapc 3dsmax 8 benchmark (only the CPU rendering tests) under 3dsmax 9 SP1. The results reported are the rendering composite scores:
Offline 3D rendering should be another safe haven for the Athlon II X4. Core count matters and that's what AMD delivers. At $25 per core the Athlon II X4 620 is faster than even the X3 720. It's of course faster than any dual-core CPU in its price range, including the more expensive E7500. Intel's Core 2 Quad Q8200 is around 6% faster but costs 60% more.
Cinebench R10
Created by the Cinema 4D folks we have Cinebench, a popular 3D rendering benchmark that gives us both single and multi-threaded 3D rendering results.
Single threaded performance is where the Athlon II X4 suffers the most. It's competitive but still slower than cheaper dual-core CPUs. This is the classic trade off for all pre-Lynnfield quad-core CPUs, you give up single threaded performance for multi-threaded performance. Luckily for AMD, Intel's Core 2 Quads suffer the same fate. While the Athlon IIs find themselves at the bottom of this chart, the Q8200 is the slowest chip here.
Turn up the thread count and the Athlon II shines once more. Again, the 620 is about the same speed as the Q8200, but slower than the Q8400. Just where it needs to be.
POV-Ray 3.73 beta 23 Ray Tracing Performance
POV-Ray is a popular, open-source raytracing application that also doubles as a great tool to measure CPU floating point performance.
I ran the SMP benchmark in beta 23 of POV-Ray 3.73. The numbers reported are the final score in pixels per second.
At this point I couldn't write a more competitive position for AMD. The Athlon II X4 continues to do very well in our 3D rendering tests.
Blender 2.48a
Blender is an open source 3D modeling application. Our benchmark here simply times how long it takes to render a character that comes with the application.
Our Blender test has traditionally favored Intel architectures, and here we see the first signs of the Athlon II X4 not being able to keep up. The Phenom II X3 720 and Core 2 Quad Q8200 are both faster, but compared to Intel's similarly priced dual-core offerings AMD is still quicker.
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blyndy - Friday, September 18, 2009 - link
I don't know if they intentionally cripple fully functioning denebs. I imagined that amd would rather sell a Phx4 for ~$200 than an A2x4 for ~$100, but I might have read somewhere that both intel and amd do intentionally cripple fully functioning chips.strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
That statement makes sense for harvested Denebs, but doesn't Propus not have any L3 at all, so it can't be turned into a PhenomII?blyndy - Friday, September 18, 2009 - link
Yes that's why I thought the quote didn't make sense -- If propus is exclusively A2x2 then the highest clocking propus' will still be A2x2's, therefore A2x2 overclocking wouldn't suffer.MrPIppy - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
How is the motherboard compatibility situation looking? Will boards need a BIOS update, or just work out of the box right now?Also, does it support AMD virtualization instructions?
Last, any idea about compatibility with ECC RAM? The BIOS often plays a role in this too, but just wanted to make sure AMD didn't remove ECC support from the IMC or something similar
TA152H - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
This is a GREAT product from AMD.Make it smaller, make it cheaper, and put it with a platform much better than one Intel can have.
AMD can not make a processor worth a damn. Let's face it, they suck. If they try to compete head on with Intel, they lose, period.
By making a quad core that is more than fast enough for most people, while at the same time reducing the size so they can make it cheaper, they created something in a segment where Intel just isn't.
Couple this with a 790GX, or the 785, and you've got a great platform for a lot of people. If you need the best, or near it, the Bloomfield can't be touched. Why even try? Most people don't need it.
Finally, AMD seems to get it.
khaakon - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
I kinda agree with you here. But I cannot understand your need to paint the world in only black and white.khaakon - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
* edit;"your need" meaning TA152H
Eeqmcsq - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
"Finally, AMD seems to get it."Yes, but will they make money out of it? Only time will tell.
Chlorus - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
Where's that dipshit snakeoil to complain about nonexistent bias?Eeqmcsq - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - link
He's in disguise under a new screen name. See if you can spot him in the comments so far.