AMD Phenom 9500

Street pricing for the Phenom 9500 part is as close to equivalent to Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 and, given that the Q6600-equipped Mesh Elite Quad FX (web ID: 122231) marginally outstrips the Matrix Venom in our application benchmarks, the Phenom doesn't look compelling.

The outlook becomes worse if you look a month or two into the future. Intel's current quad-core generation is being replaced by 45nm parts with a lower TDP per clock, more total cache, and significantly faster performance.

We've yet to see the triple-core 8000-series Phenoms - which are, in fact, quad-core parts with one non-functioning core - and the traditional high-end FX series of parts (which will be dubbed the FX80 series). It's possible AMD may pull off a coup in terms of price for the 8000-series Phenoms. But the FX series, which AMD has confirmed will be released in Q1 2008, will have to pull off a miracle in order to outstrip Intel's upcoming QX9770 in terms of money-no-object performance for the enthusiast.

Author: David Fearon