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AMD Phenom II X6 1090T review

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Verdict

AMD’s first six-core processor brings improved parallelism, but you'll pay a premium for it

Review Date: 27 Apr 2010

Reviewed By: Darien Graham-Smith

Price when reviewed: £203 (£239 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
3 stars out of 6

Performance
5 stars out of 6

Just a few months ago, Intel launched the Core i7-980X, the world’s first six-core desktop processor. Now, with unaccustomed promptness, AMD has matched the stakes with the six-core Phenom II X6 1090T, the most powerful Phenom yet to grace the AM3 platform.

Unsurprisingly, there are several architectural differences between the two chips. Though both offer six physical cores, Intel’s i7-980X uses Hyper-Threading to service 12 processes at once, while the Phenom is limited to one thread per core. And while Intel opts for a total of 1.5MB of L2 cache with 12MB of L3, AMD beefs up the L2 to 512KB per core while halving the L3 of its rival.

One thing the two chips do have in common is dynamic overclocking: the X6 1090T is AMD’s first chip to feature what it calls Turbo Core technology. It’s the same idea as Intel’s Turbo Boost, automatically clocking up individual cores from the chip’s base speed of 3.2GHz to a temporary maximum of 3.6GHz, depending on load. There’s probably less headroom than the i7-980X though, as the X6 1090T still uses the 45nm fabrication process rather than Intel’s more thermally efficient 32nm transistors. This impacts on power demands too: our test system idled at around 70W with a Radeon HD 4550 graphics card installed, but shot up to 160W when all six cores were taxed at once.

As expected, in our benchmarks AMD’s offering didn’t quite keep up with Intel’s best. Our X6 1090T system running Windows 7 with 2GB of DDR3-1066 achieved an overall score of 1.99 – around 10% short of the impressive 2.23 scored by the i7-980X. That makes the X6 1090T more of a rival to the 1.95-scoring Core i7-860, or the Core i7-940 on 1.98. Indeed, it’s only a modest step up from AMD’s previous top-end desktop CPU, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which scored 1.91 in the same configuration.

That isn’t necessarily a problem, but the cost is expected to be comparatively high: AMD suggests the X6 1090T’s launch price will compete with Intel’s Core i7-860, which means around £170 exc VAT. That’s around £50 more than you’ll pay for a Phenom II X4 965, making AMD’s chip look like a bargain only next to the £800+ you’ll pay for a Core i7-980X.

UPDATE: The processor is now on sale at Scan for £203 (£239 inc VAT), higher than predictions.

For now, therefore, the Phenom II X6 1090T isn’t an obvious choice unless you have a highly parallel workload that will derive a real benefit from running on six cores, rather than four. And even if you do, there’s no killer reason to pick this over one of Intel’s eight-thread Core i7s. Overall, it’s a case of well done AMD for catching up with Intel’s six-core process and Turbo Boost system – now get the price down.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith

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Comments

User comments

Deja-vu

The last time I paid 200 quid for a processor it was an AMD K6 -and was very proud of my purchase.
This latest chip costs £34 per core -are we in danger of expecting everything to be too cheap?
Now all we need is a dodgy Flash site to get all 6 cores running at 100% while doing nothing interesting.

By milliganp on 27 Apr 2010

Turbo Core???

Even the naming fashion is copied of Intel. If they can't afford to come up with a really matching (or supreme) design, fair enough, but coming up with an original name doesn't cost any money for Pete's sake...

By Josefov on 27 Apr 2010

Turbo indeed

Is there not a law against using that word unless they actually put a turbine in there?

By Alperian on 27 Apr 2010

Why not?

Actually it's an idea - use the heat generated by the cpu to power a turbine with a fan attached to it. That would be real turbo pc.

By Lomskij on 27 Apr 2010

Core what a processor

The 1055T is cheaper and already there are benchmarks for that at 4Ghz overclock.I am a prime candidate for that one as i do 3D raytrace renders.I need all the cores i can lay my hands on.1 image done on an E6600 took me 5 hours yesterday ! The real bargain at the moment is the old I7 - 920.Intel are retiring that in a few months.The price is really starting to come down.So the choice is an T1055 (6 Threads) at £159 or an I920(8 Threads) at £180

By Jaberwocky on 28 Apr 2010

The entry 6core AMD is £161 inc.

The 1055T is more competitively priced at £161 inc.
As it also clocks quite well it is a more likely candidate for a mid-top end system.
The performance and price should fare well against the top end 4core i7 processors, so at least we have a price war on our hands ;)
It is probably best to judge the price a month or two into sales, rather than at the outset as this can change radically.
For now, the happiest people are owners of AMD3 motherboards!
Although its about 23% slower than an i7-980X, you can build a full 6core AMD system for the price of an i7-980X CPU alone!

By skgiven on 29 Apr 2010

Ray Tracing better on Xeon?

Not sure on your budget but I'd be looking for a Dual Multi Core Xeon for Raytracing, with a decent Dual GFX card setup on SCSI architechture.

Something exotic like Dual Intel® Xeon® Processor X5677 for exmaple. or Maybe the E6520 if your trying to save money.

By Gindylow on 29 Apr 2010

Hyperphreading hotair?

I get the impression from this article - and a lot of recent CPU articles - that 'Hyperthreading' is real cores, when I thought they only operated on 'idle' cores? So if you want to do raytracing, you are better off with 6 real cores working 100%, than 4 real cores at 100% and 4 fake cores doing nothing. Can we have an article clearing up this Hyperthreading myth please?

By Wilbert3 on 7 May 2010