Enter the Dragon

[txnetcop]

Been building and testing the AMD Phenom II 940. While it is not an i7 Core killer there is nothing to be ashamed of here for AMD. This little rascal competes fairly well with the Q9450 on a clock to clock basis.

The draw back is that there are no DDR3 boards available yet however the big PRO is that you can drop it into an existing AM2+ board. Running stock it is not as great as it is overclocked. I have this one clocked to 3.8GHz on air and that seems to be the sweet spot for the Phenom II 940. This processor for AMD is the only one I would buy at this time for running FSX really well. It does that respectably. Congrats to AMD for the new Phenom II series. I can hardly wait to see what it will do when clocked for DDR3 memory.

Tomorrow I will test it in FSX under storm conditions over New York and see what settings it can handle. I will post those pics then

My take on this processor:
Recommended for those who have AM2+ boards and don't want start all over and make the move to Intel or for those on a really tight budget and want power to play.

[harleyman]

Thanks..I'm looking forward to your next report in stormy weather .....:applause:

[txnetcop]

Ok as promised, pics of FSX with the Phenom II 940, 4GB of PC28400 memory, and 2 HIS Turbo ICE-Q4 HD4870s in Crossfire.

Basically I found it to be as fast as an E8400 or Q9550 in FSX. In fact I got 34 fps everywhere in the rainstorm so the Phenom II was real close.

AS you can see by the pics of the settings I ran the test on everything full except mesh resolution at 10m and texture resolution 60cm, in a rainstorm, in NY, early in the morning. This all default FSX SP2 with Acceleration. I also did a few beauty shots because I beleive the ATI cards give the prettiest pics-yes I will be glad to argue with you about it-hehehe(seriously beauty seems to be in the eye of the beholder with monitors and video cards).

In other games that were tied to the GPU instead of the CPU the Phenom II with two HD4870s charged ahead of my E8600 which only has a single HD4870OC'd, except in COD4 and BIOSHOCK, but in FSX it was almost an equal-shows ya how quirky FSX can be.

No stutters and the lowest it dropped was 24.1. It was mainly sitting around 26.5. Remember I had almost all settings maxed in a rainstorm. When I ran it on unlimited the Phenom stuggled considerably except when I ran it in clear weather. I locked it at 30 and it stayed very smooth no matter what angle I shot.

As I said above the Phenom II 940 has nothing to be ashamed of. Still if I were buying a computer today it would have to be the Intel i7 Core and a 6GB memory kit. The other thing that comes to mind is the bad rep that has been spread about ATI frame rates dropping in inclement weather. If you are not getting good frame rates it is your system set up not ATI at fault-that is a fact as I have demonstrated here.

Learn how to use ATI Tray tools or the new 8.12 Catalyst and you will have a great experience with your ATI card.

Ted

There are several sets of pics I took pics from every angle at various times to show that the fps rate is steady for the most part with small fluctuations. I have more pics with fps rate if anyone wants them.

First I will show the settings
Second some beauty shots
Third The Storm pics

[txnetcop]

beauty shots-this ran very smoothly and out of the city I could run 45 plus locked without a hitch. It was exactly the same as my E8600, but it takes more work to overclock the Phenom IIs and it runs hotter 60+C it got all the way to 65C after an hour of FSX and I had this thing super cooled with cold air. Remember though I had it clocked to 3.8Ghz. However I found in research that as long as you do not exceed 70C you will not hurt the processor. I just love the ATI card not one shot is doctored this is straight from the FSX pic files.

[txnetcop]

These are the storm shots. I took way too many to prove that the frame rates would not vary much I can only put six on here so I will put the six toughest. I can give more on request. The lowest it dropped when sitting at 30 locked was 24.1 but very smooth no issues. There are no tweaks to the FSX.cfg

[txnetcop]

This was a very good test for the Phenom II however the E8600 runs cooler and runs FSX a bit faster. The Phenom II with dual HD4870s ran away from my single Hd4870OC in games made for quad core. The i7 I built two weeks was much faster than the Phenom II and only costs $320 more to build. However as I said earlier if you are on a tight budget or have an AM2+ board this is probably the way to go.
Ted

[kilo delta]

Nice review, Ted :applause:

[Bruce Thompson]

AMD just dropped the price of the Phenom 11 CPU by £42.00 here in the U.K. Thats a big drop in only a week or so since release. :faint:I should have waited me thinks.

[CG_1976]

This AMD Phenom II 940 is going right to priority #1 when I rebuild my #3 computer. Be a huge improvement.

[harleyman]

Looking good Ted..thanks for that ....:applause:


Bruce...I love your new Av...I think somedays i need to borrow it ...LOL

[txnetcop]

Some have asked what motherboard I used...this is it

Socket AM2 Athlon 64 motherboard MSI K9A2 Platinum

This is the absolute best AMD motherboard I have ever used and very versatile and easy to set up for overclocking the new Phenom II. Be sure and get the latest BIOS it is very easy to flash
Ted