by Veridian3 on 08/10/2009
Today we take a look at the AMD Athlon II X4 620, Gigabyte GA-MA785GPMT-UD2H, Gigabyte 4650 1GB OC, Gainward 4850 512MB Golden Sample and HIS 4890 1GB iCooler X4.
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by Veridian3 on 08/09/2009
Today Intel are releasing CPUs based on the Nehalem architecture but with prices and specifications designed to appeal to mainstream consumers. Today we will be putting two of these models through their paces and comparing them to existing i7 CPUs as well as AMDs top Phenom 2 model and the best Core 2 CPU. In addition to that we will cover various memory configurations and throw a handful of the more interesting P55 based motherboards into the mix with two aftermarket coolers.
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by Veridian3 on 13/08/2009
Today is AMD day! We take a look at the new 965 BE which replaces the fantastic 955BE. We also look at a plethora of AMD based motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock and ECS as well as the brilliant Sapphire 2GB 4890 graphics card which is aimed at enthusiast users who need a lot of memory for high resolution gaming. Are you looking for a new system? then be sure to check out this review.
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by Veridian3 on 07/07/2009
We are one of the few sites to get a sample of this processor which isn't being sold in the market. We overclocked it on Vapo and managed to get over 6GHZ out of it - which makes it the fastest AMD CPU we have ever tested...
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by Veridian3 on 03/06/2009
Nehalem EP used the same D0 core as that found in the new 920 which left the top performing 965 processor on the older C0 revision. Rather than change the CPU to bring it up to date Intel are once again pushing the market forward with the release of the Core-i7 975 Extreme Edition and we will be putting it through its paces in a selection of mainly real world tests to establish how much of an improvement it is over the existing models in the range.
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by Veridian3 on 02/06/2009
Since the Phenom CPUs were launched we have seen a number of models become available with performance regularly increasing and more recently the addition of support for DDR3 but there was no sign of energy efficient versions. That changes today with the launch of the Phenom 2 X3 705e and Phenom 2 X4 905e. Also we have our first look at a dual core Phenom 2 and secondly there is the new Athlon 2 model which brings DDR3 support to the older family of CPUs.
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by Veridian3 on 23/04/2009
Today AMD release the latest AM3 processor, the 955 Black Edition, the first to have a real chance of competing with the 940 in that all important enthusiast market. Combined with a high specification 790FX based motherboard and ATI GPU it creates what could be AMDs most powerful system ever. Today we take a look at the latest performance figures from the AM3 (Dragon) platform using the 955, MSIs new 790FX-GD70 and XFXs 4870 X2. Is it finally time for AMD users to make the switch to DDR3?
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by Zardon on 05/04/2009
Today we look at Intel's new highest specification W5580 processors running on the new S5520SC motherboard. Just how smoking fast is this platform and are we about to break a bunch of records in our testing today?
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by Veridian3 on 24/02/2009
The one thing which was missing from the AMD line-up was support for DDR3 which Intel have been providing for quite some time, today we look at the first couple of CPUs which resolve that issue.
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by Veridian3 on 08/01/2009
Today we will be taking a look at the latest processor in the Phenom family, the Phenom 2 X4 940 Black Edition. This CPU will be AMDs highest performing processor until the DDR3 variants reach the market later this year. Through a selection of benchmarks including media encoding, Photoshop and gaming we will establish how good the Phenom 2 is, and whether it is worth the upgrade for existing Phenom users.
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by Veridian3 on 12/12/2008
We have to admit to being a little surprised a few weeks ago when AMD emailed us to say our review sample of the new high-end Athlon CPU was on its way. 2006 was the last time we had such an email and since then the Phenom line of processors has been AMDs focus, with a limited number of Sempron models released into the budget marketplace. Today we are looking at the 7750 Black Edition, quite a jump from the current highest model, the 6400+.
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by Veridian3 on 01/11/2008
Join us for our review as we cover why the Core i7 is such a great improvement over Core 2 as we put it though numerous tests against the best of the socket 775 CPUs, the X9770. In addition to this we will also look at the best motherboard you are likely to see in some time and if that is not enough, how about some overclocking of the new platform thrown in for fun, can we hit 4ghz on air? Time to find out...
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by Veridian3 on 06/05/2008
It has been some time since we reviewed an AMD processor on Driver Heaven, but quite a lot has happened since then with the release of various CPU revisions, as well as triple core, the 780G chipset and further energy efficient Athlon models. So today it is time to catch up with the current range of AMD products starting with the Phenom 9850.
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by Veridian3 on 07/12/2007
Intel certainly haven't been resting on their laurels. The extremely successful Core 2 launch was quickly met with quad core refreshes and recently they followed this up with the release of 1333 front side bus processors. Intel, yet again pushed the envelope and recently released a refresh of the Core 2 quad using a new core with enhanced specifications. Quite surprisingly for us before we could even get a review of the new QX9650 ready for publication the QX9770 sample arrived in our labs.
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by Veridian3 on 16/07/2007
It is hard to believe that it has been nearly a year since Intel first launched the Core 2 brand of CPU’s; it seems much longer. This is not a negative statement, but there have been so many revisions of the product line up since then that it seems like the Core 2 should have been around for much longer. Regardless of budget there is now a dual or quad core CPU to fit everyone's requirements with speeds ranging from 1.6GHz to 2.9GHz...
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by Zardon on 08/06/2007
When will it end? and when is 4 cores not enough? Last month Intel sent us their new 8 Core Xeon X5365 V8 hardware and I have been busy testing on 64 Bit Vista with a wealth of CPU's kindly donated by Intel and AMD.
Read our indepth analysis and start saving those pennies.
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by Zardon on 03/04/2007
With the recent release of games such as Supreme Commander which make use of more than two processing cores many of our readers may be contemplating a move to a Quad core CPU. It is fair to say they are still expensive especially when you look at the Ł650 QX6700. Attempting in someway to address this Intel have released the Q6600 which is meant to be targeted at a slightly lower end market. Don't be jumping for joy just yet, they still retail in excess of Ł500. The Q6600 offers 1066mhz FSB and 2x4MB of level 2 cache abeit at a lower clock speed of 2.4ghz (266x9) compared to the 2.66ghz its “extreme” edition brother offers. The Q6600 is also multipler locked (above 9x).
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by Veridian3 on 02/11/2006
Not content with resting on their laurels and waiting for AMD to reply, Intel have followed the age old adage of “attack is the best form of defence” in releasing the world’s first QUAD core product, and on the 14th of November will be available to buy around the world. This processor obviously will be aimed at the high end enthusiast sector, so today we will be ascertaining if parting with your hard earned money is a wise investment.
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by Veridian3 on 29/07/2006
Intel have handled this product launch differently because as well as the usual splattering of marketing mumbo jumbo there has been an uncharacteristic level of access to an unreleased product.
The first major example of this was back in May when we were invited to Intel Headquarters in Germany and were able to get hands on with a pre configured Core 2 system, a full two months before retail availability. Initial impressions were very positive however there is only so much faith you can have in pre-configured systems with limited testing, many sites published “their” results which basically were nothing more than glorified Intel PDF’s, we choose to wait until we could build our own systems and do our own indepth testing.
Over a month before Core 2 reviews could be published we were sent a final review kit by Intel. This almost never happens, most launches are shrouded in secrecy and last minute rushes, having over a month to fully test a new product really gives the impression that Intel are confident in their new line of processors, time to find out if this faith is well placed.
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by Veridian3 on 10/02/2006
The FX-60 is a 90nm part based on AMD’s Toledo core. AMD pack over 233million transistors into the FX60 at 90nm and end up with a die size just over 199mm2. The chip comes clocked at 2.6ghz and features 2 cores (like the X2 range of CPU’s). Cache levels are set to 64kb of both L1 data and L1 code and L2 cache is 1mb (per core). The chip supports all the usual technologies such as SSE3 and x86-64 and has a reasonably low operating voltage of 1.3-1.35v. We say low because the same Toledo core was used on the X2 4800+ and on that chip the voltage requirement is 1.35-1.4v for a slower 2.4ghz clock.
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by Veridian3 on 20/10/2005
A few months back we took a look at a couple of AMD's X2 CPU's in the form
of the 4800+ and the 4400+. Both provided excellent
performance in all tasks however they did come at quite a hefty price.
Since publishing those articles AMD released the 3800+ which
provides AMD users with all of the benefits of Dual Core computing -
however at a much lower cost. Aimed to compete directly with the
Pentium D 820 in terms of price and performance we were very interested to
see just how well the new chip would compete with our previous
Gold Award winner.
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by Veridian3 on 01/08/2005
Earlier this year AMD announced the availability of 64bit enabled Semprons on the 754 platform with models ranging from the 2600+ to the 3300+, these processors are ideal for consumers who want all the latest features and decent performance at a very reasonable price. Today AMD are further enhancing the performance of their Sempron range by releasing the 3400+ model which is the very same chip we have on test today
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by Veridian3 on 13/07/2005
As mentioned earlier in the article we were not originally going to compare the 820 to the FX57/X2/EE due to the latter chips being much more expensive than the Pentium D however what was an afterthought was well worth including in the end. It is clear when comparing the Intel chip to those three products there are some situations (such as encoding) where the higher clock speeds, system bandwidths and architectures will help you get value for money. So now we move onto Photoshop, what can we say? the 820 is a phenomenal performer, exceeding even the X2 4800+ in terms of overall performance. To date the Pentium D is the fastest chip we have tested in Photoshop performance.
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by Veridian3 on 27/06/2005
We really cant fault AMD for their activity of late, they’ve been hard at work refining the Athlon64 core with the release of Venice which provided improved memory performance and the availability of more settings on the memory configuration side of things. In addition to this they also released the X2 range of CPU’s recently which are without doubt the best performing dual core desktop CPU’s on the market. There’s nothing wrong though with increasing the speed and specifications of your current single core performance brand and that’s why we’re here today. AMD’s launch of the Athlon64 FX-57.
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by Veridian3 on 11/06/2005
It’s been quite a while since we looked at an AMD processor on Driverheaven and in that time AMD have been busy enhancing their range of CPU’s. The socket 939 Athlon64’s have begun moving to the Venice core and AMD have also launched the X2 brand of Dual Core Athlon64’s so let’s kill two birds with one stone and have a look at a processor of each type. The 3800+ and the 4800+, and see how they compare to one of Intel’s latest and greatest, the 3.46 GHz P4EE.
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by Veridian3 on 02/11/2004
The FX-55 is essentially the same chip as the FX-53, the only difference being the move from 2.4ghz to 2.6ghz (through a multiplier change from 12x to 13x). The core is still based on the 0.13 process, 0.9 is for a future chip as is dual core. Also as the FX-55 and FX-53 are based on the same design all of the features of the A64 remain such as the HT speed sitting at 1000mhz and the additional virus protection that the chip provides (in conjunction with XP SP2) is also still enabled. Support for the FX-55 should happen out of the box on most socket 939 motherboards, our MSI 6702 motherboard for example doesn’t even need a bios update to the original retail bios to support the new chip, just plug n play. This is also the case for other boards such as the Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939.
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by Veridian3 on 11/08/2004
The Sempron is basically an AthlonXP “Thoroughbred” chip re-badged, this means that it has slightly lower performance than the Athlon XP Barton (Caused mainly by the lesser cache on the Sempron - 256k level 2 cache vs. 512k on the Barton). The model numbers also vary slightly from the Thoroughbred cores of old. AMD have based their Sempron model numbers on the performance of the chip in several benchmarks when compared to other Sempron processors. These benchmarks include Sysmark 2004 and Content Creation Winstone.
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by Veridian3 on 31/05/2004
At Computex today AMD are launching the newest members of their Athlon family, the Athlon64 3800+ and along with it a FX53 with a twist. As it's launch day we have both of the processors in for review, we have spent some considerable time running tests so read on to find out how they compare and what’s new…
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by Veridian3 on 17/03/2004
The FX-53 is architecturally identical to the FX-51 in all but the clock rate…where the FX-51 is rated at 2.2ghz the FX-53 is rated at 2.4ghz. Today we shall be taking a look at how this 200mhz increase improves on the performance of the FX-51 on 2 systems.
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by Veridian3 on 07/03/2004
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the Athlon64 FX-51 and how it compared in single channel mode to the Pentium 4, Athlon XP, Opteron and Athlon64. The result was that the AFX and p4 were the clear leaders however neither really established its dominance. So today we take a look at the 2 leaders and see if there is a clear winner when the Athlon64 FX moves into dual channel mode. We’ll also take a look at how well the FX-51 overclocks.
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by Veridian3 on 20/02/2004
Over the past few months we have been lucky enough to have access to 2 different AMD 64bit processors, the Athlon 64 3200+ and the Opteron 146. We were completely impressed by the Opteron 146 and the Athlon 64 3200+ wasn’t half bad either. Today we have the opportunity to take a look at the final desktop model in the AMD series – the Athlon 64 FX-51. We shall also put a Pentium 4 3.0ghz and Athlon XP 3200+ into the mix to complete the comparison.
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by Chaos on 05/01/2004
Recently AMD announced their latest CPU’s the 3200 64 bit and FX 64 bit processors. Promising groundbreaking performance and a new way of personal and professional computing. AMD took a huge and somewhat risky step in being the first to market 64 bit CPUs to the masses.
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by Veridian3 on 20/12/2003
Here for review today I have one of AMD’s new 64-bit based processors, the Opteron 146. Rather than see how it performs as a Workstation or Server chip.
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by Chaos on 24/08/2003
Looking to get the best performance for the smallest amount of money, I opted for an AMD upgrade path. This would entail getting a new processor, motherboard, RAM, and (to be safe) a new power supply:
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