Cool beans! Phenom II rocks… I have one too (but not overclocked )

The Phenom II (computer in the middle) joins my rack finally! First I thought I can use the Medion P4 PC-case that I got from a colleague but it turned out to be a Micro ATX format. So I took the ATX-PC-case of an old Athlon XP 2000+ that we used for watching TV (BTW: Not our primarly TV set ) and placed the new hardware in it that I bought recently. I’m still setting up the new AMD Phenom II machine but what I can tell now is that it’s really silent (not like the Athlon 2600+ that is on the right on the upper photo – the Athlon is hell of noisy) and yea, the Phenom II has a 3.5″ Floppy drive FTW! IMHO a real PC needs to have a floppy drive! The G4 Mac on the left has no Floppy drive for example – what a shame.

booting for the first time – ASRock rocks

I like the look of G.Skill RAM – fancy blue

You might want to comment the photos on Flickr (there are even some more):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86957127@N00/sets/72157615020148319/

Finally I ordered the parts for my new PC! A very reasonable configuration – best value IMHO – based on the AMD Dragon platform. I’m going to put them in the case of an old Medion P4 that I got from a colleague. Will post more soon!

Details:

GFX-Card: http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/graphiccards/HD%204000series/4830.aspx

RAM: http://newgskill.web-bi.net/bbs/zboard.php?&id=g_ddr2

CPU: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_15331_15917,00.html

Mainboard: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=AOD790GX/128M&s=AM2%2b

Infos about the AMD Dragon platform: http://game.amd.com/us-en/landings/dragon.aspx

BTW: I ordered at HPM Computer, a recommendation from the PCGH.de forum – Infos: http://www.hpm-computer.de/

Fist results look great! Check out details here: http://forum.breakthelimit.net/index.php?showtopic=220&hl

Ok, I mean it’s great… but ridiculous. I want to see real overclocking all-time-records with liquid cooling but not with liquid nitrogen! Yea, like anyone would run his PC for 5 minutes cooled with liquid nitrogen.

More Info (in German): http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,671469/News/Phenom_II-CPU_bis_5/925_GHz_Takt/

I want to get a Phenom II AMD CPU. Rumors say it will be available in early January (the 8th as some sources mention) but that seems to be either a silent launch or an announcement date. Maybe this will be just a launch of the 125W AM2+ model for upgraders? Not sure… I want to get a new mainboard and memory for it so I guess for me it makes to most sense to wait for the DDR3 mainboards (that are not available yet) but on the other hand I don’t want to wait so long. Humm… the German PC Games Hardware guys seem to have a test-CPU already. In the January issue they published some useful information (like AM2+ mainboard compatiblity) but no benchmarks yet, I hope they will publish some nice benchmarks February.

Source:
http://www.nordichardware.com/news,8456.html

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,670317/News/Phenom_II_von_AMD_im_Testlabor_-_erster_CPU-Test_laeuft_bereits/

Here are some nice charts about the Phenom II:

I spotted a nice article about the new Phenom II CPU by AMD and the Dragon platform (basically a combination of Phenom II CPU, 790GX mainboard & the ATI 4800 series graphics card):

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/austin/

I think I’m going to wait till Q1 with getting new hardware then. The Dragon platform looks really promising! I hope the prices for the new next generation AMD platform will look reasonable too.

Dragon is a 3GHz Phenom II, 790GX and an ATI 4800 series

Spider is a 2,6GHz Phenom, 790FX and ATI 3800 series

Maybe it’s funny what the guys at Tom’s Hardware Overclock Competition 2008 did but totally useless for everyone else. They cooled an Intel Core 2 Duo 8600 with liquid nitrogen and overclocked it to 6GHz. Nice… but is anyone going to put a bottle of liquid nitrogen in his PC just to run it on 6GHz for a moment? No… So we all can forget about that. I bet that the Phenom II 6GHz OC test run that AMD confirmed has been also done with liquid nitrogen.

So is this all a coincidence? No, I don’t think so. I think that AMD and Intel support all the OC scene meanwhile. I think that it’s just like with BMW supporting and sponsoring Formula 1 for example. You can get nice press coverage. It’s like free advertising. Your brand name everywhere! How smart!

Phenom II at 6GHz OC confimrmed by AMD:
http://www.crn.com/hardware/212101254?cid=ChannelWebBreakingNews

Toms Hardware OC competition record of 6,2GHz:
http://www.tomshardware.com/de/overclocking-core-2-duo-stickstoff-cpu-z,news-241988.html

Just see how prominent the Intel logo is in the Toms Hardware article is. Coincidence or product placement? Personally I think that clockwars are back. I bet we will see CPUs with up to 4GHz next year in stores.

Edit:

Wink wink! See the Intel logos? Nice sponsoring!

All photos from the OCC Tom’s Hardware competition:
http://www.tomshardware.com/de/fotoreportage/15-overdrive-overclocking-flussigstickstoff.html

I knew it… what hasn’t been on the AMD road map that was released recently is the new type of AMD processors including the naming!

AMD plans to introduce 8 Deneb processors in Q1 2009:

Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition – 3.0GHz
Phenom II X4 920 – 2.8GHz
Phenom II X4 925 – 2.8GHz
Phenom II X4 910 – 2.6GHz
Phenom II X4 810 – 2.6GHz
Phenom II X4 805 – 2.5GHz
Phenom II X3 720 – 2.8GHz
Phenom II X3 710 – 2.6GHz

The first two support socket AM2+, while the others are aimed at AM3 and DDR3. In Q2, two more processors will become available:

Phenom II X3 600
Phenom II X2 200

Source: http://forums.legitreviews.com/about18465.html

More Information: http://publish.it168.com/2008/1114/20081114006901.shtml