AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 13, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test. The test does basic photo editing; there are a couple of color space conversions, many layer creations, color curve adjustment, image and canvas size adjustment, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
The whole process is timed and thanks to the use of Intel's X25-M SSD as our test bed hard drive, performance is far more predictable than back when we used to test on mechanical disks.
Time is reported in seconds and the lower numbers mean better performance. The test is multithreaded and can hit all four cores in a quad-core machine.
Intel's architectures are definitely favored in our Photoshop test; the 965 BE can't outperform the cheaper Q9550.
DivX 8.5.3 with Xmpeg 5.0.3
Our DivX test is the same DivX / XMpeg 5.03 test we've run for the past few years now, the 1080p source file is encoded using the unconstrained DivX profile, quality/performance is set balanced at 5 and enhanced multithreading is enabled:
Our lighter encoding test puts the 965 BE above all of the Core 2 Quads and just behind the i7 920.
x264 HD Video Encoding Performance
Graysky's x264 HD test uses the publicly available x264 codec (open source alternative to H.264) to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.
The 965 BE manages to pull ahead of the i7 920 in the first pass of our test, however the second more strenuous pass clearly goes to the i7. Compared to the Core 2 Quads however, the 965 is without an equal - it's better than the Q9650.
Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Advanced Profile
In order to be codec agnostic we've got a Windows Media Encoder benchmark looking at the same sort of thing we've been doing in the DivX and x264 tests, but using WME instead.
Slightly faster than the i7 920 again? Hooray for AMD.
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brybir - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
I did notice on newegg that AMD is releasing some of its Phenom II's with lower TDP.They have a Phenom II 945 that was rated at 125WTDP now with the same processor just rated at 95W TDP.
I figure they will goose the clock speed a bit more if they can and continue to work on getting their power consumption lowered on the rest of their line so by the time their new processors come out the Phenom II's can pull up low power budget duty.
Taft12 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
I was going to mention this new part from AMD as well (945 95W edition). Anand you would do well to draw attention to it as well where you talk about AMD's current product lineup. This is a more interesting and notable introduction to me than this 140W behemoth.I was surprised to see the 965 only consumes 3W more at load than the 955BE however. Yes it draws the highest power on the chart, but only just barely.
werfu - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
What AMD needs is a way to improve performance per clock, that's it, either K11 or something new. There's no way they'll be able to scale much past the 4Ghz point. Imagine the boost they would get, if they could provide 10% more clock efficiency, at the clock they are currently that would be a huge boost. They also need to improve the IMC. Going for 4 memory stick with AMD for now is a no go if you want to have high ram speed. Memory bandwidth is definitely a huge Intel advantage. And something like Hyperthread could be nice too.TheHolyLancer - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
uncore? isnt this HTT?JumpingJack - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
No, uncore is not HTT....medi01 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
"The problem with the $245 price point that AMD’s flagship sells at is one of positioning. It is dangerously close to the $284 price of a Core i7 920, which is generally a faster chip."Sorry, but shouldn't you also include motherboard price into calculation?
C'DaleRider - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
Well, really depends upon where you buy your parts from, doesn't it?Given that I have a MicroCenter and Fry's handy, the price for Intel's Core i7 cpu is $200. Combine that with an inexpensive X58 motherboard, like the MSI X58M, that has gotten quite good reviews for what it is, retails for $170.
That gives a $370 price for mb and cpu to move to i7....cost of DDR3 memory is a wash due to both platforms requiring it.
Of course, for those that depend upon Newegg's pricing for cpus, I feel for you....getting ripped off and all. Horrible how the 'Egg gouges on cpu prices these days.
mohindar - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
How you can fit this processor onto socket LGA775, as mentioned in the final page...mohindar - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
Sorry, wrong comment.Ben90 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
the SYS Mark 2007 Chart has the i7 920 @ 2.8 ghz... dont know if its on purpose or a typo