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Review: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T: hexa-core computing for the masses

by Parm Mann on 27 April 2010, 05:00 4.0

Tags: Phenom II X6 1055T, Phenom II X6 1090T, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaxym

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Multi-threaded performance: video-encoding, image editing, file compression

Percentage faster/slower
than Phenom II X6 1090T
Phenom II
X6 1055T
Phenom II
X4 965 BE
Core i7
980X
Core i7
930
Core i7
920
- 9.97% - 27.50% + 63.61% - 6.27% - 8.57%

When six cores come out to play, AMD's latest Phenoms are notably superior to those that came before them. The addition of two cores results in a 27.5 per cent performance boost over the Phenom II X4 965 BE.

What's impressive is that 7-zip puts the Phenom II X6 1090T slightly ahead of both Intel's Core i7 930 and Core i7 920.



Percentage faster/slower
than Phenom II X6 1090T
Phenom II
X6 1055T
Phenom II
X4 965 BE
Core i7
980X
Core i7
930
Core i7
920
- 15.31% - 40.79% + 34.03% - 14.68% - 22.25%

Making full use of each CPU's available cores, wPrime highlights that six is currently the magic number. The Phenom II X6 1090T is comfortably quicker than Intel's quad-core parts in this calculation benchmark, and second only to the beast that is the Core i7 980X.



Percentage faster/slower
than Phenom II X6 1090T
Phenom II
X6 1055T
Phenom II
X4 965 BE
Core i7
980X
Core i7
930
Core i7
920
- 12.75% - 39.84% + 40.24% - 2.59% - 7.77%

Converting 200 photographs from RAW (1.63GB) to JPEG (267MB) using Bibble tells a similar story. No surprises, a multi-threaded application benefits from the additional cores.



Percentage faster/slower
than Phenom II X6 1090T
Phenom II
X6 1055T
Phenom II
X4 965 BE
Core i7
980X
Core i7
930
Core i7
920
- 8.63% - 1.81% + 18.68% - 7.81% - 12.50%

The first pass of the media-encoding benchmark is lightly threaded, and raw clock speeds win out.



Percentage faster/slower
than Phenom II X6 1090T
Phenom II
X6 1055T
Phenom II
X4 965 BE
Core i7
980X
Core i7
930
Core i7
920
- 11.21% - 26.75% + 51.10% - 10.19% - 15.44%

The second pass ramps up the load across all available cores, and the hexa-core Phenoms are once again able to shine. It's not everyday you see a Phenom II out-doing a couple of similarly-priced Core i7s.