14 DAY TRIAL // Undoubtedly, Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generation Phenom II processors are highly expected. The new chips, based on the company's Deneb core, are said to be able to bring the chip manufacturer back into a more competitive position compared to its rival Intel. The chips have made it to the headlines quite often lately, and now we learn that one enthusiast has managed to get their hands on one of the processors and run some benchmarking on it.
The upcoming Phenom II 940 CPU, which comes with a core frequency of 3GHz and 8MB of cache, is reported to have topped a 4,091 score on 3DMark06. In addition, the gamer also managed to overclock the chip to 3.85GHz, a speed at which it delivered a score of 5,086. The Phenom II 940 CPU is currently compatible with AMD's AM2+ chipsets and works with DDR2, which affect the score it managed to deliver.
The Sunnyvale company announced that the first AM2+ chips it would release in the new lineup are only meant to mark the transition for its next to come AM3 platform that would come with DDR3 support. Moreover, AMD also plans releasing at a certain point parts compatible with both AM2+ and AM3 platforms. Since the DDR3 platforms are expected to deliver more performance than the existing ones, the chip will deliver better 3DMark06 scores.
The Phenom II processors have been reported to be rather great overclockers, allowing their frequency to be leveraged up to 4GHz on air and 6.3GHz on liquid nitrogen. Even so, the 5,086 score does not look too impressive when compared to the 6,608 score Intel's Core i7 Extreme managed to top at a similar speed. The difference between the chips is large enough, but AMD might be able to deliver a surprise for us when the Phenom II gets launched.
The next-generation AMD processors are expected to be unveiled at CES 2009, in January. The Sunnyvale company should release two CPUs at that time, the Phenom II X4 920 and the Phenom II X4 940 processors.