AMD Phenom X4 9850 B3 Revision

Name: AMD Phenom X4 9850 B3 Revision - Page 5
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, March 27, 2008, 12:00 AM EDT

LAME MT and Kribibench v1.1

In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a popular scenario that many end users work with on a day-to-day basis to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. LAME is an open-source mid to high bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is used widely around the world in a multitude of third party applications.

LAME MT

Audio Encoding

In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file (a hallucinogenically-induced Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-thread modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Once again, shorter times equate to better performance.

The new Phenom X4 9850 and similarly clocked B2 revision chips all performed at the exact same level, whether or not the TLB patch was enabled. As expected the higher-clocked X4 9850 was also faster than the Phenom 9600, and comes within striking distance of the performance offered by the Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Kribibench v1.1

CPU-Bound 3D Rendering

For this next batch of tests, we ran Kribibench v1.1, a 3D rendering benchmark produced by the folks at Adept Development. Kribibench is an SSE aware software renderer where a 3D model is rendered and animated by the host CPU and the average frame rate is reported. We used two of the included models with this benchmark: a "Sponge Explode" model consisting of over 19.2 million polygons and the test suite's "Ultra" model that is comprised of over 16 billion polys.

Once again, it is clear that the Phenom X4 9850 is AMD's fastest desktop processor to date. It outpaces all of the other AMD-built chips to some degree, and just edges out Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600.