Phenom II X6 1055T and 1090T review

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Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & conclusion

AMD will be AMD -- bringing bang for buck to the table. Seriously .. did anyone expect a six-core CPU that starts at just 199 USD ? That just staggers me, value for money is what AMD is about and their track record is certainly exceeding them with the release of Phenom II X6 CPUs.

Now we have to set things in perspective for several usage segments, let's start of with gaming. Game performance wise the stone cold truth is that Intel has the better overall package in peak performance, even Core i7 quad-core processors will continue to dominate AMD's six-core processors in the high-end gaming segment.

The reality however is that both manufacturers have their own advantages. If you can forfeit on game performance a bit, you'll also save yourself a whole lot of money. But sure, hyper-threading, triple channel memory and just very strong processors do give Core i7 the benefit.

Looking at the X6 series from  more professional point of view, say content creation and multi-media transcoding etc then nothing available in the market to date can do what the X6 processors can manage for this kind of money. The Phenom II X6 processor series is just lovin the create, edit, render, encode/decode application on your PC and oozes with value in combo with the X6 processors.

The cheapest 199 USD 1055T is offering you very solid performance, that's 33 USD per core(!) making it the big winner for the budget conscience end-user, AMD is an unmistaken the winner.

Now a lot of you would probably be comparing today's tested processors to the six-core 980 Extreme from Intel, in a way that makes sense both being six-core CPUs, but the reality is simple, the Phenom II X6 processors are not even close performance wise. Even overclocked at 4.1 GHz an AMD Phenom II X6 processors can't beat the 980X at it's default clocks and that's a testimony on how strong the Intel Nehamlem/ Gulftown architecture is. The fact remains that clock for clock, and core for core performance definitely  is a win for Intel's Core i7/i5 series, but you pay for it big-time, as simple as that.

So what we are trying to say here is that AMD did it right on many levels. Your operating system will simply be blazingly fast, your games will run fast enough and if you are editing and transcoding some video, pack a lot or RAR files and so on .. that's where the enormous value of the new X6 processors really kick in hard.

What also surprised us was the operating temperatures of the Phenom II X6 processor. We peeked, checked, verified and then again verified again but even under full load with six cores active your temps can be as low as 30 Degrees C (on air cooling), and that definitely baffled us. The overall low temperatures obviously also opens up doorways for overclocking. We quite easily managed to get this 1090T running at 4.1 GHz on all six cores, 100% stable on a cheap OCZ Vendetta cooler. Next to that the TDP of these processors though not low aren't extremely high either, which is very nice to see as well. Overclocked however that's a different story, as the TDP certainly jumps up fast.

So here we have the Phenom II X6 series, overall offering very brawny performance while retaining a very interesting price. I mean if you need to transcode video's cheap and fast, pick up a:

  • 199 USD Phenom II X6 1055T
  • 125 USD 890GX motherboard (integrated graphics)
  • 60 USD 4 GB DDR3 1333
  • 50 USD 500 Watt PSU
  • 50 USD Chassis
  • 69 USD 1 TB HDD
  • 25 USD ODD

Then you just built a fully functional six-core processor based media crunching monster PC at a great price of under 600 USD. Now make no mistake, AMD is not competing with Intel's six-core solutions at all. They can't as performance wise per core they miss out on performance. But if we leave gaming out of the equation and look at content creation, 3D design, video transcoding  etc where applications are heavily threaded then the Phenom II X6 1055T performs roughly at the level of a Core i7 860~870 ( 300~550 USD), and the 1090T closes in on the Core i7 950/965 (580/800 USD).

guru3d-value_150px.jpgSo this is value at its absolute best. But seriously, it's time for AMD to stop following Intel, and start to lead. AMD's processors  need some sort of hyper threading embedded and make a move to larger caches and triple, maybe even quad-channel memory configurations. Value for money wise, you can't beat the processors tested today though and as such they are a pleasure to have inside any modern PC. A processor like this will bring a smile to your face.

Both the Phenom II X6 1055T and 1090T as such are very much recommended.

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