AMD's Phenom X3 Processors

Mike D. 22 Apr, 2008 at 1:00am ET Article published in Tech

Overclocking The Phenom X3

This is always my favorite part of writing a review. AMD’s B3 revision Phenom processors definitely seem to have some additional overclocking headroom compared to earlier B2s. The Phenom X3s are no exception.

The Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H caused me quite a few headaches when I first started trying to push the X3 8750. Anything over 200MHz on the reference clock would result in a post failure. After browsing around the web, I found a beta BIOS that apparently “addressed Phenom overclocking”. It didn’t disappoint.

I came very close to the 3GHz mark, but couldn’t quite pass it. I barely needed to increase the vcore to hit 2.88GHz and the system was totally stable. I have a feeling that it is the Gigabyte board holding me back at this point. The stability of the vcore at load with these higher clocks concered me a bit. I’m sure that with a more overclocking oriented board, a better overclock would be attainable. None the less, 2.88GHz is certainly a nice increase from 2.4GHz.

Due to the limited amount of time I had to put this review together, I was not able to spend as much time as I would have liked overclocking the X3. I may post some comments if I’m able to improve this overclock.

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Comments

24 Apr 2008 ~ 3:03am Leonardo Thanks for the review, Mike.

Very interesting.
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:20am GHoosdum It was great that you went the extra mile and cleared the "bad" core issue up with AMD. Go Mike!
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:42am Winfrey These seem like a decent step up from the "X2" AMD processors. I'd personally like to see how they fold with an SMP client. Pretty encouraging for AMD, it's not beating intel soundly but the fab process definitely helps AMD to keep prices very competitive.

Learned lots thanks Mike!
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:45am primesuspect Now I want one
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:58am BuddyJ As do I.
30 Apr 2008 ~ 8:48pm Straight_Man I'll have to wait and see-- can't afford such a machine in the next six months-- but will be interested to see how they spread and how popular they are. I am running a 2.66 GHz Intel processor now that was state of the art 4 years ago, due to the fact that I have no current applications that can use multiple cores in the versions I have.
30 Apr 2008 ~ 8:50pm Leonardo

but the fab process definitely helps AMD to keep prices very competitive

No, AMD prices are de facto set by Intel. AMD has no choice in the matter.
1 May 2008 ~ 12:09am Winfrey

Leonardo wrote:

No, AMD prices are de facto set by Intel. AMD has no choice in the matter.

Correct but the fab process helps take some pressure off of being forced to set that low price, as in it is more affordable for AMD than if they didn't have their fab process.
1 May 2008 ~ 5:18am Your-Amish-Daddy Well. Three cores...I don't really know what to think of that... I remember when two cores meant two physical chips, back in the day of the Athlon MP's and dual P3 Slot rigs...MAN thsoe made powerful machines. But I wonder if XP will handle 3 cores...?
1 May 2008 ~ 6:18am Thrax XP can handle however many cores CPU manufacturers can fit into two physical sockets.
1 May 2008 ~ 10:25am BuddyJ core-rect