Today we have AMD’s new flagship ‘Black Edition’ 6 core CPU the Phenom II 1100T. An extreme enthusiast chip that’s still affordable!
Product on Review: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Processor
Manufacturer and Sponsor: AMD (Advanced Micro Devices)
Street Price: Approx £225 At the time of review
AMD are currently in the process of dropping prices while also releasing a set of new chips. The first couple include a faster dual core Phenom II Black Edition and a new triple core Athlon II model. The final chip is their new flagship desktop chip the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition. This processor will sit above the popular 1090T with an increased stock clock speed of a tasty 3.3GHz.
AMD’s current crop of six core CPU’s have been designed to be affordable or as they say ‘priced to be accessible’. And whilst not cheap they’re certainly massively more affordable than the nearest Intel six core CPU.
With many years of experience producing processors, chipsets and now graphics solutions for both business and home use AMD are well qualified in today’s silicone fuelled world.
They’re also very proud of their ability to provide a combination of affordable, compatible and capable hardware to both standard and enthusiast users alike.
Here’s a little about the company:
Over the course of AMD’s four decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate — always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.
However, “technology for technology’s sake” is not the way we do business at AMD. Our history is marked by a commitment to innovation that’s truly useful for customers — putting the real needs of people ahead of technical one-upmanship. AMD founder Jerry Sanders has always maintained that “customers should come first, at every stage of a company’s activities.”
Over the course of AMD’s four decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate — always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.
However, “technology for technology’s sake” is not the way we do business at AMD. Our history is marked by a commitment to innovation that’s truly useful for customers — putting the real needs of people ahead of technical one-upmanship. AMD founder Jerry Sanders has always maintained that “customers should come first, at every stage of a company’s activities.”
Having looked at a great many AMD chips recently including their affordable 1055T hex core I’m interested to see how this brand new top end processor compares.
Specifications
Compared to previous Phenom and Athlon review samples the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition specification is understandably beefed up!
AMD Phenom II 1100T Black Edition Hex Core Processor HDE00ZFBK6DGR – 3.30GHz, Socket AM3, 3MB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB, Retail, Processor with Fan
• 3.3GHz
• Turbo Core feature clocks three or fewer cores to 3.7GHz
• Socket AM3 and AM2+ (938-pin organic micro pin grid array) compatibility
• 6 processing threads
• 768KB of L1 cache (64KB per core)
• 3 MB of L2 cache (512KB per core)
• 6 MB of L3 cache
• Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller
• 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB
• Dual channel DDR2 (PC2-8500) and DDR3 (PC3 10600) memory controller
• 45nm DSL SOI (silicone on insulator) process technology
• Approximate Die Size – 346mm2
• Approximate Transistor count – Similar to Istanbul’s ~904 million
• 125w TDP
• Turbo Core feature clocks three or fewer cores to 3.7GHz
• Socket AM3 and AM2+ (938-pin organic micro pin grid array) compatibility
• 6 processing threads
• 768KB of L1 cache (64KB per core)
• 3 MB of L2 cache (512KB per core)
• 6 MB of L3 cache
• Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller
• 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB
• Dual channel DDR2 (PC2-8500) and DDR3 (PC3 10600) memory controller
• 45nm DSL SOI (silicone on insulator) process technology
• Approximate Die Size – 346mm2
• Approximate Transistor count – Similar to Istanbul’s ~904 million
• 125w TDP
HyperTransport™ Technology
HyperTransport™ Technology up to 4000MT/s full duplex, or up to 16.0GB/s I/O Bandwidth
Type of Memory Supported
Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2 8500(DDR2-1066MHz) and PC3 10600 (DDR3-1333MHz)
Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth
– Up to 37.3GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 21.3 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR3-1333) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)]
– Up to 33.1GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 17.1 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR2-1066) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)]
Turbo Core Technology
Dynamically transfers performance to three dedicated cores operating at a higher frequency
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition uses AMD’s ‘Thuban’ core – a 45nm design offering the full cache levels you’d expect in a Phenom CPU
The chip
As with all of AMD’s recent AM3 chips the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition works with both AM3 and AM2+ motherboards due to its identical socket layout and inbuilt DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition.
It will also work with the future AM3+ motherboards from AMD – quite a futureproof from them.
Socket 938.
The chip supports full hardware virtualization allowing virtual machine environments to be run that function with the relevant hardware.
Setup, clocking and temps
Test setup
Motherboard: Asus Crosshair IV Extreme
RAM: 4gb OCZ 1333MHz PC3-10666 C9 DDR3
HDD: 160gb WD 7200rpm SATA HDD
Optical drive: LG Bluray/HDDVD Multidrive
CPU cooler: Coolermaster Hyper TX3
PSU: Nexus RX-8500 850w
CASE: Dimastech Bench/Test Table Easy V2.5
RAM: 4gb OCZ 1333MHz PC3-10666 C9 DDR3
HDD: 160gb WD 7200rpm SATA HDD
Optical drive: LG Bluray/HDDVD Multidrive
CPU cooler: Coolermaster Hyper TX3
PSU: Nexus RX-8500 850w
CASE: Dimastech Bench/Test Table Easy V2.5
Overclocking
As well as the instant 500MHz advantage over the 1055T’s stock speed of 2.8GHz the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition has a fully unlocked multiplier which should allow extra flexibility for proper overclocking success.
With the multiplier upped you get added processor speed without the need to increase the FSB at all – this means that the motherboard should be less stressed at higher clocks further aiding successful clocking.
Initially I used CPU-Z to check the stock and Turbo Core speeds. As you can see that’s the expected 3.3GHz with all cores used and 3.7GHz with three or fewer cores in use.
Stock.
Turbo Core in action.
I immediately upped the multiplier to 18x which returned a 3.6GHz core speed. Voltage was increased slightly as was Load Line Calibration (LLC) to guarantee stability although with extra tweaking I’m sure you’d be able to manage that kind of speed at close to stock voltage.
Since I wanted to push this chip beyond the 1055T’s maximum overclock of 3.86GHz I continued to push on. With another increase in voltage, LLC and that multiplier upped to 20x we had 4GHz.
4GHz.
I tried to push further with various combinations of a 21x multi and stock 200MHz FSB and variations of lower multi and higher FSB with ever increasing voltages. I was able to get a stable enough run to run SuperPi but not to fully bench any of the other highly threaded programs and benchmarks.
4.2GHz but not 100% stable.
Almost certainly with improved cooling, extra voltage and more time to tweak it would stabilise I just didn’t want to push it too much under a TX3 heatsink. Some users are returning 4.4GHz clocks with the 1100T but those are at high voltages around 1.6v which are beyond what I’d be prepared to push through this chip on anything other than watercooling or very very high end air.
All in all I was impressed at how easily it reached 4GHz – that Black Edition unlocked multiplier is certainly a useful tool!
Temperature
Temperatures at stock were very good and remained so even under hard clocking. Unlike the previously tested 1055T which got so hot I shut OCCT down as it rose up towards 80c.
Temps.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition just didn’t seem to get hot like the 1055T which is very impressive – especially with that 140MHz additional clock and the potential for even more.
PCMark05 and SuperPi
A selection of desktop based hardware tests including Futuremark’s PCMark05, SuperPi, Cinebench and the x264 HD benchmark.
PCMark05 up first measuring general desktop performance with a scattering of graphical tests for completeness.
PCMark05.
The impressive stock clock on the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition pushed the chip right up the table to start off with. That great performance only improves when the chip is clocked to 4GHz.
SuperPi is next and illustrates the benefits brought by increases in CPU and memory speeds.
SuperPi.
As seen in previous AMD reviews core count makes virtually no impact on results. Here the core speed of the CPU is what counts and the results pretty much follow the pattern ‘increased clockspeed = lower time’. I included the successful run at the not 100% stable 4.2GHz clock to show the improvement available once that clockspeed was stabilised.
Cinebench and x264 HD
Cinebench utilises multiple cores to render a scene and then scores the result based on the speed with which the process is completed.
Cinebench.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition is a real powerhouse here. At stock speeds its way out ahead of anything but a clocked 1055T – which it’s still quite close to.
x264 is the final desktop style benchmark used to test the CPU. It’s a High Definition video encoding benchmark that once again benefits from both additional processing cores and overclocking too.
x264 HD.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition once again forges ahead and at stock speeds is once again only beaten by the overclocked 1055T. Impressive!
3DMark06 and Vantage
We now move on to graphical performance – first up we take a look at actual benchmark software in the form of both 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage. This is another benchmarking program from Futuremark but this time looks exclusively at the gaming performance of the PC it’s assessing.
First up is 3DMark06 running at its standard 1280x1024setting. Lower resolution is better in CPU benchmarking as it allows us to more easily identify any performance limitations introduced by low CPU speed or limited core count. Having data from a couple of other Phenom II models allows us to see this more clearly.
3DMark06.
It’s business as usual with the chip returning excellent numbers @ 3.3GHz stock speeds and even better ones when overclocked.
For Vantage I had much more information to go on since I’d used for my Intel motherboard testing a while back.
Vantage.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition again surges past the 1055T. Interestingly it’s stock performance actually betters the 1055T clocked at 3.86GHz. Strange I’m sure you’ll agree but I repeated the test three time with virtually identical results. When overclocked @ 4GHz the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition pulls almost level with the i5 750 @ 4GHz and closes the gap to the i7 920 @ 3.78GHz.
Blacksite and Dead Space
Now we have the first of our game tests. AMD’s Phenom II’s (and to some extent their budget Athlon II’s) are well documented as performing well from a gaming point of view so let’s see how those extra two cores do with Blacksite.
Blacksite.
As with the 1055T the overclocked Phenom II 1100T Black Edition returns minimum framerates (I’ve stated before – the most important framerate number as far as I’m concerned) at every tested resolution that either matched or got very close to the average framerate count recorded at stock speed.
Dead Space the survival horror game was up next.
Dead Space.
The Phenom II 1100T Black Edition (like the 1055T) returns very good results. I would say though that as before there’s virtually no reason to overclock here for added performance at higher resolutions with this game. The stock vs clocked results across Average and Minimum framerates at 1680 and 1920 are virtually identical despite that overclock to 4GHz.
Far Cry 2 and Unreal Tournament III
Second to last is Far Cry 2. As you know by now this is a particularly useful game to test with since the game comes with its own built in benchmarking program.
Far Cry 2.
The performance increase offered by the 4GHz overclock is not at all worth it in my opinion here. A standard increase averaging just above 1fps across the board shows that Far Cry 2 is probably more GPU limited than CPU limited here.
Last but not least is Unreal Tournament III which also boasts a downloadable benchmark program although it only returns the average FPS rather than minimum and maximum.
Unreal Tournament III.
Overclocking the Phenom II 1100T Black Edition here gains you additional frames across the board. The advantage does reduce as resolution increases but that’s pretty much to be expected.
Conclusion
The 1100T is a very impressive chip. It’s fairly affordable, has a high stock clock speed, offers flexibility with that unlocked multiplier and consequently clocks well.
Because of the multi I don’t think I’d need to specifically recommend a decent motherboard for heavy overclocking like with the 1055T. As long as your board was reasonable specified and supported chips up to 140w I’d imagine you’d still get a reasonable overclock from the 1100T.
Multithreaded performance was understandably top drawer with the 1100T turning in a very creditable performance across all the desktop style benchmarks.
The excellent Phenom II 1100T Black Edition Processor.
As before I found that the gaming performance to be right up there with the competition. As games become more multithreaded I’m certain that those additional cores will help and although the majority of gaming situations currently favour clock over core count AMD have that covered too with their Turbo Core system pumping the 3.3GHz hex up to a 3.7GHz single, dual or tri core when needed.
Pros
+ Very impressive overclocking performance (some users reporting 4.4GHz – with sufficient cooling)
+ Smooth windows and gaming performance
+ Great multithreaded performance
+ Cool running at both stock speeds and overclocks
+ Still pretty well priced considering the unlocked multi and high stock speed
+ Great compatibility with both older AM2+ boards and future AM3+ boards too
Cons
– Absolute performance can’t compete with current Intel hex cores and is similar to Intel quads
+ Very impressive overclocking performance (some users reporting 4.4GHz – with sufficient cooling)
+ Smooth windows and gaming performance
+ Great multithreaded performance
+ Cool running at both stock speeds and overclocks
+ Still pretty well priced considering the unlocked multi and high stock speed
+ Great compatibility with both older AM2+ boards and future AM3+ boards too
Cons
– Absolute performance can’t compete with current Intel hex cores and is similar to Intel quads
All in all the 1100T covers many of the bases most prospective purchasers are looking for. For users used to the AMD pricing scale it is a little bit of an investment but I personally think it would be a worthwhile one. Even without overclocking AMD’s clever turbo core feature dynamically transforms the chip depending upon multithreaded load to provide optimum performance at all times. The overclocking potential and the cool running nature of the chip only goes further to cement its position as AMD’s flagship CPU.
The AMD Phenom II 1100T Black Edition hex core receives our coveted Gold award – congratulations!
