Home page » CPUs and Memory

Search:

Refine search for CPUs and Memory

There's an understandable logic to AMD's decision to introduce 'only' a 2.6GHz X4 Phenom II as the only quad core part of the initial AM3 range. So soon after the launch of the flagship AM2+ based Phenom II X4 940 it may have angered buyers of said CPU if AMD had introduced another faster CPU (remember these new CPUs are backwards compatible). By introducing the 810 at a clock speed that's just the right balance between not too slow and not encroaching on the 940, AMD hopes it can please everyone; i.e. If you were holding off on getting the 940, you get a CPU that's not much slower but has plenty of upgrade potential and if you had gone for the 940 you weren't left with a slow and archaic CPU only weeks after buying it.

However, what AMD seems to have forgotten is that 2.6GHz is no faster than the old Phenoms. So if you've already got one of these old CPUs then the only reason to upgrade to the 810 over the 940 is to future-proof your system, but this on its own is not going to be enough. If you're in this situation you may as well wait until a faster (maybe even Black Edition) AM3 Phenom II X4 is released. That said, we were able to overclock our 810 sample to 3.125GHz without too much trouble so that may be enough of a boost in performance to convince you to upgrade.

Obviously if you're still rocking an old Athlon X2 and these new CPUs are compatible with your motherboard then the 810 will be a very sound investment. Or rather it would be were it not for the 720 Black Edition. With 'only' one less core than the 810 but with a faster default clock speed and an unlocked multiplier, this CPU will give you better performance than the 810 in most everyday applications, including many games, as most programs are still single threaded. Then there's always those second and third cores to give you a healthy dose of multi-core performance when needed. Add in the huge headroom for overclocking and you have a clear winner in our opinion. We'll talk more about that CPU on the next page though.

As for which way to go if you're thinking of buying a whole new system, rather than just upgrading your AM2+ system, well the AM3 platform is definitely worth considering. Unfortunately, as we say, we'd recommend the 720 Black Edition over the 810 for the vast majority of people.

Verdict

The AMD Phenom II X4 810 is undoubtedly a good CPU and as a representative of AMD's new, DDR3 supporting, AM3 platform it does a great job. However, we can see few situations where we'd pick it over the cheaper, and potentially much faster (in day-to-day use) triple core Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition.

Add your comment

© 2003-2009 TrustedReviews & IPC Media
About Us | Contact Us | Legal | Privacy | RSS