Phenom X3 8750

Josh Collins takes a look at AMD’s latest and – hopefully – greatest.

Last month we took a gander at a slew of new offerings from AMD. These included the 780a chipset, 780G chipset and the refreshed Phenom X4 quad-core range.

In the Phenom X4 review we mentioned the recent release of the Phenom X3 triple-core processor line from AMD, and this month we’ve gotten it to jump through hoops, play fetch and even tried to teach it to play dead.

Before we get into the thick of it all – the benchmarks – it is best that everyone is on the same page. This means knowing exactly what the hell this new triple-core product is from AMD.

For those of you with a keen eye for details and knowledge of the X4 range, the specs of the new X3 chips will look peculiarly familiar.

The new chip features three 512KB L2 cache (one per core) paired with one larger 2MB L3 cache, all communicating on a 3600MHz System Bus and a 200MHz HTT frequency. Based on the same 65nm fabrication process as the Phenom X4 quads and B3 stepping to boot, you’d be safe to say these new chips are remarkably similar to the quads. Actually, you’d be more than safe, you’d be right on point.

The X3 range represents a smart business decision from the peeps over at AMD HQ.

Due to AMD’s decision to use a ‘native’ quad-core design, compared to Intel’s multi-chip module (MCM) design, AMD has effectively also chosen to bare the brunt of an unexpectedly higher failure rate. In production terms, this means a lower overall product yield.

For every core that malfunctions on an Intel quad-core, they only need to remove the die which the failed core lies on and replace it with a working die to pair with the additional one (two cores). In contrast, for each AMD quad-core processor that fails, the whole die is scrapped and with it, the rest of the cores within the quad-core design. This means that Intel will theoretically have half of the overall quad-core die failures that AMD does.

As a result of this, AMD has devised a way to make use of these otherwise useless pieces of silicon engineering. The X3, in its simplest form, was devised by laser etching and removing the failed fourth core and L2 cache on the die while retaining a functional triple-core processor.

Some people may interpret this as a dodgy way to make such a processor. But in essence this style of product segregation has been around for a long time. When processors, from both the green and blue side of the fence, don’t make a certain performance and/or quality grade, it is not unusual for parts to be removed or locked by laser etching to then produce a lower specification product that is completely functional in a lower performance bracket.

So, with a bastardised X4 newly dressed up as an X3 8750 sitting contently in our test system – comprised primarily of the ASUS Crosshair II, Corsair Dominator PC2-10000 memory and ASUS 9800GTX – we went about finding out what these new chips had to offer.



What we found was a chip that was on par with its quad-core brethren (clock for clock) in single threaded applications and, while slower than the X4s in multi-threaded applications, it did demonstrate higher efficiency with an average of 91.3 per cent compared with the usual 75-85 per cent efficiency found in the quad-core solutions.

While this is good news for the X3 range, it does struggle to find an appropriate position within the market. Priced at $233, it’s fighting an up hill battle when you consider that a Phenom X4 9550 rated at 2.2GHz can be bought for the same price. It may be 200MHz slower at stock, but it does have a whole extra core. Pair this with some rather low overclocking capability for the X3 8750 – at least for the sample we tested – and it’s quite hard to actually want to put dollars on the table for an X3.