Hi guys,

AMD has allowed me to review this CPU for CyberGamer, amidst some starting problems bundled (first motherboard I got from ASUS wouldn't display output) with a busy time schedule and the untimely crash of my Velociraptor, I have finally finished the review to the best of my ability-- by Talnoy's deadline - "by 2010 thanks", (lol)

Before we head in, I'd like to thank AMD for supporting Cybergamer and providing me the opportunity to do this review, and also ASUS Australia for allowing me to borrow the motherboard for this review.

Can someone show me how to throw in tabs to make the review more pleasing to read? - Ta Scott

Introduction

Earlier this year, AMD released their Phenom II series to compete against Intel's Core 2 Duos. For gamers, the Phenom II x4 CPUs were the choice for price: performance conscious gamers and enthusiasts for a while. Intel then released their Core i5/i7 Lynnfield processors to reclaim back the price: performance crown.

What does AMD do then? Instead of lowering their Phenom II prices even further to try gain market share, they introduce the AMD Athlon II X4 range of CPUs, following the range of Athlon II X2 range of CPUs released in June this year. The Athlon II X4 range includes the 620 and 630. These quad-core CPUs are aimed towards the mainstream quad-core market, e.g. students, parents, office workers, you get the gist. The Athlon II 620 (Codename: Propus) is a 2.6 GHz CPU, manufactured with the 45nm process seen in most of the latest CPUs, and includes a total of 128k of L1 Cache and 512k L2 Cache in each core.

What about the L3 Cache, some of you may ask? To cut down on costs, AMD have manufactured the Athlon II family without any L3 Cache inbuilt. (Although the early retail units were the Deneb core with the L3 Cache disabled (which you could unlock with the right motherboard)). The release retail price of the X4 620 is the reason why there has been so much excitement over the Athlon II X4 620.

RRPing at USD $99 at release, it is the first quad core to fall below the USD $100 mark. In Australia right now, you can get the 620 for around $115, http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=amd+athlon+620&spos=3 (correct as of 20th December 2009).

Before we start;

I have tested the CPU with a variety of benchmarks and scenarios. Some benchmarks are synthetic (does not reflect on real-world performance), but is done to indicate a rough level of where each graphics card and CPU combo will sit compared to other setups.

With the Athlon II X4 620, I have tested the CPU at its stock frequency, 2.6Ghz, and to see how much improvement I get with benchmarks and in-game FPS, I have also done a mild overclock to a more reasonable 3.0Ghz and re-tested the hardware.

It has been really hard to find comparative CPUs with the Athlon II X4 620, and as I don't have any spare AMD CPUs lying around (apart from my 4850e which I broke taking it out of my home server for the review). I tested it with my mate's Phenom II X4 940, and my Intel E8400 processor -- keep in mind these are performance CPUs.

Sadly, I could not repeat the Resident Evil 5 and FarCry2 tests with my E8400 processor, my Velociraptor with the games crashed a few days ago and have yet to rebuild it. However the synthetic benchmarks were on my X25-M so I have included these results in the coming graphs.

Photo Gallery


AMD shipped the CPU with a small yet VERY protective case.


The front IHS of the AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU


The 938 pins on the AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU


The ASUS M3A78 PRO that I borrowed but display didn't work


Closer look at the North Bridge (AMD 780G) heat sink of the ASUS M3A78 PRO motherboard.


Older image of my gaming PC -- check profile for specs

Test Setup

Test Setup 1

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 (Review CPU)
Motherboard: ASUS M3A78-T BIOS 1304 (Thanks to ASUS for providing this motherboard)
Graphics Card: IGP in the M3A78-T / Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD Radeon 4890
Memory: Team Xtreem Dark 2GB PC2-8500 CL6 (1066MHz) DDR2
Hard Drive: Intel X25-M SSD G1 80GB + WD VelociRaptor 300 GB
Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-450VX PSU (32A on +12V rail FTW)

Test Setup 2

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 (Thanks Tim)
Motherboard: ASUS M3A78-T BIOS 1304 (Thanks to ASUS)
Graphics Card: IGP in the M3A78-T / Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD Radeon 4890
Memory: Team Xtreem Dark 2GB PC2-8500 CL6 1066MHz DDR2
Hard Drive: Intel X25-M SSD G1 80GB + WD VelociRaptor 300 GB
Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-450VX PSU (32A on +12V rail FTW)

Test Setup 3

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Formula X48
Graphics Card: PowerColor HD4870 512MB DDR5
Memory: CORSAIR Dominator 2GB PC2-8500 CL5 1066Mhz DDR2
Hard Drive: Intel X25-M SSD G1 80GB
Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU HX1000W


Settings of the Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD Radeon 4890 with the AMD benchmarks


All you need to know about the guts of the ASUS M3A78-T motherboard

Benchmarks used

3DMark06 Professional Edition v1.1.0
SuperPi v1.5
wPrime v2.0
WinRAR v3.90
Resident Evil 5 v1.0.0.129 DX9
Far Cry 2 v1.03 DX9

Results - CPU-Z + Memory + Motherboard


AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 3000Mhz


AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 2600Mhz


Didn't have one without the SuperPi -- Intel E8400 @ 4000Mhz

Results - SuperPi 1M

SuperPi is a program used by many benchmarkers and overclockers to measure speed of their CPU and somewhat the stablity. SuperPi allows the user to calculate the value of Pi to a maximum of 32 million decimal places. For this review, I have calculated Pi to 1 million decimals. SuperPi is single threaded, meaning that the program only uses one core in the CPU to do the calculation, therefore more cores does not mean better performance. I am using Version 1.1 for this test.





As you can see, the Athlon II X4 620 falls behind it's bigger cousin, the Phenom II X4 940 CPU, by about 8 seconds when both CPUs are at default clock speed. Overclocking the AII 620 to 3.0Ghz, the same speed as the PII 940 has nudged this gap a bit closer. However the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 is at least 50% faster than the comparative CPUs, because of the faster CPU speed.

wPrime 32M

wPrime is similar to SuperPi, as it does the same job, but wPrime is a multi-threaded benchmark, able to utilise all physical cores and software threads, it performs the same task, but a lot faster. The user can choose to calculate the value of Pi to either 32 million decimal places or to a bigger 1024 million decimal places.



With the introduction of a multi-threaded approach, the SuperPi leader E8400 has fallen way behind it's competition, the same pattern applies with the Athlon II X4 620 and the Phenom II X4 940, the gap is a lot closer when both AMD CPUs are at 3.0Ghz. This is one example of where the Athlon II X4 620 CPU shines, it's when programs utilise more than 1 core from the CPU.

WinRAR Benchmark and hardware test

WinRAR's embedded benchmark is another tool used by people to compare their system hardware against each other. Since version 3.60, it has added multi-core / threading support, so technically faster and more cores = better. I am using the latest version, 3.90 (correct as of 13/12/2009) to complete this benchmark.



Similar to wPrime, the results is not that surprising for this benchmark, as WinRAR also has multi-core support. However, the delta between the E8400 and the overclocked AII X4 620 is only 45KB/s, even though the E8400 has 2 less cores, this is because of the 1000Mhz difference in speeds, and the non-evident L3 cache in the AII X4 620 CPU.

3DMark06

Anyone who considers themself as an overclocker will have heard of 3DMark06 -- made by Futuremark. While the previous benchmarks were 2D, this benchmark uses the graphics card performance as well as the CPU to attain a final score, the benchmark includes SM2.0 and HDR/SM3.0 Shader graphics tests. This benchmark is perfect for gamers who want to see how their combo fairs up with other people. Note that the benchmark is multi-threaded, therefore quad-cores will get a higher score than a dual-core or single-core, but this may not reflect back in real life performance, as some games only utilise 2 cores.



This is a benchmark that really surprised me. I'm not sure if it's because of the amount of power the 4890 received in the AMD system was enough, or because of some other weird reason, but the fact that the E8400 with a 4870 (in my gaming system) beat a quad-core Phenom II X4 with a 4890 (friend's hardware) is mystifying. I ran the test again, and it was the same output. I'm leaning towards the fact that the E8400 was clocked A LOT higher than the other CPUs.

Skipping ahead, as you can see, the Athlon II X4 620 was bottlenecking the 4890, and when overclocked, the score was significantly higher than at default.

Farcry2

This is the first of 2 in-game benchmarks. The result will roughly give an indication of what real-life performance will be like, since it uses the game's engine to complete the test. Far Cry 2's benchmark involves running 3 of the same tests, and then averages the score. This will provide the average score gained throughout the 3 tests.

See the settings here;




With the highest settings, and no AA, the Athlon II X4 620 was pushing playability, I did see some significant lagging, especially in the ending where there was a lot of fire and action going on. It was funny seeing the overclocked result of the AII X4 620 scoring lower than the default, but 3 tests don't lie. I could not complete the tests with my E8400 since my HDD died on me a few days before I did this test.

I did a quick run of the lowest possible graphics with the same 1680x1050 resolution and got better playable results, while fire, physics and real trees were still set on high;




Resident Evil 5

This is the latest addition to the Resident Evil games. A fun fact; depending on what score you get, S (best, 100FPS+ through to C (worst), the background changes . The benchmark will be indicative of the game's performance.

Settings here;



Results;



Similar to the Far Cry 2 results, when using a Athlon II X4 620 with a 4890, the user will feel some slight lag in some scenes, especially when the zombies were crawling all over me and trying to feed on my brains. Overclocking the Athlon II X4 620 provided some headroom, but not much as you can see. I could not find the result for the Phenom II X4 940 test


Overclocking the 620

I used AMD's Overdrive overclocking application to quickly and safely overclock the AMD Athlon II X4 620 for the benchmark and testing. However, I'm sure some of you guys are wondering how far the CPU will go up to with air cooling.


What AMD Overdrive looked like when I overclocked the AMD Athlon II X4 620

I will update this section in the near future -- as I have not yet received the AMD bracket I ordered for my TRUE 120 heat sink.

Looking at other similar reviews on the Internet, I have seen the Athlon II X4 620 reach up to around 3600Mhz with air cooling, by just pushing the HT link (bus speed / QPI / DMI) for Intel) -- an extremely easy CPU to overclock.

EDIT:

I had some time tonight to have an hour or so of overclocking this little dude with my new H50 cooler seen here: http://www.cybergamer.com.au/forums/thread/48351/ and my Gigabyte MA78G-DS3H, I got the AMD Athlon II X4 620 to 3835Mhz with my voltages set at 1.7V. It's a mean chip which overclocks and handles the voltages very well.



Basically, I just increased the CPU Voltage till I was happy with (stability:overclock)1.7V for a suicide run (since it could handle the voltage for the initial experimentation),CPU-NV voltage to 1.325 and upped CPU frequency a few Mhz at a time. Changing the memory ratio and the CPU-NB VID were the main stability controls I encountered. All overclocking was done on the BIOS.

You can check out the CPU-Z validation here http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=980660

I'll try to fine tune it more in the future, and I'll post an update Look forward to a H50 review in the next few weeks if I can get around to it.

Thanks for reading!

*******

But how far can it be overclocked with extreme cooling? GANAS, a community of Indonesian AMD lovers have overclocked the CPU to a record 6006.82 Mhz with Liquid Nitrogen (LN2), remember, this is with a locked multiplier of 13x, which makes it much harder than the Black Edition and Extreme Edition CPUs from AMD and Intel (respectively) which do not have a locked multiplier.

Power Consumption

I did keep a little notebook of my results of various CPUs at their idle, load values but I seem to have misplaced it (I'm not kidding ), but I did take a photo when both systems were idle at their most commonly used setup. I.E. my gaming PC idle, and the AMD Athlon II X4 620 using the IGP on the ASUS motherboard. I left the computer alone after start up for about 15mins, not running any additional programs and recorded the power consumption.


AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 2.6Ghz after 25mins


Test Setup 3 (My gaming machine) at idle after 15mins

With the Intel E8400 OVERCLOCKED to 4.0GHz (overclock leeches so much wattage off the PSU) having a TDP of 65W AND the 4870 running along with 1 SSD, 1 Velociraptor and 1 HDD along with the 1000W Corsair PSU (80 PLUS), my PC does suck a lot of juice when left on.

The AMD Athlon II X4 620, TDP of a huge 95W (quad core though) only had the 450W Corsair PSU, with the SSD and running display off the IGP in the ASUS motherboard, this represents a normal family PC setup. As you can see, this setup is about 3 times more efficient than my gaming system.

Conclusion

With the release of the new i5 750 processor from Intel, the Phenom II has lost it's bang-to-buck advantage for customers purchasing a new system, but with people looking to upgrade their CPU only, the Phenom II X4 955 is the best bang-for-buck performance CPU. This change, has resulted in AMD focusing their new lineup on a more budget range of CPU, with the cheapest quad-cores in the market. But with the price, does the performance match up? This CPU was in no way made for the enthusiasts for performance as seen by the benchmarks, with no L3 Cache, it leaves the operating system to handle all the workload meant for the L3 memory in the CPU.

However, with my time using the Athlon II X4 620, I have not experienced any performance degradation compared to my desktop or laptop, which really what most people care about. I must note that I have not played any games with this CPU, but if the gaming benchmarks are about the same level as real-life performance, I don't see a problem if you turn down the graphics a little bit (YMMV).

I was pretty surprised with the CPU, with no L3 cache, I thought it would slow down in some instances, (similar to the first few SSDs with the JMicron controller with no cache memory, stuttering when watching youtube videos = unbearable).

I see the Athlon II X4 620 would be the perfect upgrade for either;

1. Users who already have an AM2+ system, with an older CPU, like my Athlon 64 X2 4000+ in my family PC downstairs and want to upgrade their performance for the cheapest way -- buy the Athlon II X4 620 + another 2GB of DDR2 DRAM ~ $150

2. A family who just wants a basic PC that handles the Internet, Office, and maybe watching movies. With the 620 coming at $115, a 780G chipset motherboard; ASUS M4A78-VM with a huge amount of connectivity inputs; for $87, 2GiB of RAM @ $35 and a 160GB HDD for $50, and a Thermaltake V3 Black Edition case with a 450W PSU (buy soon and you get a free CPU HSF!) for $79 and a DVDRW drive for about $35. This comes to a total of $401(yup, triple checked it) for a working quad-core PC that will handle most family-type usage.

3. Home server / Media server


Pros:
Cheap, about $115 in Australia, about $28 per core
Works with older AM2+ and newer AM3 socket motherboards
Very nice price: performance
Overclocks well and runs very cool

Cons:
No L3 Cache
Phenom II X3 720 BE is a better processor for gaming


I give the AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU a score of 7/10, if you told someone 5 years ago that a family can have a future-proof machine for only $400, you would have been laughed at, but in 2009 and 2010, this dream is now a reality.

I will hopefully update the overclocking section when I receive the bracket, and will try to then add some benchmarks for CS:S, COD4. Hope you guys enjoyed reading the review as much as I had fun reviewing it!

Again, I'd like to thank AMD for providing me with their AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU, and also to ASUS Australia for allowing me to borrow the 2 motherboards (after the first one didn't work) for this review.

I have further images of the benchmark results on my flickr page if you want to see it http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewwu/sets/72157622855752201/

Comments and questions are welcome.


EDIT1: removed question RE: pages
EDIT1: power consumption time was swapped over (15/25mins)
EDIT2: Updated overclocking results[B][/B]

Edited 5 times, last edited 17/3/10 - 4:59pm by Talnoyold.

Huge. Might look at getting one.

Nice writeup btw

Lol thanks.

Forgot to say an additional thanks to AMD for letting me keep the review sample, hopefully I can use it more for upcoming reviews, extreme overclocking with LN2 (I'm delving into it, slowly) or maybe just replace the 4850e I broke

Lovely in depth well tested awesome review.
I think this is what you were born to do Grumpy

Grumpy, this is just awesome mate. ******* HUGE effort. PROPS 110%

Excellent work matt~

Really good review grumpy, well done mate.

the wPrime results were actually abit different to what i expected, but close. I would have thought that an e8400 @ 4ghz would only lose by a fairly small margin to the quad @ 3ghz.

all in all, excellent review, badluck about the hardware issues.

that gigantic review, is it just for CG???

ok so now i get why it was taking so long matt thats like the nerds version of going large

Thanks guys, it does suck that I wasn't able to compare the CPU to it's main competition;

Intel Core 2 Q8200 -- cheapest quad-core from I ntel
Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition -- same price, but with L3 cache -- more gaming


But maybe in the future

Use article writter to put the pages in grump good review

Thanks Scott

I just did the first page, and told the people to click to here, too tired to copy/paste everything, hehe

Very nice review grumpy, you hardware enthusiast you

gw grumpy

good in depth review well done