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Hands-on with the AMD Spider - Phenom 9700, 790 chipset and Radeon 3850 graphics

A few days before Christmas I got my hands on an AMD "Spider" Phenom 9700-based system. Since my head was ringing to the tune of "Jingle Bells" at the time, and because I had troubles downloading a needed BIOS update, all this conspired to mean that I didn't really get the chance to talk about the system that much before Holidays. Now that I've had a chance to have some serious hands-on time with the system, I feel that I can ready to post the first of what is likely to be a series of articles about this system.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

A few days before Christmas I got my hands on an AMD "Spider" Phenom 9700-based system.  Since my head was ringing to the tune of "Jingle Bells" at the time, and because I had troubles downloading a needed BIOS update, all this conspired to mean that I didn't really get the chance to talk about the system that much before Holidays.  Now that I've had a chance to have some serious hands-on time with the system, I feel that I can ready to post the first of what is likely to be a series of articles about this system.

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In case you've forgotten, here's the spec of the system:
  • Phenom 9700 quad-core processor (with a very nice looking heatsink/fan assembly …)
  • ATi Radeon 3850 graphics card with 256MB RAM
  • ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard incorporating AMD 790 series chipset with onboard Ethernet and 8-channel audio
  • 2GB (2 x 1GB) Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D RAM
  • Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM 150GB primary hard drive
  • Western Digital Caviar 7,200RPM 500GB secondary hard drive
  • Sony 18x DVD-RW SATA drive
  • ASUS DVD-ROM SATA drive
  • 700W Seasonic ATX12V PSU
  • Lian-Li PC-7 chassis

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The first thing that important to bear in mind about the AMD Spider is that we're not just talking about a CPU here, we're looking at a platform which consists of a Phenom processor, an AMD 790 chipset and a Radeon 38xx graphics card (or cards if running in a CrossFire configuration).  The platform is aimed at gaming and overclocking enthusiasts but as I will explain later, can see this platform being a springboard into the world of overclocking for entry-level users.

 
Hands-on with the AMD Spider - Phenom 9700, 790 chipset and Radeon 3850 graphics

Note: The 9700 Phenom processor that I have on test, because it is a B2 revision, is affected by the TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer) errata of the L3 protocol.  While the BIOS is patched to prevent crashes and so on, this results in a 10-20% performance drop overall.  This bug will be squashed in the B3 revision of the Phenom 9700 but until then any benchmarks should be taken with a pinch of salt. 

The build quality of the Spider system is second to none.  Inside the case the system is nice and tidy and all the cables are sensibly routed and tied back where appropriate.  Components have been chosen with care to ensure excellent performance (for example the Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D RAM and Western Digital Raptor drive are guaranteed to provide excellent performance).  The 700W Seasonic PSU also gives the system breathing room for future upgrades.

From a stability point of view, the Spider system has been flawless since installing the latest ASUS motherboard update.  Nothing that I've thrown at the system - from games to benchmarks - has caused the system fall over.  Even tinkering with the AMD OverDrive application didn't cause problems.  In my experience, if you can get a system to run 3DMark06 without crashing, it'll be stable under most conditions.

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The Windows performance of the Spider system is excellent.  The system scores a perfect 5.9 on the Windows Experience Index and this shows in how the system tackles everyday tasks.  Nothing about the system feels sluggish or lacking.  This system is proof that if you throw enough hardware at Vista, the operating system hums along brilliantly, even with only 2GB or RAM.  I know that dual-core systems can deliver fantastic performance under Vista, but once you've made the switch to quad-core, it's hard to imagine going back to only having two cores again.

But no one buys a quad-core system just to run Windows Vista on it.  A system like this deserves to be pushed and pushed hard.  One of the easiest ways to push a system hard (without resorting to synthetic benchmark software) is to run a modern game on it.  A game which challenges modern systems is Crytek's Crysis. 

Crysis is tough work for any PC you care to throw at it.  The more hardware you have, the better frame rates you can expect.  But even with the best hardware available, getting decent frame rates running Crysis at a graphics setting of very high just isn't possible.

The Spider system I have for testing came with a single Radeon 3850 card.  The 3850 is a good card but it's beaten by the 3870, which has 512MB of DDR4 RAM.  Put two 3870s in a CrossFire configuration and you have a very powerful gaming rig.  But even with a single 3850, this system manages to deliver some impressive frame rates.  Even though you can squeeze more performance GeForce 8800 GT cards, but I find the ATi drivers to offer more features and better drivers.

With Crysis set to 1280 x 1024 and the graphics set to high, our resident Crysis gamer "Crysis_Master" could get average frame rates per second that were in the low to mid 20s.  Not fantastic but not too shabby either - at this frame rate the game remained very playable.  At times the frame rate did drop to about 8 frames per second but this was never for very long.  Over a 45 minute gaming session the average frames per second was calculated as 17. 

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The software application that pulls together the whole Spider platform is AMD's OverDrive utility.  This utility not only gives the user an overview of the system, it also allows the user to extensively tweak and overclock system settings.  Having this kind of utility isn't a new thing - most enthusiast level motherboards come with utilities that allow the user to take control over the system, but OverDrive is different in that it's part of the platform and integrates that hardware and software in a way that no other platform currently does.

I'm going to have more to say about OverDrive later when I look at it in more detail, but for now the single point that stands out to me as being the strongest part of the whole platform is how accessible OverDrive makes overclocking.  While there's huge scope for improving the current OverDrive application in order to make it easier to use, it's part of the platform that shows a lot of promise.  A year from now processors, graphics cards and chipsets will have moved on in both the AMD and Intel camp, but this application could grow to being the software centerpiece of the platform.  Sure, you can go out and buy a system based on a Q6600 CPU that will be faster than the current Phenom 9700 Spider platform in almost every way you care to measure it, with the Intel-based system you are buying individual components rather than a platform.  The fact that AMD has pulled together a platform makes this a compelling buy for those looking for a single solution.  In 12 months time I'm sure that Intel will have put together a platform, but AMD's Spider will be a year more mature than it is now. 

One thing worth noting is that while AMD ships the OverDrive utility to customers, it is very clear about the fact that if you damage your CPU through overclocking it, you are very much on your own.

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Closing Thoughts

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I'm going to go into greater detail about specific aspects of the Spider system in later posts, so this conclusion is going to be based on how I feel about the system rather than based on any specific metric.

I have to say that I've been very pleased with the Spider system.  It's not a bleeding-edge system by any means (for that I'd expect CrossFired 3870 cards, two 10,000 RPM drives in a RAID 0 configuration, 4GB of RAM), but it's nonetheless fast and reliable.  Put a Q6600-based system and a similarly spec-ed Phenom 9700-based Spider system and you'd be hard pressed to tell the two systems apart.  In fact, even with the TLB bug affecting performance by between 10 and 20%, frame rates aren't impacted in a noticeable way (unless you're using something like Fraps to show you the frame rates in real-time).  This surprised me because on paper the Q6600 seems to devastate the Phenom, but back in the real world, when you're behind the keyboard things don't feel an awful lot different.  If you're into squeezing as much as you can out of a system, then the Q6600 is a no-brainer, but if you're not into metrics in any big way, the Spider platform might be what you want just because you have a better idea of what you're getting for your money from the platform (performance across Q6600-based systems supplied by different OEMs can vary incredibly).  The platform also offers a road to possible future upgrades. 

What's a real shame about the Phenom processors is that they weren't released earlier.  The Phenom was delayed for more than a year, and if it had been released on time it would have been a real challenger to Intel's Core 2 processors. 

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