Author: William Henning
Editor: Howard Ha
Publish Date: Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Originally Published on Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com)
Article Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/athlon_x2_5000_black_box/
Copyright Neo Era Media, Inc. - please do not redistribute or use for commercial purposes.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition: Overclocking Monster for the AM2 Enthusiast
Back on August 20th, 2007, AMD introduced the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition. This "Black Edition" CPU was intended for enthusiasts and overclockers.
AMD wrote this about the X2 6400+ Black Edition:
Boxed in collector’s packaging and targeted towards gamers, enthusiasts and digital content creators, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor 6400+ Black Edition can meet the needs of sophisticated performance users who run multiple processor-intensive applications simultaneously. The 3.2 GHz dual-core processor features an integrated 128-bit dual-channel memory controller, DDR2 memory up to and including PC2 6400 (DDR2-800) unbuffered memory, and a dedicated 2MB L2 cache. The AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor 6400+ Black Edition is now available in the channel in North America, Japan, Korea and parts of Europe, priced at $251 WOF (without a fan) for PIB (Processor in a Box).
The then-new chip ran at 3.2GHz - the fastest Athlon X2 ever released - and was an obvious attempt to try to retain some of the gaming crowd from the onslaught of the better performing Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
Fast forward a few months and AMD (much more quietly) launched the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition with a totally unlocked multiplier, something previously reserved for "FX" chips. AMD was kind enough to send an OEM version of the Black Box chip to us, so we thought we would put it through the wringer.
Previously, we have already reviewed an AMD Athlon X2 5000+ 90nm and AMD Athlon X2 5000+ EE 65nm parts; the only real difference with the Black Box edition of the 5000+ chip is that it is a slightly newer stepping with the multiplier unlocked upwards as well.
Currently, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition is selling for $130 at major on-line retailers. At that price-point it may be an attractive alternative to the similarly priced Core 2 Duo E4400 running at 2.0GHz. or the E4500 at 2.2GHz. Let's take a look and see how the X2 5000+ Black Edition stacks up, especially as we start pushing it to its overclocking limits...
In order to keep the testing as fair as possible, we will use the following test platforms:
Socket AM2:
LGA 775:
ASUS' M2N32-SLI motherboard is an excellent performer, and allows us to try very high FSB speeds.
Software used during testing consisted of the following:
Please note that we are showing overclocked results in all the charts - we are not holding you in suspense until the end of the article. :-) And also be aware that our chart labels incorporate a lot of information about the test configurations, but the first line will always show the socket type and the model of the processor. Since all the processors shown are dual-core devices, we did not specify that on the charts. The second line of the chart labels shows the "FSB/HT clock rate" x "CPU multiplier" followed by the effective DDR memory speed.
One final thing to mention: all of the results labeled "BE 6400+" were run at the stock speed of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition :-)
Business Winstone
As we've noticed in the past, Athlons do quite well at Business Winstone - and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition is no different in this respect. At stock speeds it easily beats the Core 2 Duo E4300 and more expensive E6300, and is only slightly edged out by the even more expensive E6400.
Content Creation
The difference is even more dramatic with the Content Creation benchmark. The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition thoroughly trounces the E4300, E6300 and E6400 at stock speeds!
Sandra CPU
For the Sandra CPU benchmark, at stock speeds the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition is slightly edged out by the E4300.
Sandra Memory Bandwidth
There is no other way to say it - at stock speeds, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition OWNS the E4300, E6300 and E6400!
RightMark Read
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition again dominates the E4300, E6300 and E6400 here.
RightMark Write
For writes, this time the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition can only out perform the E4300.
RightMark Latency
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition (along with other AMD chips) badly beat the Core 2's here.
RightMark Bandwidth
The Core 2 E6300 & E6400 beat the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition here.
LAME MP3
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition speeds past both the E4300 and the E6300 here. Looking good.
The Core 2 E4300 turns the tables and tops the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition here.
TMPGEnc
Making a comeback, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition beats the Core 2 Duo E4300 and E6300 here...
POV-Ray
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition knocks out the E4300, E6300 AND E6400 here!
CineBench
Same results - same KO as in POV!
Call of Duty
Hmm.... another repeat performance... the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition beats the E4300, E6300 & E6400.
Commanche 4
Yep, you guessed it. Same story - beats the Core 2's again.
Doom 3
The race is closer, but the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition edges out the E6300, smacks the E4300, but is slapped around by the E6400.
Halo
The E4300 and E6300 are no match for the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition again, with performance just falling short of the E6400.
Jedi Knight
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition has a nice lead over the three Core 2's shown (the E4300, E6300 and E6400) in Jedi Knight.
UT2004
Same story as Jedi Knight above: this Black Edition AMD CPU is not that bad for gaming at all.
Overclocking
Getting to 3.2GHz with the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition was trivial. No need to do anything except change the multiplier to 16 - and presto, you have a X2 6400+!
But moving beyond 3.2GHz... now that was a journey.
But in the end, it was a succesful journey. The best stable overclock I was able to achieve was a very pleasing 3.396GHz. This was achieved by running the chip at 12x283MHz, and the memory at 849MHz. All this was done with air cooling.
To get this result:
I have to say that I was blown away by this overclock. This was the best OC I've ever achieved with an Athlon X2!
Power Consumption
Due to the lower default Vcore, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition required less power than either of the 65nm or 90nm AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+'s, and the power consumption was still very good when overclocked.
Conclusion
If you have an existing AM2 based system that can handle a 5000+, don't walk to your local hardware store -- run to the store to get yourself a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition.
The AMD Athlon X2's always performed very well for office applications, and the Black Editions of these CPUs were no exceptions. As you saw from the low resolution gaming benchmarks, the 5000+ X2 Black Edition is no slouch at gaming either. At higher resolutions there is even less dependence on the CPU, and more on a GPU, so combining this processor with an ATI Radeon HD 3850 or an Nvidia 8800GT would make for a very cost effective upgrade for a gaming rig. This CPU tied with one of the newest generation of GPUs would make for an excellent gaming rig -- one that'd give a lot of higher-end Core 2 rigs a run for the money.
The Athlon 64 5000+ X2 Black Edition is a VERY cost effective upgrade, and should entice many AMD fans out there with its great overclockability.
For $130, which is less than you can buy an Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 for, you can easily run at 3.2GHz - at stock Vcore! Honestly, this chip impressed me to the point that I now intend to upgrade one of my multimedia machines at home with one of these beauties; no need to change motherboard, coolers, etcetera -- I'll just just pop in one of these, and be done with it.
In the end, I think for most people, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition is a better upgrade than the new Phenom 9600 - and it costs less then half as much. And for a stable overclock of just under 4 GHz, the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition also demands the awarding of Neoseeker's Overclocker's Award.
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