AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Socket AM3 Triple Core Processor Review

Testing

For testing I first ran the benchmarks I commonly use to check out the stability and performance of a system. I ran the tests at stock clock of 2.8gHz, then at my overclock of 3.528gHz. For comparision, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the X3 720 to my Phenom X4 940 AM2, just to see how an X3 compares with an X4. Using the X4 in a totally different system means we aren’t quite dealing with apples to apples, but we aren’t totally into apples and oranges either. Maybe red delicious to Granny Smith. I’m mostly interested in the bang-for-the-buck aspect, as the X4 940 sells for about $50 more than the X3 720. If the X3 720’s numbers are remotely close to those of the X4 940, it could definitely be the better buy.

superpi

cinebench10

sandra proc

sandra mult

hdtune

The benchmark testing showed definite performance gains from overclocking the X3 720. The X4 940 beat the X3 720 at stock clock in most cases, but less so when the X3 was overclocked. I expected the X4 to clearly outperform the X3 in the purely CPU related tests, and it did, but not as much as I thought it might.

[ad#review1056-bottom]