TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Hardware
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz) LGA775
- AMD Phenom 9850 (2.50GHz) AM2+
- AMD Phenom 9900 (2.60GHz) AM2+
- AMD Phenom 9700 (2.40GHz) AM2+
- AMD Phenom 9600 (2.30GHz) AM2+
- AMD Phenom 9500 (2.20GHz) AM2+
- x2 1024MB Corsair XMS PC3-10600 CAS7 Modules
- x2 1024MB Corsair XMS PC2-6400 CAS4 Modules
- ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe (AMD 790FX)
- ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Seagate 500GB 7200RPM (Serial ATA II)
- ASUS GeForce 8800 GTX (768MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware (169.28)
- Intel System Drivers (8.4.0)

As you can see the Phenom X4 9850 is only slightly slower than the 9900, while it offers decent performance gains over the 9600 in CINEBENCH R10. This is good news for AMD fans.

Interestingly, while the Phenom X4 9850 was faster than the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 in the multi-CPU render test, it was significantly slower when running the OpenGL render test.