So where's the Phenom review, man?


by Scott Wasson — 11:30 PM on November 18, 2007

I expect many of you came to TR this morning hoping to see a review of AMD's Phenom processor, since AMD has just launched the product. I can tell you that I've been working behind the scenes for weeks in order to make just such a review happen, but unfortunately, it's not ready yet. Despite my best efforts, we only came into possession of a Phenom engineering sample to review this past Friday, and it came with an AMD 790FX-based Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard.

Unfortunately, that motherboard is essentially broken. Some of the problems we experienced may be specific to our particular board and/or CPU, but it's tough to say with certainty. We ran into problems too numerous—and sometimes weirdly intermittent—to mention, leaving us with the impression that Asus didn't exactly give its best effort when designing its 790FX motherboard.

In spite these problems, I did manage to get the Phenom largely tested at two speed grades, but I'm left with no time and energy this evening to even contemplate writing a review. The past 72 hours have involved way too much time in front of a desk and mental energy troubleshooting. (And as I type, I hear the fan spin down on the Phenom system on the test bench next to me as the system locks while re-running a test whose results I wanted to re-confirm. Argh.)

Nonetheless, our Phenom review is definitely in the works, and you'll see it on the site's front page as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, I would advise you to steer clear of Asus's M3A32-MVP Deluxe. I don't think it's ready for prime time.

   
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