Is the Phenom II a completely different micro-architecture than the original Phenom?

[The_Absolute]

Is the Phenom II an entirely different micro-architecture than the original Phenom processor? Or did they just make some changes, such as a die shrink from 65nm to 45nm, increase the cache sizes and such?

How much faster is a Phenom II X4 965 BE than a Phenom X4 9950 BE both @ stock clock speeds?

I heard that the original Phenom X4 processors always had One faulty core, and only Three of the Four cores were functional. Some of the caches on the other few cores were also faulty and did not work according to some unconfirmed rumor.

When comparing a Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.4 GHz to my C2Q Q9400 @ 2.66 GHz, how much faster will the Phenom II be? I'm building a new AMD gaming rig and wanted to get the best AMD hardware for my budget within $2,000. I also want to do thorough research on the hardware to ensure that it is a solid upgrade in terms of performance when compared to my Gateway FX6710-01 gaming desktop.

 

[Chronos]

The best bang for the buck is still Intel core 2. Hardly any software exists that requires more CPU power, aside from high end 3D drafting and engineering programs [like finite analysis]. For gaming purposes, focus on GPU. Get an SLI or Xfire mobo with 2 pcie 2.0 slots, put in two GPU's with 1G memory each, and you will top the performance charts for at least 3 years. You can spend the cash you save on an obscenely large flatscreen.

 

[The_Absolute]

The best bang for the buck is still Intel core 2. Hardly any software exists that requires more CPU power, aside from high end 3D drafting and engineering programs [like finite analysis]. For gaming purposes, focus on GPU. Get an SLI or Xfire mobo with 2 pcie 2.0 slots, put in two GPU's with 1G memory each, and you will top the performance charts for at least 3 years. You can spend the cash you save on an obscenely large flatscreen.

If your CPU isn't fast enough, the abilities of a top-notch GPU setup in crossfireX or SLI will be severely limited by the CPU. The only CPU that exists capable of properly using Two Radeon HD 5970's or Two GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards in Xfire/SLI is a Core i7 @ around 4.5 GHz. A Phenom II X4 965 BE or Core 2 Extreme at the same clock speeds would bottleneck those graphics cards and more than halve their true potential performance.

No ATI or Nvidia drivers exist to support more than Four GPU cores. So there really isn't any point in having more than that, let alone a PSU that can power Four or Five GTX 295's or HD 5970's. At least not for gaming.

Bottlenecks are rare with a single GPU core. But when you have 2, 3, or 4 of them, that's when the bottlenecks become very apparent.

Off topic, but I heard that the original Phenom X4 processors always had One faulty core, and some of the caches on the other cores didn't work as well. So if you got a Phenom X4 9950 BE, you only got Three functional cores, with some of the caches on those cores non-operable, taking a major hit in performance.

The Phenom's were a huge flop. How much faster are the Phenom II X4 processors when compared to their predecessors?