Which Phenom II to go for?

[saitrix]

Hi,

Looking at building a pc, wondering which Phenom II to go for out of the range. I was looking at the X4 925 but can't find much on it, what do people suggest out of the range? The 925 is stretching the budget a little bit, so it would have to be worth it.

Also I would be looking at overclocking.

 

[nelcon]

Why don't you go for one of these:- AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game [HDZ550WFGIBOX] mines running at 3.6ghz very good cpu. And the chance to unlock to 4 cores on certain boards.

 

[littlepuppy]

I put one of the above in a build for the mother in law (dont laugh) just surfing etc etc, but its rock solid, runs cool and does everything required...

If you had the cash I would say 955 or 95 but if cash is limited deffo the 550.

 

[Big.Wayne]

I was looking at the X4 925 but can't find much on it, what do people suggest out of the range?

I'm not so sure Phenom II is worth a premium over the Athlon II series?

The 925 is stretching the budget a little bit, so it would have to be worth it.

If your working to a finite budget then you should really be looking at the Athlon II chips!

I really don't think spending £100+ on an AMD quad core is a great move when you could have both a CPU and motherboard for similar money, either that or go full blown Quad and get an Intel® Core™ i5

Also I would be looking at overclocking.

Both the Phenom II and the Athlon II chips overclock well, the big difference with the Athlon II is that you don't get the unlocked Black-Edition adjustable multi . . . it means you have to learn a bit more about overclocking instead of just using two options (CPU-Multi & vCore)

 

[.walls]

the big difference with the Athlon II is that you don't get the unlocked Black-Edition adjustable multi . . .

That and cache sizes....

 

[Big.Wayne]

True!

I've pondered the Phenom II vs Athlon II quite a bit, I do like the look of the cheapest PII's and came up with this conclusion

The upwards adjustable multi is really a nOObzilla overclocking feature, it's still quite easy to clock a chip like the Athlon II's using traditional means and it would more than likey be faster than a chip clocked using CPU-Multi alone . . .

Also Level 3 cache is good but not having it doesn't seem to impact real world performance much? . . . . I would take a chip with the level 3 cache if they wasn't twice as expensive as a chip without it . . .

If you analyse the performance gain you get from the L3 cache & extra ££££ it doesn't seem to be good value . . .

Happy to discuss, I've never used a PhII chip but the Athlon II is rocking!

 

[jak731]

I'd recommend the 550 as well, built a pc for a friend the other week using one bought from ocuk and it unlocked to a quad using a gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P. It's now equivalent to a £130 quad core, even if it doesn't successfully unlock it's close to a stock E8400 for gaming.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Nice one jak731!

The X2 550 is the only Phenom II that made it onto my pick list, £77.99 inc is about as much as I would want to spend on an AMD chip! . . . I paid about an extra £18 for both an OEM X3 425 + 785G mobo so yeah the PhII's are pricey!

Was it an easy unlock?

 

[.walls]

Also Level 3 cache is good but not having it doesn't seem to impact real world performance much? . . . . I would take a chip with the level 3 cache if they wasn't twice as expensive as a chip without it

To be honest, I went from an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ to a 720 BE and the difference in performance was silly (say compiling a "stock" kernel in 45ish minutes down to 10 minutes and 30 seconds!).

That said, I haven't had the opportunity to test out any of the new Athlons, I do get quite tempted by some of these threads though

 

[jak731]

Nice one jak731!

The X2 550 is the only Phenom II that made it onto my pick list, £77.99 inc is about as much as I would want to spend on an AMD chip! . . . I paid about an extra £18 for both an OEM X3 425 + 785G mobo so yeah the PhII's are pricey!

Was it an easy unlock?

Yeah very easy (woo xmas smilies)

The gigabyte board came with the latest BIOS which doesn't officially support unlocking, but I didn't need to flash it as it has an option for rolling back the firmware to allow the unlock (good support by gigabyte). Did that, turned on ACC and tested it with prime and linX, works fine.

 

[.walls]

Yeah very easy (woo xmas smilies)

The gigabyte board came with the latest BIOS which doesn't officially support unlocking, but I didn't need to flash it as it has an option for rolling back the firmware to allow the unlock (good support by gigabyte). Did that, turned on ACC and tested it with prime and linX, works fine.

What version of BIOS are you using?

 

[feeddagoat]

Athlon II X3 435 was matching the Phenom II x3 720 through benchmarks and overclocked to the same level. The 620's lack of Level 3 cache seems to hurt it tho but apart from that I don't see any reason to go for phenom BE if you have a good mobo and can manually OC. Unfortunatly my board is **** for OCing =(

 

[.walls]

Athlon II X3 435 was matching the Phenom II x3 720 through benchmarks and overclocked to the same level. The 620's lack of Level 3 cache seems to hurt it tho but apart from that I don't see any reason to go for phenom BE if you have a good mobo and can manually OC. Unfortunatly my board is **** for OCing =(

That's a bit disappointing (for me!), but saying that, I don't believe that the Athlon 2 x3's were out when I got my 720 (or I hadn't heard of them / seen any reviews).

Either way, I got a chip that I'm very impressed with, so I'm not too bothered!