What am I losing apart from bragging rights?

[G-Dubs]

Cheers Big Wayne.

Been having a look at the various AMD options (and I'd only just gotten my head around the new intel branding). It appears there's a great deal of retro compatibility with AMD, so much so i'm having difficulty working out what the new stuff actually is.

If you had to put a performance per pound on an AMD set up vs an intel one how would you compare. Ok by that I mean if i5 + mobo = £250 and = a score of 100% (benchmark for this comparison) on this arbitrary scale then where would the AMD set up come? Athlon IIx2 + mobo = £115 = ???%

Obviously a lot cheaper but what am I losing performance wise, I'm guessing it must be a fair bit otherwise marketing rules would dictate AMD would sell for same price as competitors chip

 

[Big.Wayne]

It appears there's a great deal of retro compatibility with AMD, so much so i'm having difficulty working out what the new stuff actually is

Well I can give you a quick AMD processor crash course so you can see what is going on behind the scenes . . .

Three dies being produced on 45nm technology, Deneb, Propus and Regor . .

The Deneb die is the oldest/most talked about and is the basis of the Phenom II series (x2/x3/4 variants), the Deneb die is wanting to be a Quad-Core with 6mb of level 3 cache, however some cores may be defective so AMD disable them and sell them as a Tri-Core (ala AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition) or Dual-Core (ala Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition), there is speculation that actually some good parts have their cores disabled just to meet demand for the lower grade parts, this means that with the right AMD chipset its possible to *unlock* the disabled part, didn't work for me but some people have had better luck!

Anyway that's the Deneb part and is used in all the Premium AMD processor parts like their Flagship Phenom II Quad Cores, Black Editions etc . . .

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition

£68.99 inc

If your lucky could be a AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition worth £129.98 inc

Next up is Propus, that's AMD latest quad Core silicon, custom produced without any level 3 cache which drives the manufacturing cost down and therefore the retail price. The Propus Die is used in the AMD Athlon II X4 630 & 620 and has been getting good reviews despite the fact it is lacking the Level 3 cache which doesn't seem to impact performance as much as one would think. Depending if your lucky or not there is a slight chance that an AMD Athlon II X4 may in fact be produced used a Deneb die so there is an outside chance you could unlock the disabled 6MB level 3 cache . . .

There is another variation to the Propus die, again AMD disable one of the four cores and it becomes a Rana which is basically the same as Propus but with just three active cores, these are used in the Athlon II X3 Triple core 425, 435 processors. If your lucky you may be able to unlock the extra fourth core and end back up with a Propus Quad, some lucky folks have recieved Rana Chips and unlocked them all the way up to a Deneb Quad Core with 6Mb level 3 cache . .

"It's a Propus innit!"

"Eta Geminorum - AMD 2010"

Last but not least is the Regor Die, custom produced as a Dual-Core with 1MB level 2 cache per core (compared to 512KB per core on Rana/Propus), this has no chance of unlocking but offers good performance as a straight up dual core, featured in the Athlon II x2 240 245 250

AMD do not waste a scrap of silicon so any Regor dies that have a suspect or defective core have that part disabled and sold on as an AMD Sempron 140, a mono core 2.7GHz part with an outside chance of unlocking back into a Regor Dual Core . . .

"Regor - Killer Midget!"

Gamma Velorum - AMD 2010

With that wodge of info read and understood you should be able to make a lot more sense from this list:

AMD Athlon™ II Processor Model Numbers and Comparisons

Obviously a lot cheaper but what am I losing performance wise

It's a matter of perspective, your not losing anything but rather your not gaining as much as if you splurge more money at your hardware!

Pay more, get more, when do you stop spending, how good is good enough?

I'm guessing it must be a fair bit otherwise marketing rules would dictate AMD would sell for same price as competitors chip

These products do not adhere to conventional marketing rules and I supect some people see the price and think "Oh cheap part, must be flakey or substandard" . . . the truth is they perform excellently for the money, in no way am I feeling any performance loss from my previous LGA775 set-up (E8400/P5Q-E) and I have given up no features (except Crossfire which I never used anyway) . . . This is of course in real-World useage and not in benchmarks!

 

[Vir]

I don't know if you'd like to see some compares between all sorts of different CPU's?
Toms Hardware CPU chart

 

[G-Dubs]

Cheers to big Wayne for the very comprehensive summary, and cheers also to Vir for the link. Life's never simple is it. I now feel like the kid in the sweetshop who being spoilt for choice has just turned around and seen a whole other counter filled with more to choose from.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Not a problem G-Dubs, I don't mind which way you go but at least a few more people may be more aware of whats for sale at the AMD sweet shop!

Little Off Topic Ramble:

I think your following the standard route of most PC enthusiasts which is "If in doubt, pay more" . . . nothing wrong with that and its what I used to do myself but time after time after time I ended up with buyers remorse as the shine of my new purchases wore off and the buzz of spending several hundred pounds faded to be replaced by a big credit card bill and the alarm clock going off early monday morning telling me to wake up and get to work!

I'm not sure when it happened but I thinked we hit a hardware high a few years ago meaning anymore computing power was almost superfluous to most peoples needs, that's a bad thing for hardware manufacturers as they want to keep selling more and more hardware despite the fact the products they released a few years ago do the job just fine, they only have the benchmarks now to help them, that and the exaggerated claims of a bunch of very analy retentive hardware enthusiasts who cream there pants and claim the second coming from a 10 second reduction in Super-Pi times, increased pixel shader results etc!

All you have between yourself and a empty wallet is this forum, several hardware review sites that obviously generate their income from *cough*advertising*cough* revenues and your own common sense, most Enthusiasts are very conformist and will usually base their purchasing decisions on what the consensus guides them to do, if ten people tell them to go Core i7 and one person tells them Athlon II is good enough the Core i7 becomes a no-brainer!

I just wish more people would realise a lot of hardware review sites are corrupt and on the bung (i.e backhander, keep the review sample etc) and its their job to evangelize the new hardware to convince us to part with our hard earned cash, if hardware manufacturers sell less hardware they have less money to spend, less money to spend means less donations/advertising fees to hardware review sites, so it is vital the review sites keep churning out the *spin* to keep us spending . . .

Bang For Buck was the premise that appealed to me about overclocking, buy a cheap product and tune it to run like an expensive product . . . that mantra is getting pushed more and more to the wayside now, people are just buying expensive products and fine tuning them into expensive products? . . . the only thing that rewards is the benchmarks because outside of benchmarks and relying on ones natural senses the £400 premium starts to shrivel away . . . makes my Spider Senses *tingle* and I sense mass brainwash!

 

[JonJ678]

Excellent posts as always Wayne, cheers. For my little contribution I'll say that my 7750be does firefox and vlc every bit as well as my i7, can't tell the difference. However when each is asked to calculate anything difficult, one falls on its face and the other grins and perseveres.

From the point of view that a processor is meant to work things out as quickly as possible, and that the difference between a 10 minute and a two hour calculation is significant, i7 makes loads of sense. For the average user (may as well say gamer since it's ocuk), the top end Intel processors don't make a huge amount of sense.

 

[craptakular]

Why did you sell your Q6600 OP? It's an insane cpu and you wouldn't have needed to upgrade it for years to come.

 

[wakayoda]

the loss of a **** hat? I bet you laugh when people say amd

 

[Big.Wayne]

In truth, wakayoda I have absolutely no idea what you just said? . . . but I'm laughing anyway!

 

[setter]

"For the gamer who cares not for braggin rights!"

The board, cpu and ram look like great value for money there, i may be in the market for a bargain replacement for my old a64 4000 s939 rig as its starting to get a bit flaky, havent considered an athlon setup in a while.

 

[Big.Wayne]

i may be in the market for a bargain replacement for my old a64 4000 s939 rig as its starting to get a bit flaky

Cool man, you should be able to get a nice little recycle fee for the older kit, if you price it fairly it will sell next day at auction, having said that I just remembered your Irish so you probably have 17 nieces and nephews you donate old kit too!

There is also this spec for the people that like things just a little better and want a straight System-Core swap-out (i.e already own chassis, PSU, Smilies disk/optical drives etc) . . .

This would be a great system for someone looking to really step up and make a clean start in 2010, lots of possibilities, DDR3, PCI-E 2.0 Crossfire @ x8/x8, nice bells and whistles, plenty of good tweaking time and very affordable, the person who buys this lot and gets the Golden-Ticket, er I mean gets the full*unlocked* Deneb Quad Core is a lucky git!

I'm very tempted myself but I'm still working my way through AM2+/DDR2 land and don't expect to surface for another 6 weeks heh!


Click to enlarge!

 

[G-Dubs]

Why did you sell your Q6600 OP? It's an insane cpu and you wouldn't have needed to upgrade it for years to come.

Upgraded a few items of the old Q6600 set up along the way over the last 2 years or so (PSU, case, HDD) so the old stuff was just sitting in the cupboard. A chap at work asked me if I was interested in selling my set up and I was actually able to sell him the lot for £700 (worth every penny by the way) which is more than the cost of the new i7, mobo and RAM cost me, which I then re built into the skeleton case using the upgraded PSU HDD). On the back of that sale and seeing my skeleton mod another chap (the fabled "friend") has asked me to build something for him. hence the thread.

I have to say, I was originally just trying to see whether i5 or i7 was the the "best" way. I'm now gonna have to get my head around the AMD argument before I go to him and say

"ok it's like this......"

 

[Big.Wayne]

I have to say, I was originally just trying to see whether i5 or i7 was the the "best" way

Sorry G-Dubs

I'm trying to help in my own funny way!

I'm now gonna have to get my head around the AMD argument

Hey there is no arguement, if the guy has been reading the mags and wants apples give him apples, but if you been telling him about this juicy fruit and does he want some . . .then if you give him a mango will he know the difference?

All I'm trying to get across to you to is . . . . the mango is sweet man . . and cheap!

 

[drunkenmaster]

Another thing is that the socket for the i7 is, I believe, the same as the upcoming i9 processor and so you will have a very good degree of upgradability with i7. (Though I am sure there will be just as much with the 1156 boards).

By the looks of it there will be a single high end 6 core cpu for the entire of next year, rather running into the next architecture, that will likely cost $999 for its entire life, and judging on the past, could well end up £800 + here(even though it should be cheaper on exchange rate). Hardly upgradeable, there will be more i5 chips released than 6 core $1k chips.

An i5 plus a 5850 would spank a i7 with a 4890, if he can afford a better chip and wants to spend it and still get a top graphics card, go ahead, its his money. If he wants the cheapest top end gaming system, get the best card he can afford(thats good value, IE the 5850 or the 5970, the 5870 is horrible value) and whatever other stuff fits in the budget. Theres not a game out there that will bring a i5, P2, i7, kentsfield, penryn to its knee's and the majority of games run fine on dual core varients without issue.

 

[G-Dubs]

No appologies needed big Wayne, you've been a fantastic help and have advanced my Knowledge greatly. I was merely trying to get accross that I didn't know the rabbit hole was this deep.

So how easy is it to unlock the "golden ticket" CPU's, assuming of course you get lucky? Just a bios tweak???

 

[Vir]

Yeah, I have to say, Big Wayne, you're a very nice and helpful guy Really good to have you on this forum. Also giving us another perspective on looking at CPUs

 

[Big.Wayne]

you've been a fantastic help and have advanced my Knowledge greatly.

giving us another perspective on looking at CPUs

Thanks lads, i'd say that's a good result then and is the way the forums should be . . . I've only covered the basics but hopefully that's enough to draw peoples attention to what AMD are offering, may not be suitable for everyone but I know a lot of people have more than one computer on this forum and also build computers for friends/familiy/clients etc so it nice to know about the alternatives!

So how easy is it to unlock the "golden ticket" CPU's, assuming of course you get lucky? Just a bios tweak???

Assuming you get an unlockable processor it should just be a simple BIOS adjustment (AAC) which is featured on all the boards I linked which include either the SB710 or SB750 Southbridge which is needed to unlock stuff . .

BIGBC just reported (in another thread) his Phenom II x2 550 unlocked into a full fat Deneb Quad-Core . . .jammy so and so!

I just did a build today with the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO and a Phenom II 550. Board is solid, well presented and good performer. Even managed to unlcock the two deactivated cores on my PII 550 - pretty pleased

 

[kieves1]

How would the dual core listed in your spec compare with an athlon quad core.Reason is i have a £700 max budget for a new rig and was going to blow it all on a top 965 build(I need everything inc OS).But after reading this i realised i dont need the best of the best as i only use for gaming really and even at that its a 19 inch monitor so only 1440 by 900 i think.
I was all set to get a 5770 as well but have just seen the 4870 on offer for £99 with dirt 2 and aion(I think)

I dont care about benchmarks But would like to OC a little maybe.I want to go on the AM3 platform so i can just drop a better CPU in at a later date if needed.
Does the lack of level3 cache hurt the athlon in gaming at all????

Good thread.Definetley an eye opener.

 

[Big.Wayne]

How would the dual core listed in your spec compare with an athlon quad core

Which spec? . . . there is two, the Athlon II X2 or the Phenom II x2

I think either of them would compete well with a quad core as they have higher MHz and that's still where the main gain comes from with FPS, having said that we are slowly edging into a multi-core future so there is more support for multi-threaded action now than there has ever been . .

My personal feelings are about 90% of what I do is just great with an X2 @ 3.0GHz, the other 10% would be the occassional video-encode and a bit of Folding@home which of course improve a lot with extra cores to hand . . . if ever there was the slightest incling in my head to try out a x4 quad-core . . . that notion was firmly squashed as soon as I installed a triple-core X3, they are great and it's a pity they have recently jumped up in price because at their original sub £50 asking price they were an absolute steal!

i only use for gaming really and even at that its a 19 inch monitor so only 1440 by 900 i think

Cool, that's a nice not-to-demanding res to be gaming at, a decent graphics card will walk that but games will be more sensitive to the sub-system so that when you overclock the chip you should be actually able to sense/feel the difference in games without needing to run a benchmark! . . . you should be able to get some nice gains from having faster memory too at that res!

I was all set to get a 5770 as well but have just seen the 4870 on offer for £99 with dirt 2 and aion(I think)

I used a HD 4830/4850/4870/4890 and think they are good, I've ended up with a 512MB HD 4870 bought used from the OcUK Members Market and that's working out well, if I had your budget and wanted a good current gen card I don't think I could choose anything else other than a HD 5770, it's the Evergreen credentials that interest me, I dig cool running and power efficient hardware which sadly the HD 48xx series are not!

I wonder what other people would choose from this list of three AMD GPU's

Gigabyte Radeon HD 4870 1024MB

£99.99 inc VAT


Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 1024MB

£119.98 inc


XFX Radeon HD 4890 1024MB

£129.98 inc VAT

Does the lack of level3 cache hurt the athlon in gaming at all????

Hehe hurt it, I like that, I can't say I've had a problem running my games with an Athlon II X3 which has no level 3 cache but it seems that several games produce more FPS if the cache is there, as always pay more, get more. There is no hurting or harming of anything in computer hardware except maybe extttrrreeeeeeeeeemm overclocking!

I think cache is a nice thing and I would be happy to pay an extra £10 for the cache vs a cachless chip but the premium seems to be a lot more than that! . . . That's why I did the second spec above for the gamer who wants just a *little* more which basically means its good enough to just beat his little brothers Athlon II machine in a benchmarking contest heh! . . . but both chips will provide good enough FPS for pure gaming enjoyment!

I think anyone that is an accomplished aircooling overclocker would enjoy working with an Athlon II vs a Phenom II . . . . the Phenom II I think is more a Cool-Kids-Edition of the Athlon II, the Black-Editions unlocked CPU multi does make processor overclocking as easy as slapping on a premium heatsink and playing with the CPU MUlti and vCore, lol how easy is that! . . . . the accomplished aircooling overclocker will still be able to produce a great overclock using the cheaper Athlon II because they will have no problems getting to grips with more than just CPU vCore, they have Ht-Ref, HTT multi, CPU-NB Multi, etc etc, old school overclockers just LOVE that stuff, the more complicated the better heh!

 

[kieves1]

Sorry i had meant the P2 550 set up.
I probably would go for the 5770 just for the lower heat and power consumption.Just that deal caught my eye a little
Was also looking at the 620.I have no prior experience of overclocking so is this out of my depth and i should get a cool kids black edition