Get yourself a cup of bang for buck !
- Thread starter PhoenixUK
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When you put it like that! Crikey. Can you list and link all your components matey? Looks like a cracking little rig for the money then I can recommend it as a build to all the people that I build machines for. Add in a £70 Gfx card and at £300 that's a cracker.
I just used that chess bench on my q6600 rig and it got 19.42 and 9323 @ 3.5ghz, so it's close. Super pi gets 6 and 14secs for same tests. I notice the vcore is quite high though? Or is that normal for the x4 cpus?
I just used that chess bench on my q6600 rig and it got 19.42 and 9323 @ 3.5ghz, so it's close. Super pi gets 6 and 14secs for same tests. I notice the vcore is quite high though? Or is that normal for the x4 cpus?
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How on earth did you get the MB for £40?
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Ye well fritz and super pi aint AMDs best but the main point is that this thing will play games just as good as i7 and costs hardly more than just the CPU itself. The volts are high but it's because the mobo is undervolting under load and well, if you check temps, for a 17.99 and case with crappy airflow you can't complain can you ? 1.55v is alright to use 24/7 for those CPUs if your temps are below 45-50c.
2nd hand, but you can get a new one for 60 or one with less features for 45-50 so there isn't much of a diff and AMD is known for AM3 to have good boards even in the lowest price range.
That was first few hrs after I got it, still playing with it.
ATM 16min prime blend @ 3.86 but with a lot lower volts and 2716mhz HT/NB :O.
Trying to find max stable HT/NB, not much diff between 3.8 or 4ghz clock.
And I think it's temp limiting me as well, when my room was colder in the morning I pulled off a super pi run @ 4.4ghz.
Keep in mind this is with just zalman 9700 and case with poor airflow (PSU @ top and zalman blowing on the PSU as it can't be mounted the other way -_- ).
screenie here:
PS. Still going strong while uploading this, 25min now
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Looking good so far mate good luck with it just out of interest what case did you go for? Just some cheap flimsy thing I assume
got 2nd hand tj05, bit more practical and bigger than cheapos but tbh thermal/airflow wise not better than antec 300 (I think I'll mod it and get exhaust vent on top and get psu blowing outside to top of case ).
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Update:
2756ht/nb
3.92ghz @1.55v
1696mhz c9 ram
I think it's a sweet spot as I've tested ram earlier and it won't go further than 1700mhz :/.
Also it's definitely temps that are limiting me now, did a test earlier and at 3.9 it would crash as soon as temps hit 52-54c (10min+ of prime blend) then opened the side of case and switched off heating and it looks that as long as you can keep those CPUs under 50c (46-48c now) they're very happy and stable ( 30min of p95 blend now).
Makes me wanna try with stronger cooler but that will kill the whole "bang for buck" point of it : ).
16 minutes Prime Blend (or even 25...)? As a quick indicator that it's OK that's alright but you really need to let it run for a few hours. Many a time it's looked OK and then I've come a cropper at around 4 hours or 7 hours.
If you want a quicker test, how about Intelburn or S&M?
If you want a quicker test, how about Intelburn or S&M?
Prime 95 gave me ok temperatures and then someone told me about Intel burn and it knocked my temps up by 5-10c in the first run so might be worth trying that.
That's undeniable. Can't argue with you there. In fact I have read many a time on these here forums, that a fair few people prefer AMD rigs as they are perceived to be the "smoother" choice during gaming. Aka FPS is no different but it runs smoother. I'm not sure exactly if anyone has anything to back this up technically, but I would assume it would be to do with differences in the Architecture, namely, the on board memory controller for the AMD cpus? I could be way off here though so please correct me someone.
Just used it as indicator, if it's very unstable it will crash within 10-15min ( or straight away), if it passed already 20min or so, that means if it goes down later it's probably adjustable by slight mhz drop or voltage increase.
Anyways, think I've found max HT/NB/RAM freq @ 2769 and 1704mhz for ram.
Tested through night with lower clock but nearly stock volts (jumping between 1.42 and 1.44-5).
Now I'll be trying to find max clock under 1.5v and gonna stick there I guess.
no point pumping 0.5-1v for 200mhz higher clock ; ).
probably due to slightly better integrated memory controller resulting in lower latencies/faster response.
Hang on a sec, not sure about your prices there as some look like second hand ones?
I can't find that AMD CPU for sale anywhere? I'm only seeing THIS @ £121, and as for mobos, they start at about £70 for a decent one on AM3 socket. RAM I agree you can get 2 x 2gb of DDR3 for £80 ish. So that makes....
RAM = £80
Mobo = £70
CPU = £120
Lets keep the cpu cooler @ £17.99
Case = lets say £30.
That comes to £317.99
Now price check on the same stuff swapping the mobo to an I5 and the CPU to I5 750:
Ok ish Mobo = £100
I5 750 CPU = £138
Total = only £48 more for I5
Have I miscalculated here as it does not look so good to me now. Plus the i5 750 outperforms the 955 in tests.
EDIT: Yep, I missed that you were using a Phenom x2 and unlocking to quad. Nice one.
I can't find that AMD CPU for sale anywhere? I'm only seeing THIS @ £121, and as for mobos, they start at about £70 for a decent one on AM3 socket. RAM I agree you can get 2 x 2gb of DDR3 for £80 ish. So that makes....
RAM = £80
Mobo = £70
CPU = £120
Lets keep the cpu cooler @ £17.99
Case = lets say £30.
That comes to £317.99
Now price check on the same stuff swapping the mobo to an I5 and the CPU to I5 750:
Ok ish Mobo = £100
I5 750 CPU = £138
Total = only £48 more for I5
Have I miscalculated here as it does not look so good to me now. Plus the i5 750 outperforms the 955 in tests.
EDIT: Yep, I missed that you were using a Phenom x2 and unlocking to quad. Nice one.
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No - you've thrown in a quad core but the OP was proposing a dual and unlocking it to quad.
Edit: OCUK has in the 550 for about a tenner less. The 555 is widely available (just not here yet) but supposedly has a better unlock rate.
Edit: OCUK has in the 550 for about a tenner less. The 555 is widely available (just not here yet) but supposedly has a better unlock rate.
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Ahar!! Cheers for pointing out my flaw! Goes off to read about unlocking dual phenoms... whats the success rate then typically percentage wise and what is involved?
Lots of unlocking threads in CPUs and overclocking. You can read about my unlocking / overclocking a £36 Athlon X2 5000+ 45nm 2.2GHz to Phenom x4 FX-5000 @ 3.3GHz (it uses the same Deneb core as the Phenom II x4 920 and 940. Now that's bang for buck...
Basically you need a capable motherboard (for AMD boards that means a sb710 or sb750 and) with a capable BIOS. There are some nVIDIA boards that do the trick too but I'm not sure what's required. Success rate on some CPUs is pretty good but there are some CPUs out there that are locked because they have a flaw. Mine was one of them but a bit of a CPU/NB voltage and vcore seemed to persuade it to behave.
The Phenom BE editions seem to be a lot easier to get stable once unlocked. It's all a bit of a lottery though.
Basically you need a capable motherboard (for AMD boards that means a sb710 or sb750 and) with a capable BIOS. There are some nVIDIA boards that do the trick too but I'm not sure what's required. Success rate on some CPUs is pretty good but there are some CPUs out there that are locked because they have a flaw. Mine was one of them but a bit of a CPU/NB voltage and vcore seemed to persuade it to behave.
The Phenom BE editions seem to be a lot easier to get stable once unlocked. It's all a bit of a lottery though.
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The CPU is 555BE with 2 cores unlocked extra and it's new c3 revision so it's actually a 965BE with 2 cores diabled.
You can get it from competitors @76-80gbp price mark and it's supposed to drop to 550 price soon as well (65-70).
Regarding mobo, yep the one i've got is 70new, tho it's quite feature rich so you could pick up a cheaper one too, probably around 50-60, maybe even am2+ which is nice for people upgrading from older ddr2 rigs.
I don't remember which mobo was it that Big Wayne had but it was stunning and I think it was around 55-60 price mark.
Yep 750 comes out better in most tests ( not all ) but the difference is most of the time next to 0 in real world performance and no matter how you put it, it's around half price.
I'd be suprised if you could tell the diff in real world performance between this and i5 750 or even i7 920 for gaming without looking at fps meters or benchmarks.
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Oh well too slow : ). Anyways just passed S&M full test gonna try bumping up multi now !