Phenom X2 vs Athlon 2 X4 for gaming?

[bobchiba]

Regarding the above processors, which is best for gaming if I intend to overclock my rig?

Decided to stick with original choice of going AMD route as i3 socket is apparently about to change again around Xmas and I want to get as much life out of my nxt build as possible. Does anyone know if the next run of AMD cpu's will be AM3 compatible?

(going for a 4890 aswell if that makes a difference)

 

[Redmint]

Does anyone know if the next run of AMD cpu's will be AM3 compatible?

(going for a 4890 aswell if that makes a difference)

Depends on the game, older dual core optimised games will run a bit better on the Phenom, on some it's quite close. The Phenom II chips do ofc have a chance to unlock 1 or 2 extra cores...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/120?vs=122

Scroll to the bottom for a comparison in a few games.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-athlon-ii-x4-620-review-test/14

comparison for a couple more games.

 

[MOOGLEYS]

The Phenom II has level 3 cache which will help quite a bit..

 

[Frozennova]

depends if you plan to overclock, the athlon quads are usually good for 3.6 maybe 3.8.

After benchmarking my chip with the L3 cache and without I found it makes very little difference.

As games are starting to fully utilise quads I want that little bit of future proofing

Have you considered a Phenom II X3 720BE

 

[MOOGLEYS]

I went from a 3.6ghz Athlon II 245 to the 1055t @3.5ghz and the difference is quite noticeable. Even in games not utilising the extra cores there is quite a difference.

 

[bobchiba]

yeah i did originally want the 720BE but its been discontinued in most places, theres a few on a 'popular auction site' but they are way overpriced.

My main issues are that i know the difference between top fps scores are quite minimal between the two, with the Athlon taking a slight lead in multithread heavy games, but I'd like to know how they compare in regards to the minimum FPS scores, I've been told the L3 cache can be useful here. Im not fussed if one chip gets 10fps more than the other at eg. over 50fps but if one can bag the same amount at the other end of the graph then i think thats more important...

 

[Trunks9486]

What about trying to source one of the cheaper quad phenoms? No idea how easy it is though (945 or the older 8xx series).

Both may unlock of course. The athlon may unlock the cache and the phenom the extra cores.

Personally i would go for a full quad phenom, cheapest i could find and overclock it as much as i could.

 

[MOOGLEYS]

Tbh in games i notice very little difference running my CPU 3.5/4.0 than when it was standard 2.8/3.3... In real world terms it makes little noticeable difference to any games..