Thinking of ordering a Bulldozer 4100, hear me out.

PapaLazaru · 16 Dec 2011 at 15:45

Here are my thoughts. Whether it is rational or not I will let you all decide.

My Crosshair IV recently blew up and has gone for RMA. As I could not be without my PC, I purchased an ASUS Sabertooth 990FX, which is AM3+.

My Phenom II 965 (C3 revision) clocks like crap in this new motherboard. I used to be able to achieve a stable 4Ghz with it on the Crosshair. Now I can only reach 3.7 before my PC crashes. BF3 also seems to hate the overclock now and as such, I have reverted it back to stock 3.4Ghz. Now my reasoning is that my motherboard may well be able to clock a BD 4100 (3.6Ghz stock) far better than my Phenom. It is a BD motherboard, right?

This has left me with numerous options to ponder.

If you had the following options, what would you do? I am NOT interested in any Intel options at the moment as funds are scarce.

1. Sell the 965 for whatever the going rate is, buy a BD 4100 (TWO offer £90 with £10 cashback with AMD = £80, and sell the Crosshair IV when it is returned / replaced. BD & Sabertooth & big overclock.

2. Wait for the Crosshair IV to come back, keep the 965 and sell the Sabertooth and go back to my Phenom @ 4Ghz.

I hope this makes some kind of sense?

ta.

Martini1991 · 16 Dec 2011 at 15:53

2.)
The FX4 is worse than the 965.

But given you have a 965/Sabertooth 990FX/CH IV and you're looking at buying an FX4, that's more than an Intel 2500k and Z68 money in messing around tbh.

PapaLazaru · 16 Dec 2011 at 16:06

Martini1991 said:
2.)
The FX4 is worse than the 965.

But given you have a 965/Sabertooth 990FX/CH IV and you're looking at buying an FX4, that's more than an Intel 2500k and Z68 money in messing around tbh.

Flogging the lot will realise about £200 by my reckoning. Both motherboards will not see better than £80 and the CPU about £50 at best.

I cannot get a 2500k setup for that. I am just thinking that a 4Ghz+ BD surely gives me better performance than a Phenom at 3.4Ghz?

Martini1991 · 16 Dec 2011 at 16:07

You could have just board a crappy 760G board while you wait for the CH IV to come back, that would have been better.
An FX4100 at 4GHZ+ is better than your stock 965, but that's a lot of money for a **** poor gain.
The 990FX is like 140 by itself isn't it? That's kind of my point.

That's almost 2500k money, the CH IV and 965 would have netted a decent Z68 board.

PapaLazaru · 16 Dec 2011 at 16:11

Martini1991 said:
You could have just board a crappy 760G board while you wait for the CH IV to come back, that would have been better.

True, but none of us knew how the BD was going to turn out at the point I ordered it.

Martini1991 said:
An FX4100 at 4GHZ+ is better than your stock 965, but that's a lot of money for a **** poor gain.

About £20 / £30 by my reckoning. That is not a lot really.

I suppose I really want to know why the 990FX board clocks the 965 so poorly. BF3 HATES the overclock. It goes all jerky and the ingame monitor shows massive lag spikes. It is all a bit odd really.

Martini1991 · 16 Dec 2011 at 16:30

You're confusing me.
You said your CH IV recently blew, yet BD's been out almost 2 months?
You'd have paid money for the 990FX for your FX4, so in total, more like 60-70?

Cupra · 16 Dec 2011 at 16:45

you could get a 2nd hand sandybridge setup for £200 easy (if u dont need ram)

Cool Breeze · 16 Dec 2011 at 17:19

My advice, skip bulldozer it's crap I know I had one. get a better phenom or an x6 phenom.

If you cant afford a sandy rig that is.

PapaLazaru · 16 Dec 2011 at 18:04

Martini1991 said:
You're confusing me.
You said your CH IV recently blew, yet BD's been out almost 2 months?

That is recently to me. Been busy.

Martini1991 said:
You'd have paid money for the 990FX for your FX4, so in total, more like 60-70?

Not really. My Crosshair is with ASUS. I have no idea what their plans are. They could well turn round and tell me I have broken it. It would not be the first time it has happened. The 990FX board runs both AM3 and BD. It was an obvious purchase at the time, it would give me some futureproofing. This is now not the case it may seem. Hence my question.

SheepBeast · 16 Dec 2011 at 23:14

Stick with the phenom and sell the AM3+ board.

Alkalinepro5 · 17 Dec 2011 at 10:58

I have that board and I can get 3.9-4.0 stable on that exact CPU. It's a strange CPU and I've had similar instability issues in the past, however once you find the "sweet spot" wrt to voltages and multiplier it WILL play ball.

If they ever release a semi-decent 8-core bulldozer I will snap it up straight away!

PapaLazaru · 18 Dec 2011 at 18:21

Alkalinepro5 said:
I have that board and I can get 3.9-4.0 stable on that exact CPU. It's a strange CPU and I've had similar instability issues in the past, however once you find the "sweet spot" wrt to voltages and multiplier it WILL play ball.

Would you be so kind as to let me know what you have everything set to?

almighty15 · 18 Dec 2011 at 19:10

Sell everything and buy a P67 and a 2500k

gareth170 · 18 Dec 2011 at 19:51

don't get a fx 4 core.

you'll get worse performance than your 965.

for example a 8150 needs to be clocked atleast 500mhz higher than a 1100t to just get the same performance as the 1100t in most things, and remember the 8150 as 8 cores.

so a 4100 would be wose than that, because your 965 as 4 cores, if your 965 only had 2cores then it would be most likely like the above example

Alkalinepro5 · 18 Dec 2011 at 21:21

PapaLazaru said:
Would you be so kind as to let me know what you have everything set to?

Sure.

Vcore = 1.4
Multiplier = 19.5
Bus speed = 200
HT Link(Stock) = 2000mhz
= 3900mhz

To get 4.0Ghz which I used for benching I had to up my voltages to 1.45, but it was unstable after about 10-15 minutes of BF3 so I had to drop to 3.9 for long term use.

Left everything else well alone

pmc25 · 18 Dec 2011 at 22:12

Stick with the 965, then buy a B3 / C0 stepping Bulldozer in the New Year.

almighty15 · 18 Dec 2011 at 23:05

pmc25 said:
Stick with the 965, then buy a B3 / C0 stepping Bulldozer in the New Year.

Why? It'll still be slower then Phenom 2 clock-for-clock and still consume more power...

Speed · 18 Dec 2011 at 23:15

Power shouldn't really be a consideration at this price point, it really doesn't make much difference to your power bill unless you are running it 24/7 @ 100% load. All modern CPUs clock down at idle to basically (in the real world) the same amount of power usage.

He should keep what he has or move to the 1155 platform which is getting new 22nm CPUs anyways.

PapaLazaru · 19 Dec 2011 at 16:41

Alkalinepro5 said:
Sure.

Vcore = 1.4
Multiplier = 19.5
Bus speed = 200
HT Link(Stock) = 2000mhz
= 3900mhz

To get 4.0Ghz which I used for benching I had to up my voltages to 1.45, but it was unstable after about 10-15 minutes of BF3 so I had to drop to 3.9 for long term use.

Left everything else well alone

Cheers will try these later.