Phenom II X6 1045T good buy?

[nick.lidgett]

i suggest if you are hell bent on going down the AMD route to seriously consider the Phenom II X4 965-BE (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-253-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1943) over everything else they sell, a good friend of mine spent 2 mins in bios last weekend and its stable at 4.2Ghz with this mobo; asus m4a77c (no CF/SLI), thats a pretty good OC, not bad for general use and light to medium gaming. However my personal preference is Intel, make sure its got a K at the end, get a decent cooler, pull its pants down and smash its back doors in!!!!

 

[Davedree]

Well when it comes to the AMD i can vouch for the 965BE. Its around £90 and has me maxing out games with my HD6970. It is a bottle neck and doesnt have the power of the i5's at all, it may have around the same power as a i3-2320 maybe, maybe. Still an all round CPU though. I play games, do 3D rendering and also render Videos.

2012-08-15 14:20:58 - MaxPayne3 - Vysnc Disabled
Frames: 13048
Time: 140386ms
Avg: 92.944
Min: 66
Max: 135

- Just Cause 2 - The Dark Tower - Vysnc off - x8 AA - Ultra
Frames: 6741
Time: 124629ms
Avg: 54.089
Min: 31
Max: 369

- Just Cause 2 - Desert Sunrise - Vysnc off - x8 AA - Ultra
Frames: 8564
Time: 118530ms
Avg: 72.252
Min: 50
Max: 526 (Sorry about this max on these two tests i was slow at ending them before the GUI came up)

2012-08-23 00:57:05 - Sleeping Dogs - Ultra High - No Vysnc - AA Extream
Frames: 3476
Time: 124005ms
Avg: 28.031
Min: 16
Max: 37

Total War: Shogun 2
Average FPS: 52.125

This is with a somewhat strong card though but at least it performs well. I think Intel is the better choice, if not for just sheer performance difference but its slightly more future proof. The i3's also have Hyper threading and Turbo-Boost so thats a bonus. To add my sig says my new equipment. I jumped the gun a bit but everything's already been ordered so it 50% counts. so im still running this 965BE

No the i3's don't have turbo boost, Also a phenom II quad overclocked totally outperforms an i3 in encoding. Gaming the i3 can have the upper edge, like skyrim is dual threaded, but mostly it runs on a single thread.

 

[ince]

Stick to intel

 

[Marine-RX179]

Gaming the i3 can have the upper edge, like skyrim is dual threaded, but mostly it runs on a single thread.

Actually not only in games that use less than 4 cores...but even for game that does (like BF), a Phenom II X4 would need to be clocked above 3.9-4.0GHz before it would outperform the i3 2120. Not only would the Phenom II X4 have higher power consumption, but because of that it generate much more waste heat, thus a semi-decent CPU cooler would be a must, so it add to the cost (unlike the i3 would run happily on the stock cooler due to having only half the power consumption comparing to the overclocked Phenom II X4).

However if OP's friend ain't gonna be back until beginning of September, he would be better of waiting for the IvyBridge i3, which should be released around that time, if no more bloody delays....

 

[Davedree]

Marine if you're building just a gaming rig then I wouldn't be running a high end gpu on a i2120 anyway, Yes you have valid points about power consumption but in mp of bf3 then yeah say its more or less phenom II 3.8ghz with a cp-nb of 2400. Depends on your cpu, mine ran 3.8 at 1.325v on a late stepping c3 so didn't get that hot.

Either way I'm not disagreeing with your comment but theres pro's and cons,
i3 for budget gaming, phenom ii x4/6 for budget gaming/encoding, ib/sb for high end.

 

[DeanV255]

No the i3's don't have turbo boost, Also a phenom II quad overclocked totally outperforms an i3 in encoding. Gaming the i3 can have the upper edge, like skyrim is dual threaded, but mostly it runs on a single thread.

Sorry yeah they do not have Turbo Core, i getting this mixed up with an i5 sorry.

 

[humbug]

What these guys recommending the i3 are not telling you is that the gaming performance is only in a select few games and the i3 cannot be overclocked, while the x4 can and will beat the i3 everywhere once it is.

it's very worrying to see so many people neglect to tell you the full story of the CPU's so you can make an informed diction, all in the name of Selling Intel. its one thing promoting there favorate football team, but when its another's money and hardware.....

For a 2500K / 3570K in some games? Yes. but a locked 2 core that's 25% faster per core vs an unlocked 4 core that's better in most things? Hell no.

Tomshardware recommend the FX-4100 over the i3 2120 for the same reason. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,review-32447-3.html not that i do, x4 980 is the way to go, or better yet the x4 960t which might unlock to an x6, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9fGHhcRZqU even the cheaper motherboards will unlock it to an x6

@ Nuclear Fusion, I play all my games at solid FPS and have monster fast rendering / encoding and rock solid multi-tasking, a locked duel core is no where near as good as a quad or hexacore that can also be overclocked.

Ask me if i would swap my x6 for an i3, knowing whats what i would have to be extremely stupid!

 

[Marine-RX179]

What these guys recommending the i3 are not telling you is that the gaming performance is only in a select few games and the i3 cannot be overclocked, while the x4 can and will beat the i3 everywhere once it is.

it's very worrying to see so many people neglect to tell you the full story of the CPU's so you can make an informed diction, all in the name of Selling Intel. its one thing promoting there favorate football team, but when its another's money and hardware.....

@ Nuclear Fusion, I play all my games at solid FPS and have monster fast rendering / encoding and rock solid multi-tasking, a locked duel core is no where near as good as a quad or hexacore that can also be overclocked.

Ask me if i would swap my x6 for an i3, knowing whats what i would have to be extremely stupid!

Not this rubbish again. If have to choose a better CPU strictly for gaming from scratch, the i3 would generally be better choice than Phenom II X4 or X6, or FX-4xxx...however, nobody is recommending BS like going from Phenom II X4 or X6 to i3. Stop being butthurt just because i3 is better than overclocked Phenom II X6 in some games (namingly those that only run in 3 threads or less), when there are other areas and situation which the X6 do much better in.

Also, going Intel instead of AMD for a new build would have a better upgrade path at the moment if based on what's currently available, as having a Z77 board would guarantee the path to upgrade to Ivy CPU, where as AM3+ boards would support the next in line AMD CPU- which nobody is confident in saying it would be better performer, or even on par with the Sandy or Ivy after the whole Bulldozer incident.

 

[Davedree]

thing is humbug theres varaiables that you have to consider, there are games that cpu intensive only utilise 1 or two threads, So intel has it's advantages when the game is more cpu bound. Another example is assasins creed,

Also like myself my b55 was a lucky chip and great clocker, most people don't run their phenom ii's this fast and 90% of people aren't even aware of the cpu-nb and what it has to offer along with tight memory timings.

I have simulated an i3 2120 with my 2600k by disabling 2 of my cores and running ht and the running clocks at 3.3ghz, Although the 2600k has 8mb l3 cache.
Anyway in the infamously quoted ''64 man caspian border mp'' This simulated i3 does hold back my unlocked 6950 @940/1375.

So in my opinion an I3 shouldn't be used for anything other than a budget gaming cpu. It does do a good job though and when I overclocked the cpu as a 2c4t with ht on, The bottleneck dissapeared once I hit 4.0ghz

If the i3 was unlocked it would have been one of the greatest cpus of all time. Now i really need to get hold of old b55 that I gave to my dad and some bf3 testing in comparison to what i've done today

 

[Martini1991]

Egh, on that Toms I see the FX4 getting an honourable mention, with the I3 being the best CPU for gaming around 90, I fail to see where they recommended it over the i3.
I3's are terrific gamers and can be paired with high end GPU's perfectly.
However, it's a damn tricky question when the X6's are much better for highly threaded app's, but for gaming the i3 is hands down better.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have simulated an i3 2120 with my 2600k by disabling 2 of my cores and running ht and the running clocks at 3.3ghz, Although the 2600k has 8mb l3 cache.
Anyway in the infamously quoted ''64 man caspian border mp'' This simulated i3 does hold back my unlocked 6950 @940/1375.

So in my opinion an I3 shouldn't be used for anything other than a budget gaming cpu. It does do a good job though and when I overclocked the cpu as a 2c4t with ht on, The bottleneck dissapeared once I hit 4.0ghz

Yea I've used a i3 2120 with an overclocked GTX560Ti 2GB and it does bottleneck it on the 64 players map. BF3 is one games that a Phenom II X4 wouldn't do worse than i3 because the games actually use 4 cores or more, however for example...take the odd mmorpgs for example, 95% of them would have the Phenom II X4 bottleneck far worse than the i3, as for some odd reasons mmorpgs developers never seem to make their stupid games use 4 cores or more.

 

[humbug]

thing is humbug theres varaiables that you have to consider, there are games that cpu intensive only utilise 1 or two threads, So intel has it's advantages when the game is more cpu bound. Another example is assasins creed,

Also like myself my b55 was a lucky chip and great clocker, most people don't run their phenom ii's this fast and 90% of people aren't even aware of the cpu-nb and what it has to offer along with tight memory timings.

I have simulated an i3 2120 with my 2600k by disabling 2 of my cores and running ht and the running clocks at 3.3ghz, Although the 2600k has 8mb l3 cache.
Anyway in the infamously quoted ''64 man caspian border mp'' This simulated i3 does hold back my unlocked 6950 @940/1375.

So in my opinion an I3 shouldn't be used for anything other than a budget gaming cpu. It does do a good job though and when I overclocked the cpu as a 2c4t with ht on, The bottleneck dissapeared once I hit 4.0ghz

If the i3 was unlocked it would have been one of the greatest cpus of all time. Now i really need to get hold of old b55 that I gave to my dad and some bf3 testing in comparison to what i've done today

Yes of course it does with only 2 cores.

I have BF3 and a more powerful 7870 overclocked, my FPS never drop below 40 FPS (which is so rare you don't even see it when it happens) in benching 64 player maps and spend 90% of the time between 55 FPS and 80 FPS, sometimes hitting 100 FPS on Ultra preset @ 1920 x 1080P

Whats more the more i overclock my GPU the more my minimum and maximum FPS increase while the CPU usage never gets to 50%.

I can't find the CPU bottleneck with an overclocked 7870 so i very much doubt the OP will.

I may find it with a massively overclocked 7970 or 2 yet for that i wouldn't even use a 3570K, i would go higher than that, which is point here, a Stock x4 or x6 may bottleneck before an i3 on some single threaded games on a supper GPU but who would pair such a thing with such a GPU? Ridiculous. if i'm using a mid range GPU i will take the 4 overclockable cores. and i would anyway.

 

[Martini1991]

Single threaded games? Most games are multi threaded, 2 is multiple.
An X4 955 will bottleneck a 7950 before an i3 2120 will in a lot of cases.

My friend was running a Phenom II X4 955 with a 7950, why? Because games aren't massively highly threaded and he was on AMD, it's their GPU's, they should damn well have CPU's that can max them out, but they don't.

He saw an upgrade from the i3 in the games he plays, reason he went for the i3, budget constrained, he can upgrade to an i5 3570 whenever he gets the money to elevate any remaining bottleneck from the i3. There's no option to do that with AMD, especially not on AM3 790FX which he came from.
They're not single threaded games.

 

[humbug]

Single threaded games? Most games are multi threaded, 2 is multiple.
An X4 955 will bottleneck a 7950 before an i3 2120 will in a lot of cases.

My friend was running a Phenom II X4 955 with a 7950, why? Because games aren't massively highly threaded and he was on AMD, it's their GPU's, they should damn well have CPU's that can max them out, but they don't.

He saw an upgrade from the i3 in the games he plays, reason he went for the i3, budget constrained, he can upgrade to an i5 3570 whenever he gets the money to elevate any remaining bottleneck from the i3. There's no option to do that with AMD, especially not on AM3 790FX which he came from.
They're not single threaded games.

What games? what overclock on the CPU? what overclock on the GPU?

 

[Davedree]

I was unfortunate enough to not have not been able to try out x6 as I was still on am2+ my vrms would have probably popped

But I believe that bf3 makes us of 8 real cores? Could be wrong, So with your well overclocked x6 you probably will see brilliant performance scaling to 6 cores, But in games like skyrim or starcraft etc, It won't be so great, as 2 of the i3's core would be quite a lot more powerful than 2 k10.5 cores. but with your overclock and my old b55 overclock it'd be interesting to compare to an i3

If I had an x4 now I wouldnt upgrade to an x6 i'd go intel, but if I had an x6 now I wouldnt upgrade either. I'm more a casual gamer but do a lot of video creation and encoding. So I def wouldn't want an I3.

edit = too much to quite

 

[Martini1991]

What games? what overclock on the CPU? what overclock on the GPU?

No overclock on the GPU.
And Red Orchestra 2, Dawn of War, etc
He ran the Phenom II X4 at stock as he had a poor cooler, you said stock on single threaded games, that isn't the case as stock on multithreaded games were bottlenecking.

The cost of going for a cooler was the same as going 1155 with a 2120 after selling stuff.

 

[humbug]

I was unfortunate enough to not have not been able to try out x6 as I was still on am2+ my vrn would have probably popped

But I believe that bf3 makes us of 8 real cores? Could be wrong, So with your well overclocked x6 you probably will see brilliant performance scaling to 6 cores, But in games like skyrim or starcraft etc, It won't be so great, as 2 of the i3's core would be much more powerful than 2 k10.5 cores.

If I had an x4 now I wouldnt upgrade to an x6 i'd go intel, but if I had an x6 now I wouldnt upgrade either. I'm more a casual gamer but do a lot of video creation and encoding. So I def wouldn't want an I3.

I have Skyrim, and my FPS are absolutely fine, see here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-3.html

The x4 980 is 1 FPS behind in min and 1 ahead in max to the i3, a little on the multiplier and bang its faster than the i3 all the way.

@ Martini1991, any x4 will do 3.4ghz on the stock cooler, some a little more.

 

[Martini1991]

Lol @ the G630 killing the FX8.

@ Martini1991, any x4 will do 3.4ghz on the stock cooler, some a little more.

I know, you're talking to me like I haven't clocked 20 Phenom II's.
Although, any is pushing it given the range of them and their stock coolers (The lower TDP ones)

 

[Davedree]

you did quote before I edited so my bad !

Interesting result on that toms link,

As I said I need to get my old b55 back and so some testing,

 

[humbug]

you did quote before I edited so my bad !

Interesting result on that toms link,

As I said I need to get my old b55 back and so some testing,

Setting the CPU-NB from 2000Mhz to 26/800Mhz alone gets you an 8% FPS boost in any of those single / 2 threaded games.