AMD Phenom II X4 945, 955, 965 etc. Black Edition

mr_tea · 9 Dec 2009 at 23:35

Are there any differences between

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 945
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition

etc.

At a glance it just seems as though the clock speed is different by default and I'll be overclocking anyway, so which one should I go for?

Trunks9486 · 9 Dec 2009 at 23:59

If there is a way to find the new stepping (C3?) go for the either the 955 or the 955.

I think most C3s are 965 for now at least, though i am not really sure.

Morlock · 10 Dec 2009 at 00:00

If you want the fastest CPU and best overclocker, look for the 965 Black Edition C3 .

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 00:06

mr_tea said:
which one should I go for?

If any of them cost over £90 none of them!

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 620

£79.99 inc

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550

£68.99 inc

AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 425

Not Sold By OcUK But It's Cheap and Powerful!

mr_tea · 10 Dec 2009 at 00:12

Mr Wayne, I was going to ask you directly but there is no Private Messaging on here? :S

Anyway, what is your reasoning to your choices and not to the ones I suggested?

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 00:33

mr_tea said:
what is your reasoning to your choices

I'm suggesting Athlon II as they are very capable processors for the money, even at stock they blaze through all tasks but should you want more speed you can overclock them with little effort, if you lucky you can maybe unlock extra cores/cache, they run cool and combined with a AMD 785G chipset offer almost every feature would could want with the exception of Crossfire maybe?

The shrewd shopper can pick up an X2/X3 + 785G combo for approx £100 which is the same price your thinking of spending on the processor alone, if you want a guaranteed quad core then the Athlon II x4 620 is your best best although I'm finding the Tri-Cores very capable indeed!

Certain people who have their hearts & soul set on getting a quad core for serious power-user needs will be better served with an Intel® Core™ i5, it's just a better processor than what AMD can offer at this time!

I only acknowledge AMD Athlon II & Intel® Core™ i5 as logical choices for *new* hardware in this sea of variations we have for sale and I would go on to say that a typical PC user would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two systems *outside* of benchmarks!

Of course the person building an Athlon II system would have plenty of cash left over for the other nice things in life! :cool:

mr_tea · 10 Dec 2009 at 12:18

Hmm, food for thought.

I will be using it for gaming, photoshop and some 3DS max.

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 12:23

that all sounds very normal stuff, I game and use photoshop daily, not had any user experience of 3DS max? does that take a long time to render projects and stuff, is this something you do daily or in a professional capacity?

Snow-Munki · 10 Dec 2009 at 12:34

mr_tea said:
Hmm, food for thought.

I will be using it for gaming, photoshop and some 3DS max.

If you end up getting one be interested in your performance with 3dsmax.

I'm umming and ahhing over which CPU to get aswell !

gareth170 · 10 Dec 2009 at 14:18

i would say get a Phenom II 965 C3..

my Phenom II 965 C3 can do 3.7ghz on stock voltage which is 1.4v, and 3.8ghz with 1.425v, i haven't tryed any higher yet.

Indy500 · 10 Dec 2009 at 14:26

Big.Wayne said:
that all sounds very normal stuff, I game and use photoshop daily, not had any user experience of 3DS max? does that take a long time to render projects and stuff, is this something you do daily or in a professional capacity?

For building a new system on the cheap I just went with the Athlon II X2 250 and an Asus M2N68-AM+ . I don't think you can beat that for price v performance (assuming you have a graphics card or IGP is sufficient).

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 15:00

Off Topic:

sr4470 said:
I just went with the Athlon II X2 250 and an Asus M2N68-AM+ . I don't think you can beat that for price v performance

I dunno, the Athlon II x3 425 paired with an ASUS M4A785D-M PRO takes some beating!

An extra core and a chipset that features lots and lots, Radeon HD4200, HDMI, RAID, eSATA and PCI-Express 2.0 swayed it for me, not bad for an extra £15 :cool:

mr_tea · 10 Dec 2009 at 15:41

Well this would be the proposed system.

£50 difference, hmm.

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 15:44

£62 on a heatsink fan? . . . . are you crazy! :eek:

hehe that is soooooo overkill for your needs you have no idea!

mr_tea · 10 Dec 2009 at 15:57

Overclock?

I see all the cool kids with them though?

MoodyB · 10 Dec 2009 at 16:08

mr_tea said:
Hmm, food for thought.

I will be using it for gaming, photoshop and some 3DS max.

If you're using 3dsMax then I'd avoid the AM3 processors with no L3 cache like the x4 620 as this will hurt performance. Ok, you might be able to unlock the cache on some chips but that's not guaranteed.

A i5 at 2.66ghz gives the same performance as a x4 [email protected], so once you start overclocking the i5 it'll leave the AMD chip behind in regards to 3d performance :

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=13

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2452&page=11

It might cost you £50-£60 more for the i5 system, but the extra cost is worth the benefits imho when rendering. Just depends how much you do.

Indy500 · 10 Dec 2009 at 16:17

Big.Wayne said:
<snip>

/OT

The X2 250 was the lower side of £50 at the time

and while the motherboard you quoted isn't too much more, that £15 bought 2GB DDR2 from MM. Getting all three parts for less than £100 isn't bad. After all, it was intended as a budget build.

Besides, the PCI-E slot placement bothers more than 8-channel audio that isn't going to be fully utilized, and an IGP that will only ever be a temporary backup.

Back on topic, I'd go for the Phenom II X4 965, as it doesn't seem to be too much more than the 955.

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 16:40

Off Topic:

sr4470 said:
The X2 250 was the lower side of £50 at the time

The OEM Athlon II X3 425 was the high side of £30 at the time

sr4470 said:
while the motherboard you quoted isn't too much more, that £15 bought 2GB DDR2 from MM. Getting all three parts for less than £100 isn't bad

No that's great and I'm not getting into a willy waving contest with you but you did make the following statement:

sr4470 said:
I don't think you can beat that for price v performance

If you hadn't of said that we would not be having this conversation now . . .

sr4470 said:
the PCI-E slot placement bothers more than 8-channel audio that isn't going to be fully utilized

I didn't actually mention 8-channel audio as a premium perk? . . . . and I see nothing thats a problem with the PCI-E placement?, grasping at straws maybe? :confused:

sr4470 said:
and an IGP that will only ever be a temporary backup.

Actually it's the other way around, the IGP is the permanent feature and the dedicated GPU is the temporary solution when one needs a few weeks fraggin, of course a year or two down the line I'll think you will find having a motherboard with the best IGP from 2009 and native HDMI output proves very useful when the board goes into retirement, of course I assume you hadn't thought that far ahead!

I'm glad your happy with your Geforce 7025/nForce 630a chip and Athlon II combo, don't think I would give up that much chipset technology for the small saving involved though. I figure if you were to do it all over again you still wouldn't choose a 785G :cool:

Big.Wayne · 10 Dec 2009 at 16:49

MoodyB said:
If you're using 3dsMax then I'd avoid the AM3 processors with no L3 cache like the x4 620 as this will hurt performance.

hurt performance, I like that, what does it actually mean?

It means the cheaper processor wont run a task as fast as a more expensive processor (obviously) but how do you gauge it? when do you stop spending money? . . . how fast is fast enough?

It might seem like a silly question but a lot of folks have difficulty with this one, somehow the benchmarks have a way of making you spend more and more money . . . who is in control of your wallet! :cool:

Indy500 · 10 Dec 2009 at 16:52

Big.Wayne said:
Off Topic:

The OEM Athlon II X3 425 was the high side of £30 at the time

My apologies then, I was looking at the current price.

Big.Wayne said:
I didn't actually mention 8-channel audio as a premium perk? . . . . and I see nothing thats a problem with the PCI-E placement?, grasping at straws maybe?

Anything remotely high-end in the PCI-E 16x slot will block one of the PCI slots. Both were needed in this case. I'd think it was a fair point as PCI is still in wide use for expansion cards.

Big.Wayne said:
Actually it's the other way around, the IGP is the permanent feature and the dedicated GPU is the temporary solution when one needs a few weeks fraggin, of course a year or two down the line I'll think you will find having a motherboard with the best IGP from 2009 and native HDMI output proves very useful when the board goes into retirement, of course I assume you hadn't thought that far ahead!

Nothing wrong with that idea of course, but the OP hasn't mentioned anything other than gaming, photoshop and 3dsmax. Which means the IGP isn't going to be the primary chip...

I'm glad your happy with your Geforce 7025/nForce 630a chip and Athlon II combo, don't think I would give up that much chipset technology for the small saving involved though. I figure if you were to do it all over again you still wouldn't choose a 785G

Doubt the people using it in my case will notice the difference, but your point is taken