E7400 or Phemon II?

Fenris

Fenris

Fenris

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Ok, I'm currently in the middle of buying a new system, due to having a get a new monitor at very short notice due to my old one breaking.

Basicaly, my current plan is to get the following

Biostar TPower I45
+
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.5GHz and OCing to around 3.4

However, I've been reading some very good reviews on the Phenom II Tricore processors, so I was thinking what would be best? The above set up or:

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz
+
A mobo I haven't decided yet

So yeah, can anyone give me a definitive answer on this? I've got at least another week to decide between the two.

Also if anyone can suggest a good Mobo for the board at around £100 (+- £20) that would be great. I currently have a set of 4Gb (2x2) 1066 Kingston HyperX Ram and I may end up using crossfire so a Mobo would need to be compatible with those.
 
I have got the e7400 with biostar and it's fantastic. The 920 is better but more pricey and I would go DDR 3 if went that set up. It may be better at stock but the e7400 clocks a lot better. As said above I am running first option with 4870 and games and other CPU tasks run flawlessly so either option
Would be a good choice. But personally I would get e7400 as some reson I hAve had better results out of intel CPU seem snappier and quicker then amd.
 
If you do go for the phenom, don't pair it with the older AM2+ motherboards unless you have an older AM2+ CPU. They require a new bios to take the AM3 CPU, which you can't change unless you have the older chip.

So stay away from boards like the Asus M3A78, go for the Asus M4A78 if you want to stick with DDR2, the M4 series have resolved the problem with the bios and can take the AM3 CPU from the word go. Also I think the cheaper gigabyte boards can aswell, it was mentioned by one of the guys from ocuk in another thread

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-180-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=805

You can get it with an AM3 motherboard and DDR3 ram for a little bit extra.

ocuk146.jpg
 
ro55o said:
If you do go for the phenom, don't pair it with the older AM2+ motherboards unless you have an older AM2+ CPU. They require a new bios to take the AM3 CPU, which you can't change unless you have the older chip.
Click to expand...

Great thanks, had no idea about that.

So, I would rather stay with DDR2 seeing as I have that atm so I'm thinking of this:

Phenom II X3 Black
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-238-AM

Asus M4N72-E
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-326-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1377

A couple more questions have also popped up.

1. will this Mobo support that CPU right off the bat?

2. Will this setup support my Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 X 2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit? (again will this work without a Bios update?)

Also, I assume this board doesn't support ATI Crossfire, but can anyone clarify?

Thanks.
 
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mrfun1981 said:
I have a X3 720 with this board

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-002-BS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=808

Biostar TSeries TA790GX 128M

This works right off the bat, but the bios will say unknown CPU but you can still attach a HDD & install windows & either use the software to use windows to update the bios or you can update the very flash drive before or after you install windows
Click to expand...

Ok, think I'm probably going to go with this Mobo.

Just to make sure, do you mean I can use the Phenom II to start and install windows and then update the Bios? I keep finding mobo's that require an old AMD cpu to use to update the Bios which I don't want to do.
 
Fenris said:
Ok, think I'm probably going to go with this Mobo.

Just to make sure, do you mean I can use the Phenom II to start and install windows and then update the Bios? I keep finding mobo's that require an old AMD cpu to use to update the Bios which I don't want to do.
Click to expand...

Yep that is correct, I can only talk from my experience with using a Phenom II x3 720, but while i think a quad phenom II would work ok if you get one of thoses i cant be 100% sure on that

I had no issue putting my X3 720 in, The bios will say unknown CPU while looking in the bios, but you can still install windows on a hard drive & run windows fine it will just say unknown CPU if you check in the system properties to change this just update the bios, but don't use the software that comes with the CD to look for a update bios because we me it said i had the latest one just go to the biostar website & download it yourself but then you can carry on using the software to update the bios.

Also if you are like me & worried about spending £'s & thinking it might not work because of not having the latest bios + worried about listening to a new person on a forum(i did that once on a different forum & *****d a GPU up) check out this thread,

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17985400

post 10 on there is from a user with over 600 posts has this board + CPU saying more or less the same as iv told you.,

Hope that will put your mind at ease a bit now my getting this board?

:)
 
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mrfun1981 said:
Yep that is correct, I can only talk from my experience with using a Phenom II x3 720, but while i think a quad phenom II would work ok if you get one of thoses i cant be 100% sure on that

I had no issue putting my X3 720 in, The bios will say unknown CPU while looking in the bios, but you can still install windows on a hard drive & run windows fine it will just say unknown CPU if you check in the system properties to change this just update the bios, but don't use the software that comes with the CD to look for a update bios because we me it said i had the latest one just go to the biostar website & download it yourself but then you can carry on using the software to update the bios.

Also if you are like me & worried about spending £'s & thinking it might not work because of not having the latest bios + worried about listening to a new person on a forum(i did that once on a different forum & *****d a GPU up) check out this thread,

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17985400

post 10 on there is from a user with over 600 posts has this board + CPU saying more or less the same as iv told you.,

Hope that will put your mind at ease a bit now my getting this board?

:)
Click to expand...

Thank you SO much, that's brilliant, will be buying the board/mobo next weekend.

Thanks again everyone :)
 
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