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Going to quad core

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
18,586
Location
Finchley, London
I'm currently considering going from my dual core 550BE to quad. I just installed a new graphics card, HD5850, and someone said to me:

as905 said:
from own experience i would say you need a much better cpu if you like to play games on Pc,a quad core with minimum of 3.5ghz x 4 .

i used to have my Q6600 clocked @ 3.6ghz but since the OC wasn't stable i had to lower it down to 3.2ghz & because i did this i lost around 10fps on some cpu intensive games.
Click to expand...

There's five phenom 2 x4 chips to choose from. I'm considering the second one on the list, the 955 black edition, as it's quite affordable. If I overclock it to say 3.5Ghz, will that be good enough to see a big difference over my current cpu in terms of gaming fps particularly, and not bottleneck the gpu?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=6&subid=1943
 
I would say that with modern games using much better use of quad core CPUs, then upgrading to a nice quad core like the Phenon II X4 955BE is a good move in my opinion.

However, have you tried unlocking your X2 550 to run as a triple or quad core?
 
As things stand right now, it depends on the game....some will work a lot better with 4 cores, some will show no difference.

The 955 should go to 3.6Ghz without any trouble at all, and may go as far as 3.8Ghz, and it certainly wont bottleneck a 5850 at that speed, in fact a 955 with a 5850 is a very good sweet spot for any of today's games...

Go for it...
 
I have my own Athlon II X4 unlocked to a Phenom II and overclocked to 3.5Ghz, and the most CPU intensive game I play is Bad Company 2 which never drops below 45 FPS and usually is around 65 - 90 FPS, but the FPS is pretty much the same at 3.2GHz too. So if you bought a Phenom II 955 you wouldn't need to overclock for most games, although it may help a little in others.
 
Thanks chaps, that 955BE is looking good then.

Yeah, I tried unlocking my 550BE last year or the year before, but absolutely no go unfortunately. Nothing is currently overclocked. However, I did overclock my 550BE last year and got to, I can't remember, but it was around 3.6Ghz I think. Then I put everything back to stock. I'll certainly O/C it again now, but presumably a quadcore at 3.6 and higher will be a lot better?
 
RevBillyG said:
Looking at the OP's sig, definitely try to unlock the 2 extra cores.

I've had a 100% success rate with these so far (that is 2 out of 2 :D)

*EDIT* Oh well, worth a try :(
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a damn shame I can't unlock it. :( It just wouldn't boot. I tried various settings in bios, from per core to all cores, just couldn't get it to work.
 
I couldn't unlock mine either and am also pondering an upgrade. Can't decide whether to wait for Bulldozer (and then have to get a new motherboard too) or whether to get a new AM3 chip. The question is, X4 or X6, and will prices plummet when Bulldozer is released?

Sorry that isn't very helpful just what I'm thinking at the moment. :)

BTW these are so easy to overclock it is untrue. I haven't had time to push things much but got to 3.5GHz just by raising the multiplier to 17.5, no other changes needed. :)
 
If you're going to stick with your current motherboard, then an X4 will be a nice upgrade. The 955BE seems to be better than the 965, simply because it can be O/C'd the same amount and is cheaper.
 
i did the exact same :D i was on a i3 @ 4.2 ghz and decided i want to make the most out of the frostbite engine so i went and got my self a i5 760 quad...gona clock it to 4.2 ghz
 
who told you that you need it at 3.5ghz to play pc games.. :o .. imho a lot of games dont need to be at 3.5ghz to run smoothly and enjoyably.. its only newer top spec games that need a higher clock but even then i think they are made with the thought in mind that people might not want to overclock etc.. so they are scaled to be perfectly playable at even 2.6/8 . 3.5 is just a luxury,, its not really needed lol
 
maybe best to wait for bulldozer to come out, the see how prices are affected and if its worth upgrading to the newer gen amd chips
 
To help with unlocking you could trying changing HT to 1600. Min 550 wouldn't unlock hving tried sevearl times until I read this on a motherboard forum. Unlocked straight away with that change and now runnning x4 at 3.6GHz.
In my case I think it is an issue in the BIOS that meant the change was required, but its worth a try.
 
AsLan said:
To help with unlocking you could trying changing HT to 1600. Min 550 wouldn't unlock hving tried sevearl times until I read this on a motherboard forum. Unlocked straight away with that change and now runnning x4 at 3.6GHz.
In my case I think it is an issue in the BIOS that meant the change was required, but its worth a try.
Click to expand...

Alrighty then, good call. I shall give it a try over the weekend. Thanks for the tip. :)
 
I just tried it. I changed HT Link from auto to 1.6Ghz. Then changed advanced clock calibration from normal to hybrid. Then there's 3 options, auto, all cores and per core. Tried all cores first, saved to cmos and exited. Bios updated and started to boot into windows. The moment after it said 'Starting Windows', the animation of the windows logo colours froze, then momentary blue screen and went back to bios boot. I tried auto, same thing. I think the blue screen said 'bad pool.. 'something or other. Last ditch effort now, per core. How should I set these?

It says:

Value core 0 - 2% ( < that's minus 2%)
Value core 1 - 2%
Value core 2 - 2%
Value core 3 - 2%

I can adjust any of them + or -, but no idea which way to go.
 
Last edited:
Wow. Well I've had some sort of success but not completely.

unlockedtox4.jpg


I read on overclock net:

"Some users have been reported seeing the "X4" designation, but no unlocked cores when verifying through CPU-Z. Please ensure that you have set Windows to use all 4 cores by going to "msconfig --> Boot --> Advanced Options --> Number of Processors." If you still don't see unlocked cores, then most likely that your disabled cores are defective. "

So I went into msconfig, selected number of processors '2' which was the maximum to choose from. Then went back to bios, did all cores and set HT link again to 1.6Ghz, and it easily booted into windows with new designation of Deneb x4 940. :eek:

However, looking at my screenshot, the bottom of cpu-z still says 2 cores, much like was mentioned in the quote above. And HW Monitor is now not monitoring my cores, suggesting unlocked cores. But super PI is giving me the same result as dual core, so I don't think anything has unlocked.
 
Can't be much more help I'm afraid. After the HT change CPUZ reported it as a Phenom II X4 B50 with 4 cores and threads. The temp monitors stop working once its unlocked.
Are you overclocking at all as mine couldn't clock as far once unlocked.
 
Merlin5 said:
Wow. Well I've had some sort of success but not completely.

unlockedtox4.jpg


I read on overclock net:

"Some users have been reported seeing the "X4" designation, but no unlocked cores when verifying through CPU-Z. Please ensure that you have set Windows to use all 4 cores by going to "msconfig --> Boot --> Advanced Options --> Number of Processors." If you still don't see unlocked cores, then most likely that your disabled cores are defective. "

So I went into msconfig, selected number of processors '2' which was the maximum to choose from. Then went back to bios, did all cores and set HT link again to 1.6Ghz, and it easily booted into windows with new designation of Deneb x4 940. :eek:

However, looking at my screenshot, the bottom of cpu-z still says 2 cores, much like was mentioned in the quote above. And HW Monitor is now not monitoring my cores, suggesting unlocked cores. But super PI is giving me the same result as dual core, so I don't think anything has unlocked.
Click to expand...

I think, but am not sure, that superpi only uses 1 thread. Try wprime :)
 
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