Phenom???

[Gunni Parker]

Ok now that iam quite certain with the right bios setting a phenom 9500 or 9600 will work on my MOBO.

But a still have a few niggles that need to be answered that I can't seem to find answers for on the net. If possible could you provide evidence with the answers.

Do you get full use out of all the cores on a AM2 only board?

Do you get use out of all the cores for games?

Will my PSU have enough power to juice the Phenom?

Is the Phenom a better choice than the 6400 Black?

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

As long as you've got the latest bios then it should work fine, all 4 cores would work. If they were used or not would depend on how much the game/application took advantage of multi core cpu's.
Your PSU should have enough power for your setup + a Phenom.
Whether it's a better choice than the 6400 black depends... I'd say yes, as it's not that much more cost-wise and clock for clock the Phenom is better than the X2's. If you could get a small overclock out the Phenom it would be even better.

I don't have evidence, but you would be able to use all 4 cores and there's plenty of benchmarks for the Phenom now. (PSU question is the only one I wouldn't be sure of...) Imagine it'd be fine though.

 

[schumi84]

The only thing you will be missing out on with not having an AM2+ board is the HTT speed, it will only be 1000 instead of 2000 or 2000 instead of 4000 (cant quite remember).

Either way, all cores will be available to be used as said above, it will just depend on whether the software you are using has multi CPU support.

 

[gareth170]

u won't get the full benefit from the cpu because the 9500 and 9600 have 3.6ghz HT in a am+ board. in a am2 board it'll run at 2ghz HT. but other than that it'll work fine.

im not saying there'll be a performance hit when using it in a am2 board. that i don't know...

 

[Mr Paul]

I'd wait until the B3 stepping hits.

 

[Gunni Parker]

I'd wait until the B3 stepping hits.

????

So is the HT is the speed the clock speeds run at? And on certain programmes it will only run in dual core. Is that the same on the Intel CPU's? How do you find out whether most games will make use of all the cores? Because in that case if most applications run with 2 Cores only I my aswell get the 6400 because atleast it will be two cores running at 3.2ghz and not in the case of the Phenom 9600 running at only 4.6ghz! I will only get one if most applicants work on 4 cores is this the case?

 

[Quixote]

1) The issue of what programs use what number of cores is not related to AMD or Intel. It's to do with how many cores a program is coded to be able to use. Some cannot even take advantage a dual core, including many games. Nevertheless there may still be a performance benefit with dual core becuase windows & other applications can run on the 2nd core freeing up more of the 1st core's power for the main task. By the time you have 4 cores, this doesn't really apply because all those smaller tasks were already well taken care of.

2) You can't just multiply the clockspeed by the number of cores. It doesn't work like that. You also cannot compare clockspeed between athlon & phenom. A 2.4 GHZ Phenom will be faster than a 2.4 ghz Athlon, even if it also had 2 cores.

3) For gaming, I would say we've reached the point where it's certainly better to have a dual core than a single core for games. For quad cores we're not even close really.

4) Pretty sure the AM2 vs AM2 + / HT 1000 vs 2000 makes roughly sod all performance difference to Phenom as of yet.

5) He said wait for B3 Phenom chips (Jan?) because there is an error with the first (current) chips. You'd be unlikely to ever encounter it but the fix for it can slow performance a bit. Phenom is early right now but at a good price it's a decent chip. I'm not sure I'd recommend any quad core for gaming purposes yet though.

6) I wouldn't get an Athlon 6400. They're quite a lot more than the 6000 for only a bit more performance.

 

[Mr Paul]

Yes the current B2 stepping is fubared, with the fix enabled you'll loose between 12 and 20% performace.

The new B3 stepping will have this fixed and will clock higher

 

[Gunni Parker]

Ok whats the B3? When is it out? When is the Phenom Black out? and is the B3 compatibilbe with my MOBO?

Soz for asking so many questions!

And cheers for all your help fellas.

 

[TheMorningStar]

The B3 is just a core revision. A few tweeks to the silicone of the cpu basicly. The current Phenom CPUs are not attractive to Overclockers. If you never want to overclock then it does not matter if you buy a Phenom or a Core2Duo at the same or similar clock speed. As there is very little difference from the few reviews I have seen (need to look at that closer tbh)

Anyway the best thing to do would be to wait untill Febuaury and make sure you get a B3 stepping.

Oh and more and more games seem to be utilising multi core CPUs much better. So if given a choice over x2 or x4. Personally I think I would go x4. Just wait a month or two.

TMS

 

[Quixote]

Oh and more and more games seem to be utilising multi core CPUs much better. So if given a choice over x2 or x4. Personally I think I would go x4. Just wait a month or two.

TMS

Only about 2 so far released use quad & that very badly. Depends how long you plan to wait before upgrading. 2-3 years then a quad. Less, a fast dual core for less money. That's for gaming. If you do 3D (like me) or encoding, scientific apps, video editing etc etc then a qaud is well worth it.

Edit : I mean, that's my opinion, I'm not an authority by any means.

 

[Gunni Parker]

Ok I will probably wait for the one in Feb. If I get a new CPU cooler Asus Arctic Square CPU Cooler will that be ok to pop onto my Phenom when I get it?

 

[TheMorningStar]

Only about 2 so far released use quad & that very badly. Depends how long you plan to wait before upgrading. 2-3 years then a quad. Less, a fast dual core for less money. That's for gaming. If you do 3D (like me) or encoding, scientific apps, video editing etc etc then a qaud is well worth it.

Edit : I mean, that's my opinion, I'm not an authority by any means.

I think I was looking at crysis and the charts i was made full utilisation of all 4 cores and also gave quite a performance boost. but i may be wrong.


btw guys could anyone sujest some good reviews on the Phenoms? I would like to see them compared clock for clock with the q6600 (so 2.4ghz each) and I would also like some detailed thermal comparisons too. Overclocking results would also be a bonus regardless of errata. the reviews i have seen have been a little mismached in what they compare.