• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Would you consider a move from a 9950 to Deneb a sound move?

Luxor

Luxor

Luxor

Associate
Joined
22 Jul 2007
Posts
473
Location
Cheshire
Hi, I bought a quad 9950BE based system quite cheap (£250!) a few months ago and stuck it in a Antec 300 case.

It's great, fab performance in the latest games and Vista flies.

At the time I didn't realise that the 45nm native quad denebs and i7's were coming out near christmas and the new year.

What I'm considering doing is selling the kit in it's new case, which hopefully I should get plenty more than what I paid for it and purchasing a Phenom II components in January/Early feb.

I don't tend to buy a new PC for a few years so want to try and future proof my CPU as much as possible. Obviously the GPU would need a few revisions to keep up.

Have I just got the system building bug and the performance gains wouldn't be worth it? :) Or would this be a shrewd move...

Just wondering peoples thoughts
 
As i said in another thread, Westmere - the 32nm die-shrink of Nehelam will be out around next December, i would wait until then before dipping your toes into the i7 world. The socket 1366 motherboards will be better and cheaper, and DDR3 tri-channel will also be more affordable too. That and you will get better clocks (fingers crossed).
 
Fair comments guys. Coming from a single core Athlon 3200+ my 9950 certainly feels as though it will give me enough bang for the forseeable. It certainly runs cool as well, with speedfan telling me the idle core is 28C, which should help it make a long lasting processor.

I'll watch developments over the next year+ and see what happens with pricing and technology then.

Cheers for the responses.
 
Last edited:
I'd upgrade my GFX card next if i were you Luxor - that 9600GT isnt bad but unless you need the HDMI out i'd go for either a high end card like a 4870X2 or something mid-range that will still go like the clappers, like an 8800GT.
 
Yep, that sounds like a good idea SMN, I'll probably change the graphics card early in the new year. Just before Empire: Total War comes out no doubt :) The 4870x2 looks excellent and I'll have a look at prices/specs of cards nearer the time.
 
You can always sell your 9950BE and drop in a deneb if you really want. But the chances are you wont need the extra little speed.

A lot of people upgrade for *** sake of it rather, than any real world reasons.
 
I would wait if i were you as well. Might be slightly better but not that much to go and spend a fair amount of cash on.

Most core2 quad users are in the same boat with the I7. Personally i will be waiting and only upgrading when we start to see more than 4 cores now as i use a decent Q9550 Quad @ 3.6ghz. Then i will change maybe to 6cores.

McT
 
No point Luxor.

The Denebs that are coming are AM2+ ones, not AM3. Edit : In January that is.

The roadmap for the year has the highest speed chip at 3Ghz, you're on 2.6Ghz, so you're looking at a 15% clock for clock increase. There should be more room for overclocking in the newer ones, especially the 945 (Q2/Q3 I think), rather than the 940. There will also be other increases in the Phenom II over Phenom I, other than clock speed. But you're looking at most at 20% before overclocking, and any gains including overclocking are in the bush, not in the hand.

What I'd suggest is waiting until AMD kill off the AM2+ socket, and buying the latest and greatest CPU for that, and then later you can move to AM3 socket with the same CPU, but by that time the fabs in the far east will more capacity for DDR3 and you'll see cheaper RAM available. You'd want a minimum of 6GB on a DDR3 platform, and at the moment that's over 200 quid. DDR3 platform motherboards are also considerably more expensive than DDR2 platform.

Of course AMD may not release anything faster than 3Ghz on AM2+. In that case you move to AM3 whenever you like. For 939 the fastest chips were out for quite a while before the socket got killed off. AMD do need a value platform for Dell etc to use, the only possible platform is AM2, so that'll be around for a while. It's just unclear what's going to happen to it.

Personally I'm getting a 940 Phenom II as soon as they come out, but that's because I'm still on 939.
 
Thanks for that Halk, It certainly makes sense.

I'm happy staying with the 9950 and as you and others have said, it's not worth the trouble to upgrade. I'll see how far AMD go with the AM2+ platform and how AM3 pans out and take it from there.

Good luck with your Phenom 940. :)
 
Last edited:
all am3 cpu's will work in a am2+ motherboard, so no need to upgrade to a am3 motherboard if your not interested in ddr3...

The Halk said:
What I'd suggest is waiting until AMD kill off the AM2+ socket, and buying the latest and greatest CPU for that, and then later you can move to AM3 socket with the same CPU,.
Click to expand...
am2+ cpu's won't work in a am3 motherboard
 
Last edited:
DominicStar said:
Agreed, you only need to read this forum and others to see that.

My PC is usually running things at 20fps before I get around to it. Usually involves a near complete system build! :eek:
Click to expand...

Ditto :)

Its far more enjoyable that way, the perofrmance difference is astounding in most cases.

Went from a Athlon 64 3200+ to the Core 2, and from an X800 to a HD3850 512.

Loved the performance difference
 
gareth170 said:
all am3 cpu's will work in a am2+ motherboard, so no need to upgrade to a am3 motherboard if your not interested in ddr3...


am2+ cpu's won't work in a am3 motherboard
Click to expand...

That's true. But AM3 CPUs will work in an AM2+ motherboard, and any Denebs after January will come with both memory controllers fitted. So when I said latest and greatest, I meant the best processor that still works on AM2+.
 
Last edited:
The Halk said:
That's true. But AM3 CPUs will work in an AM2+ motherboard, and any Denebs after January will come with both memory controllers fitted. So when I said latest and greatest, I meant the best processor that still works on AM2+.
Click to expand...
yeah thats what i said all AM3 CPUs will work in an AM2+ motherboard :D

i thought u mean buy the latest and greatest cpu for the am2+ and if he choose to upgrade to a am3 motherboard he could the same cpu...

but it won't work....

the only deneb cpu's that have both memory controllers are the am3 ones. none of the am2+ demeb cpus will have both memory controllers.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom