Phenom II X2 550 BE

[the_leander]

Why would you upgrade the PSU? You could fit 2 Phenoms X4 into 400W...

EDIT: @ the_leander: Actually, Black editions use the same amount of juice as the non BE versions, they only have unlocked multiplier. It's when you start overclocking, potential heat-related problems might appear, but that's what you meant, I guess...

The last BE chip I saw reviewed on el reg had a draw of 160W at full tilt in order to punch it up to the speeds it was running at. Going from ~45W up to that, especially in a small case, means checking and double checking that the case can supply enough airflow to keep the beast from burning.

The regular chips which actually use less juice then my old Athlon64 (socket 754?) from back in the day.

[koshman]

I'm positive that those 160W was the full system, the BE editions really have the same rating as the regular Phenoms.
Of course, I totally agree with the cooling being a possible problem when going from a lower CPU to a more powerful one.

[the_leander]

I'm positive that those 160W was the full system, the BE editions really have the same rating as the regular Phenoms.
Of course, I totally agree with the cooling being a possible problem when going from a lower CPU to a more powerful one.

I'll dig up the review if I can find it, though thinking about it I believe it was an AM3 part so possibly not applicable.

It was "AMD's fastest ever processor" (aren't they all?) and looked to be able to go toe to toe with i5's. Only using about double the power of the regular part...

[koshman]

Well, if it was "AMD's fastest ever processor" then you're probably right and 160W sounds not so unrealistic. I though we were mostly still speaking about the Phenom II X2 550 BE

[the_leander]

Well, if it was "AMD's fastest ever processor" then you're probably right and 160W sounds not so unrealistic. I though we were mostly still speaking about the Phenom II X2 550 BE

Looking over the specs of that particular part it's clearly not the one I read about on el reg. Probably some limited edition part that just happened to have the BE as part of its name.

Ho hum.

[Karlos]

I switched to intel when the Core 2 architecture came out, having been an AMD user since the K6-II days. It felt dirty at the time, but I have to admit, I haven't regretted it.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable, where AMD overtakes intel again. It's like a 2 man relay race.

[ElPolloDiabl]

I saw a Youtube video of the i7 980X, the heatsink on it is massive.

I always try to get close to double the cpu power before upgrading. Otherwise I feel like I just spent money for no good reason.

If I remember right... flash has graphics card acceleration on Wintel boxes, but not yet on Macs.

[Jose]

There were some Phenom2 X3's that could be unlocked to 4 cores and were stable. This only worked with some motherboards and didn't always work, some couldn't even boot, others couldn't be overclocked much, yet others could be overclocked much!
This was a few months ago, when I got a X3 don't know how things are now. Sadly mine is not able to even boot but I find the X3 more than enough for everything. I don't do 3D design/games but that would depend more on the gfx card.
The DD3 memory at 1600Mhz gives a nice boost in performance and the Phenom2's cache seems to have solved the problems that plagued the Phenom1.

[koshman]

@ Jose: try updating your BIOS. A lot of the cheaper 770/785G mobos had problems when ACC was enabled even when the chip itself was not faulty (4th core only disabled) - they usually wouldn't even POST with the original BIOS when ACC was enabled. I've heard lots of reports where a newer BIOS revision solved this problem.

[bbond007]

I switched to intel when the Core 2 architecture came out, having been an AMD user since the K6-II days. It felt dirty at the time, but I have to admit, I haven't regretted it.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable, where AMD overtakes intel again. It's like a 2 man relay race.

Same here. I had the 400mhz K6-III. Wow. that was the first system I had that could play back a DVD full frame-rate. Then I got the 800 Athlon. Then a 2700+. Now I really don't use regular desktop computers anymore.

[mikeymike]

I'm just waiting for the inevitable, where AMD overtakes intel again. It's like a 2 man relay race.

Bear in mind that the latter-day Pentium 4s (around the 3GHz mark, before and during prescott core) were a tactical disaster for Intel, and finally brought to an end the idea that the higher the GHz, the faster the processor.  I think it needs Intel to make a mistake of that magnitude again for them to lose the performance crown a second time.

The only other factor that might make a difference is how Intel's anti-competitive behaviour against AMD has been brought to an end, for now.  However, that end would have been to AMD's greatest advantage when the Athlon 64 was ruling the roost.

AMD buying ATi has proved to be an advantage for AMD since they started putting discrete graphics chipsets on-board, it helps them sell their wares as the value-for-money choice, but considering that the Intel Core 2 Quad still gives the best AMD has a run for their money, AMD has a lot of catching up to do.

[KThunder]

My AMD socket 754 2800+ has a hard time with SL. It had 2 Gig Ram and a GF FX5200 video card.
I was running Vista then.
I am not the only one that has problems with SecondLife.
I do have a large cache size and sometimes is does appear to "calm down" later on.
Sorry, I have Win7, forgot to mention it.

Sorry I'm jumping in kinda late here but I just got a good am2+ board for pretty cheap I saw this thread on the Phenom II chip, which I have considered, since I'm running a single core athlon 64 right now.

Anyway I have a GF fx5200 card as well as a 6200 and a 8 series and I must say that the 5200 chokes on shader 2 code really bad. It's not to bad at shader 1.0 stuff but not too hot. If you are having trouble with Second Life it probably isn't your cpu it's probably the gpu. I think second life recomends a 6600 which probably means it uses shader 2 code.

[the_leander]

Bear in mind that the latter-day Pentium 4s (around the 3GHz mark, before and during prescott core) were a tactical disaster for Intel, and finally brought to an end the idea that the higher the GHz, the faster the processor.  I think it needs Intel to make a mistake of that magnitude again for them to lose the performance crown a second time.

The only other factor that might make a difference is how Intel's anti-competitive behaviour against AMD has been brought to an end, for now.  However, that end would have been to AMD's greatest advantage when the Athlon 64 was ruling the roost.

AMD buying ATi has proved to be an advantage for AMD since they started putting discrete graphics chipsets on-board, it helps them sell their wares as the value-for-money choice, but considering that the Intel Core 2 Quad still gives the best AMD has a run for their money, AMD has a lot of catching up to do.

Their 12 core chips however are something else altogether though. So far as I can see, Intel has nothing that can touch them in terms of raw processing power at anything like the price.

[trekiej]

I guess I need to go to the SL forums again to find out what they do.
I did log on to SL Beta 2 last night and it seems to calm down some if I sit a while.
If I go walking around the quad of the school it seems to put me back up to 100%, then it seems to calm down again.
I did adjust the video settings and it acted like it helped.
I think I will log on again to see how it feels.
lol

[Jose]

@koshman
"@ Jose: try updating your BIOS. A lot of the cheaper 770/785G mobos had problems when ACC was enabled even when the chip itself was not faulty (4th core only disabled) - they usually wouldn't even POST with the original BIOS when ACC was enabled. I've heard lots of reports where a newer BIOS revision solved this problem."

Tried everything already, thanks for the suggestions. I have an AsRock M3A790GXH which has the 790GX chipset. Got it by luck on eBay for 50€ around 6 months ago almost as an accident! It's normally listed as a board which can unlock the 4th core and has the right southbridge to do it.
AsRock has now new top of the range AM3 board so I guess they'll now stop adding "features" to the previous models...

José

[trekiej]

I decided to go  quad-core. It seems Second Life Beta 2 is using both cores. This summer I do not think I will need SL beta 2.
I plan to go with an Athlon II X4 630 or similar.
I posted on SL forums and quad-core seems to be the way to go.