Phenom II X2 550 BE

[trekiej]

Has anyone here ran one of these?
I am thinking of buying one this year to replace my AMD 235e (TDP 45 Watt).
I have classes on Second Life and it hits 100 percent on my cpu meter more than I care for it too.
If not this one, which quad core do you think I should get?
I am wondering if my MainBoard is the culprit. It is an AM2+ ,I think.
The computer is an Emachines ET 1331 G 03w.
I like this little machine,
it came with 6 gigs of ram, that rarely gets fully used,
a 650 gig hd.
I add(ed) a Geforce GT240, I like (the) card, but want to get the software to over clock some day.
I also added a 400 Watt PS.
I will probably add a 650-700 watt ps when I go to Phenom.
Thanks.

[trekiej]

Thanks everyone:
FWIW:
Here are my scores.
Proc       6.3
Mem        7.1
Graphics  6.8
Game Graph 6.8
HardDrive 5.9
I do have a GF GT240, I feel it is worth what I paid for it.
I had built in graphics.
There is SecondLife 1.23.xx and then there is SL Beta 2.x.y.
Beta 2 seems to  support multi-core cpu, my frame rate is 30 to 60 fps, all over the place.
It seems to be diff. for each up date. Flash, I do not know.

UnrealTournament 3 runs 50-60 fps, old software new comp. It has Nvidia support, I do believe PhysX.
edit: this is at 1600 x 900 resolution
I was hopping that the L3 would be worth it.
The price is good, about 100.00 US dollar.
I want a 635e, quad core with 45 W tdp, I do believe.
I think it is a DDR board.
The board is an HT2000. version 2.2 I think. Hard to find info. It is an AM3 chip.

[trekiej]

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.

[trekiej]

I do agree with that some, but not for a high cpu load.

[trekiej]

Thanks

[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

[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.

[trekiej]

The three cores get me too.

[trekiej]

What cooling system do you recommend?
I believe the Athlon II X4 runs 95w tdp.
My system had a 300 watt ps, then I went to 400 watt ps when I added a PNY Geforce GT 240.
Do I need to add a larger PS? I was going to go to 600 or 700 watts.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/processors/athlon-ii-x2/Pages/AMD-athlon-ii-x2-processor-model-numbers-feature-comparison.aspx

[trekiej]

thanks, looking to get a corsair or antec brand 650 watt ps.

[trekiej]

This summer SL may no longer be a priority.
Upgrading may have to wait.

[trekiej]

This might be an interesting project. Use a quad core machine to emulate 4 parts of the the Amiga. One for cpu and the rest for custom chips. I think this has been thought of before for multi-cpu system.

[trekiej]

I believe I asked about that a while back. I think he said it was not possible.
It would be cool to make a c program of each chip and then use get them to talk to each other, maybe use Arex.
I heard of making applications with scripting languages that tie or bind c programs together.

[trekiej]

As Yoda might say, a good power supply you need. Skimp not.

[trekiej]

I plan to buy the chip first, but hope it does no damage by any overloading.