FX-6300 Or Phenom II x4 965 BE Or Phenom II x6 1045T

[mikeo01]

Phenom received, first thing I noticed straight away is that it feels like a stock FX-6100. Also I haven't got any thermal paste left but this thing runs cooler at stock than a stock FX-6100 also

Should I get AC MX-2, AC MX-4 or Silver 5? That is in price ascending order.
I used to use MX-2, because it hasn't got any conducting materials in it and also because its not thick and messy like the old Zalman ST paste I used (that stuff is awful).

EDIT:
Thats embarrassing, just ran Cinebench. FX-6100 at 3302Ghz gets a score of 3.97. My stock 1045T at 2.7 Ghz gets 4.68.
My FX-6100 at 4.02Ghz gets a score of 4.87. So in other words, I need to run my FX-6100 at around 3.9Ghz to beat a Phenom 1.2Ghz slower.

Ideally I can run this Phenom at 3Ghz and it'll be just like running an FX at 4.2Ghz. Its nice enough for me

I am impressed with this Phenom I know Cinebench is just raw performance and not a real indication of performance, but still nice to benchmark using it.

I also know the chip instructions are different and depending on the architecture and yield different results. I know it isn't an exactly fair test but it does still show something

[mikeo01]

At 1100T speeds I get 5.96, that beats my previous score of 5.53 by an unstable 4.6Ghz clocked FX-6100.

Upped the clock to 3.80, get 6.75 score.

Also, can memory effect FSB overclocking? I read even if you decrease the clock speed on your RAM the bus can still be too fast for the RAM to handle. Is this true?

Either way, I am so glad I got this chip, its so easy to overclock compared to my FX and gives better results. Feels a lot smoother.

FX chips can wait, I think my 6100 put me off
This phenom really is more power efficient, because to get performance of my 1045T I would need to overclock it, which would make it above its rated TDP of 95W, so in theory performance vs power consumption per clock this Phenom is more efficient?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

At 1100T speeds I get 5.96, that beats my previous score of 5.53 by an unstable 4.6Ghz clocked FX-6100.

Upped the clock to 3.80, get 6.75 score.

Also, can memory effect FSB overclocking? I read even if you decrease the clock speed on your RAM the bus can still be too fast for the RAM to handle. Is this true?

Either way, I am so glad I got this chip, its so easy to overclock compared to my FX and gives better results. Feels a lot smoother.

FX chips can wait, I think my 6100 put me off
This phenom really is more power efficient, because to get performance of my 1045T I would need to overclock it, which would make it above its rated TDP of 95W, so in theory performance vs power consumption per clock this Phenom is more efficient?

Piledriver is more power efficient though. Things like CB,play a bit more to the strengths of the Phenom II X6,although if you look at something like gaming the newer CPUs are better.

If you look at reviews the FX8350 consumes much less power than a FX8150 overclocked and even the Phenom II X6 1100T.

Have a look through these reviews:

http://www.techspot.com/review/586-amd-fx-8350-fx-6300/
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Process...a-Breaks-Cover
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages..._review,1.html
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...00-review.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Core-i...shera-1032556/

The FX6300 is a 95W TDP CPU and the Phenom II X4 980BE and Phenom II X6 1100T are 125W TDP CPUs.

[mikeo01]

Though according to hardware canucks clock to clock the Phenoms are quicker compared to Piledriver. But then a lot of reviews do show Piledriver ahead.

Yeah I know they are now a bit better in gaming, but basically its as if I have bought the old FX-8120 because this Phenom performs closely to it which is impressive.

I think I am going to hold off AMD for a while until they bring out something much much better than the Phenoms.

Though can I ask something, what makes a chip consume more power? I thought it was directly related to voltage. I followed Golden Dragoons thread on overclocking his 1045T and he managed a massive 1.1Ghz overclock on stock voltage, does this mean the Pchip consumes any more power? Because it is using the same voltage just clocked faster?

EDIT: Though once overclocked the FX-8320 consumes a lot:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...x4300-tested/8

Once the quad core FX-4300 is overclocked it jumps into FX-8320 territory.

My 1045T is 95W and can be clocked to 1100T speeds with no voltage boost. What effect does that have on power consumption?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Though according to hardware canucks clock to clock the Phenoms are quicker compared to Piledriver.

Yeah I know they are now a bit better in gaming, but basically its as if I have bought the old FX-8120 because this Phenom performs closely to it which is impressive.

I think I am going to hold off AMD for a while until they bring out something much much better than the Phenoms.

Clock for clock is not relevant though,as the PD CPUs outclock both BD and the Phenom II.

The Phenom II X6 1100T runs at 3.7GHZ across three cores in some of those games. At most the FX6300 has a 10 to 12% clockspeed advantage. Considering that a FX6300 will outclock a Phenom II X6 1100T while consuming less power in most games now,it is better regarding performance/watt too.

Piledriver outguns evolved Phenom II cores at the mobile level in performane/watt on the same 32NM node,so its not really surprising.

Though can I ask something, what makes a chip consume more power? I thought it was directly related to voltage. I followed Golden Dragoons thread on overclocking his 1045T and managed a massive 1.1Ghz overclock on stock voltage, does this mean the Phenom consumes any more power? Because it is using the same voltage just clocked faster?

Yes and remember Golden Dragoon has very good cooling. You need to make sure the Phenom II X6 is under 62C too,and make sure you are reading the right temperatures too,then you can see if you can push the overclock a bit more.

[mikeo01]

But then the only reason and advantage PD has over PHII is that it can outclock it. Its raw performance is only marginally better than BD also. Because it is more efficient it can clock higher.

So the only real benefit going to PD is if you do overclock it, though to be perfectly fair I am contradicting myself PD is an improvement over BD, and PD beats Phenom. So if you bought a BD chip, your in the middle sitting between PhII and PD with either giving little performance differences.

Also, I thought the FX-6300 would consume a lot of power looking at the charts over at Anandtech, seen as the FX-4300 does consume a lot once overclocked.

Why is it that 1100T is 125W and 1045T is only 95W? If its only being fed a specific amount of voltage surely it would not consume more power?

I do admit PD is much better, and they have improved by a lot, but over BD Phenoms do win there. PD is a reasonable upgrade from Phenom, but not considerable enough to fork out extra money for in my opinion as Phenoms are much cheaper now.

I think the next big surprise will be Steamroller as AMD has had time to get things right with PD, learnt from BD so fingers crossed Steamroller will be a bigger improvement.

Also yeah I am running OCCT now with 3.8Ghz overclock, CPU temp (not core temp) is hitting 51c, bare in mind I don't have any thermal paste, mine ran out so I suspect a couple of degrees lower. vcore is at 1.296 and motherboard temperature is at 21c. CPU NB is at 1.2500 but droop is caused it to drop to 1.1 which is good.

Obviously I don't consider this stable just yet, only been running 35 minutes. RAM is lowered to a mere 1122mhz timings 8:8:8:20. Though my RAM can run at 1600mhz at 10:9:9:24 which is reasonable. So fingers crossed!

Also, I tried to overclock using FSB on my FX before I sold it off (obviously dropped the multi to test FSB only) and 280 seemed to be the limit. That doesn't mean its my chip or my board, but it held off at that which to be honest is very nice.

See what we can get this chip to I think its the first version, Model:A stepping: 0.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

EDIT: Though once overclocked the FX-8320 consumes a lot:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...x4300-tested/8

Once the quad core FX-4300 is overclocked it jumps into FX-8320 territory.

My 1045T is 95W and can be clocked to 1100T speeds with no voltage boost. What effect does that have on power consumption?

You mean the FX8350??

The Phenom II X6 consumes a lot too when overclocked.



Overclocked FX4300 power consumption is in the same territory as the Phenom II X4 CPUs such as the Phenom II X4 965BE.

Also, I thought the FX-6300 would consume a lot of power looking at the charts I posted over at Anandtech, seen as the FX-4300 does consume once overclocked.

No,it does not.

Look here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?p=23156790

That chap has a worse motherboard than you and a not a very expensive cooler.

He got to 4.4GHZ and he is nowhere near 60C.

[mikeo01]

No the FX-4300 apparently consumes a lot once overclocked: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...x4300-tested/8

Wow, thats a big slap in the face. I didn't know it was that high.

In that case, maybe the FX-8320 is a bit better in terms of power consumption!

EDIT: OC failed, going to up my voltage a bit to see.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

No the FX-4300 apparently consumes a lot once overclocked: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...x4300-tested/8

Wow, thats a big slap in the face. I didn't know it was that high.

In that case, maybe the FX-8320 is a bit better in terms of power consumption!

EDIT: OC failed, going to up my voltage a bit to see.

No,it does not. The FX8300 series are 125W TDP class CPUs. The same as the following CPUs:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CP-244-AM

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CP-253-AM

The FX4300 overclocked is probably consuming no more power in reality than a Phenom II X4 955BE or 965BE when at stock clockspeeds.

The FX8300 series are in the same ballpark as the 125W TDP Phenom II X6 CPUs.

I have already did a Phenom II X6 1045T based build last year,and a mate is getting an FX6300 soon to replaced an Athlon II X3 they have.

Edit!!

How can a FX4300 or FX6300 overclocked consume more power than the FX8300 series CPUs??

[mikeo01]

But then what if you look at the Phenom II x4 840? If you overclocked that wouldn't it reach 125W territory?
If you take a lower TDP chip and clock it higher.

If you take a Phenom II x6 125W chip and clock it it'll consume a lot more obviously, but then what I am trying to get at is if overclocking a 95W it'll give better results in terms of power consumption? Surely if I clocked my 1045T to 1100T speeds it wouldn't suddenly jump past 125W? Would it? sure hope not.

That is why I always go for lower TDP because I know theres head room.


The Opteron 3200 series will be a game changer though they look good. I saw it fits in AM3+


EDIT:
I don't know ask anandtech on their charts it states that an overclocked FX-4300 can jump into the stock FX-8300 power consumption zone. It is on the bottom of that link I posted.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The TDP will increase as will power consumption,but it might slightly better than a Phenom II X6 1100T,although I expect the latter might have slightly more headroom.

The 840 lacks L3 cache so is an Athlon II X4. You do need consider the FX6300 is giving FX6200 level performance already while consuming less power and being in a 95W TDP class and not a 125W TDP one,and at least from all signs I can see, overclocked power consumption is just massively better for all PD CPUs when compared to BD. The sad thing is too many think BD power consumption equals PD power consumption when overclocked,which is not the case.

I don't know ask anandtech on their charts it states that an overclocked FX-4300 can jump into the stock FX-8300 power consumption zone. It is on the bottom of that link I posted.

I have mates who have overclocked and unlocked Athlon II X3 CPUs,which probably show similar power consumption rises when this done. You overclock an Athlon II X4 too,I would expect the same.

[mikeo01]

But that also depends on what voltage it runs at and its rated TDP which determines power consumption? So if you underclocked either chip one may be more efficient than the other?

But yeah I agree, FX-4300 and FX-6300 will have more headroom, and AMD has gone a good job reducing the power consumption there.
I forgot the FX-6200 was 125W! It is an impressive chip at stock.

Also, my bad, I didn't realise the 840 was basically an Athlon II x4, that is out of the question. So there isn't any 95W rated x4s? Except the efficient 910e, but I bet you could get that up to 965be speeds without going over 100W TDP.

EDIT:
So reviews may not necessarily be accurate. So it is quite difficult to see how much a chip will consume.
I know PD is more power efficient, but I wouldn't of thought it is that much better. They have managed to clock their chip higher and improve the architectural side of things, but all in all it is still a tweaked BD chip. So I assumed PD would consume slightly less, but not by a massive margin.

It's quite difficult to find real power consumption results.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The only 95W Phenom II X4 which has been easy to find was the 960T. This is basically a Phenom II X6 with two cores deactivated and has a unlocked multiplier.

The thing is the Athlon II X3,Athlon II X4 and Phenom II X3 and Phenom II X4 all required a reasonable motherboard to get a decent overclock,unless you were doing something more milder.

However,I would also look at CPU-NB overclocking on your Phenom II X6,rather than going for a straight CPU overclock. However,your 1333MHZ RAM might be the limitation here.

EDIT:
So reviews may not necessarily be accurate. So it is quite difficult to see how much a chip will consume.
I know PD is more power efficient, but I wouldn't of thought it is that much better. They have managed to clock their chip higher and improve the architectural side of things, but all in all it is still a tweaked BD chip. So I assumed PD would consume slightly less, but not by a massive margin.

It's quite difficult to find real power consumption results.

The thing is PD found itself into notebooks unlike BD and generally beat Husky in performance/watt which was the ultimate evolution of the K10 line.

Even the Phenom II X4 started as having relatively high power consumption.

On top of this the process has improved as has IPC of the CPU. Things like Turbo are probably far more effective now too. Bugs in BD have also been fixed. Look at DiRT3 where BD crashes in performance and PD does not.

[mikeo01]

Yeah it was code named Zosma, locked down Thuban chip which people wanted to get their hands on, I can see why.

Yeah I was going to try that out, was firstly getting the core clock up and get that stable to rule out any other problems causing instability.

I thought the RAM may be a limitation, but as long as the timings are loose it shouldn't be too much an issue. It can run at 1600mhz with loose timings.

My CPU NB is at 2200Mhz at the moment, which is the max my HT link can handle. My CPU NB voltage is 1.125 (1.100 by droop) so may have to up this. But I must say, I am happy to have it running under its max rated voltage.
Helps stop the chip degrading and over heating. which is nice. I think my board was designed around overclocking the Phenom to be fair, because it came out way before BD. Only until now the new revisions of my BIOS could handle the FX processor.

Ideally I want to get my Zalman CNPS 10X and MX-2 on this thing to really cool it down, I have upped the voltage and its hitting 56c now which makes me a bit uncomfortable.

But for 3.8Ghz its holding in there

I am very surprised to see my motherboard topping out at 21C. My fan is blowing air on it to be fair, but its holding up quite nicely.


EDIT:

The thing is PD found itself into notebooks unlike BD and generally beat Husky in performance/watt which was the ultimate evolution of the K10 line.

Even the Phenom II X4 started as having relatively high power consumption.

On top of this the process has improved as has IPC of the CPU. Bugs in BD have also been fixed.

Though wasn't BD pulled from the old Opterons, they had low TDP rating but because AMD upped the clock that upped the power by a good margin? If I am correct.

PD is definitely a step in the right direction. AMD will be a winner once they can sort out their power consumption issues, because it has the multi-threaded performance, it has the overclocking potential and it definitely has the best pricing, now all it needs is its single threaded sorted out and power consumption and it will be more appealing.

But those new Opterons 3200 series for desktops rated at such low TDP will be exciting

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

EDIT:


Though wasn't BD pulled from the old Opterons, they had low TDP rating but because AMD upped the clock that upped the power by a good margin? If I am correct.

PD is definitely a step in the right direction. AMD will be a winner once they can sort out their power consumption issues, because it has the multi-threaded performance, it has the overclocking potential and it definitely has the best pricing, now all it needs is its single threaded sorted out and power consumption and it will be more appealing.

But those new Opterons 3200 series for desktops rated at such low TDP will be exciting

BD made it into Opterons. The problem is that,even CPUs like the 95W TDP version of the BD based FX8120 never made it to retail and was only for OEM desktops.

Then there is the FX8300:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldo...20FX-8300.html

With the general IPC improvements,it is basically an FX8150 in a 95W TDP class CPU,with probably more consistent performance too.

Anyway,ignoring the FX CPUs for one moment,Trinity does show a decent improvement over Llano in performance/watt:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/.../perf-watt.gif

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/...perf-watt2.gif

If only AMD had access to something like 22NM or 20NM now!!

[mikeo01]

So BD was kind of like new/opteron technology.

Yeah I was also looking at Trinity not long ago and they seem much better than LLano in terms of performance and power consumption. They're still not quite there because like you said, they're still stuck at 32nm.

Pain for people who are stuck on Llano because of the socket incompatibilities

Do you know when/if AMD are going to move to 22nm?

I have no idea how Intel manage to get such good performance at such a small chip die, they're not stopping to go lower either.

AMD has come a long way for such a small company.

UPDATE:
Running at 1.320 vcore at 3.8Ghz, it seems stable for now.
Next up will be the CPU NB

EDIT:
Massive ouch, I didn't realise just how much an effect CPU NB does have on Phenoms performance. I will get it up to 2500Mhz, though I may be able to push it further let see