CPU Help? What to choose?

[mikeo01]

Hi everyone, I will want to upgrade my PC as soon as possible, but before doing that can someone explain and help me in what CPU to choose?

Choices:

Phenom ii x3 8750 2.4 ghz
Athlon ii x3 440 3.0 ghz

I know the architecture for the phenom are better than the Athlons, but because I am on a budget, I can either get an
AM3 Athlon ii x3 clocked at 3.0 Ghz, and use DDR3 RAM..
OR I can get a Triple Core Phenom AM2+ clocked at 2.4 Ghz which only supports DDR2.

The Athlon II x3 440 (one I got my eye on at the moment) unlocks to a quad though... and seen as it is AM3 I have can further upgrade in the future if I wish, which I cannot with an AM2+ board

Either way I will be overclocking the CPU, but say Battlefield 3 (main game I will be running) what would be best?

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!

My budget is only £50, which are the prices for the Athlon and Phenom I saw.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi everyone, I will want to upgrade my PC as soon as possible, but before doing that can someone explain and help me in what CPU to choose?

Choices:

Phenom ii x3 8750 2.4 ghz
Athlon ii x3 440 3.0 ghz

I know the architecture for the phenom are better than the Athlons, but because I am on a budget, I can either get an
AM3 Athlon ii x3 clocked at 3.0 Ghz, and use DDR3 RAM..
OR I can get a Triple Core Phenom AM2+ clocked at 2.4 Ghz which only supports DDR2.

The Athlon II x3 440 (one I got my eye on at the moment) unlocks to a quad though... and seen as it is AM3 I have can further upgrade in the future if I wish, which I cannot with an AM2+ board

Either way I will be overclocking the CPU, but say Battlefield 3 (main game I will be running) what would be best?

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!

My budget is only £50, which are the prices for the Athlon and Phenom I saw.

Your motherboard needs to be able to run DDR3 RAM in the first place. DDR3 and DDR2 RAM slots are not compatible will each other.

The first CPU is a first generation Phenom and the second is based on the later Phenom II. The Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs apart from the Phenom II X4 920 and Phenom II X4 940 can run either DDR2 or DDR3 RAM.

You will need to make sure the BIOS of your motherboard can run an Athlon II first and before installing the CPU you need to upgrade to a compatible BIOS.

For gaming the Athlon II X3 440 is the better choice:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/119?vs=24

[mikeo01]

Yeah the motherboard supports every CPU up to Phenom x6 1100T. Its a Gigabyte M68MT-S2P AM3 board (rev 2.3).

I know the Athlon ii are quite old, but seen as it'll be for gaming and general use I just need something to keep up with games.

Would it be good to unlock the Athlon ii x3 440? I know it won't overclock all that much, but would it definitely be worth it? As there is no L3 cache like there is on the phenom..

thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HT will run a bit slower than normal as the motherboard will not support HT3.0 AFAIK.

However,despite this the Athlon II X3 440 is the better choice. On top of this it will have better power consumption overall when compared to the Phenom X3 8750.

An Athlon II X3 can unlock to either a Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4. However,due to the extra power requirements I would not overclock on your motherboard with a CPU which is unlocked. It would also be a good idea to have an additional fan blowing on the VRM section too.

[mikeo01]

I am not overall concerned about HT, as I doubt it'll make much difference to me.

Looks like I will go for the Athlon II x3, may as well if I can unlock the fourth core.
3.0 Ghz stock clock with a fourth core is fine. Seen as the CPU is 95W I have headroom for overclocking though, even though it won't be stable if I overclock too much. But either way if I want to go back to triple core overclocking is an option.

I have a lot of fans in my case, so cooling shouldn't be a problem

Thanks for your help!

[DanceswithUnix]

If you are lucky and it unlocks to a Phenom II x4, then you may have unlocked it to a 125W part as it now has extra cores & cache to power. If you overclock it as well as unlock, then you could be going from the original 95W part to a 140W part. Most motherboards don't support 140W, hence Cat advising caution.

You may be unlucky and get an extra core that doesn't work.

Frankly though 3 cores at 3GHz should do you, treat anything more as a bonus

[mikeo01]

Fortunately the motherboard I am getting supports 125W.

Yeah the fourth core could be faulty or fine, but either way 3 Ghz is enough .

The only reason I would like to unlock the fourth core is to take advantage of multi-threaded applications.

Yeah I wouldn't overclock much or at all, I no the TDP will increase. Besides if I can I will want to keep the voltage the same, I wouldn't overclock it all that much.

Ah I'll see whats best, OC triple core, or quad core

Also, just another question, will my CPU bottleneck my HD 4870 512MB? Or visa versa

[DanceswithUnix]

There is another possibility, if the motherboard allows selective unlocking of cores. If the core is faulty but the chip is based on a Phenom, then you could go from an Athlon x3 to a Phenom x3 with the 6MB of cache by unlocking the chip and then disabling the extra core

I must admit I enjoy the discovery of what something will unlock to, but then one of my family's machines has a dual core that if I try to unlock it at all the system just hangs. Can't win them all.

[Zak33]

an X3 Athlon is a great chip.

Unless you really love messing on with overclocks and unlocks, just build it with that and game your heart out

a 3gig triple core with some DDR3 is a great great system.

[mikeo01]

Considering I am only really buying it for Battlefield 3 and quicker processing then its all good!

As long as a triple core is enough, like DanceswithUnix said, treat anything else as a bonus

Still would be cool for the unlock, I do enjoy messing around with unlocks, software etc.

Well as long as it'll be a big jump from my AM2 Athlon 64 x2 2.9ghz rubbish low dual core i'll be happy lol.

I usually use Passmark's site for CPU and GPU comparsion, and my old Athlon is in the mid-section, and half way through. The Athlon ii x3 is the lowest of the high end, so fingers crossed it'll run whatever I throw at it fine.

Yeah, I am definitely going for DDR3 no matter what.

I just need a cheapish cooler for the VRM section if I do overclock (well I WILL overclock because its fun basically!)

[mikeo01]

Also, to keep it cool would a Zalman CNPS 5X (New release) do the job? need something to keep it cool for overclocking.

At the moment I have an Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro, keeps my current at 55C (My HD 4870 pushed up the case heat).

Will probably buy some Arctic MX-5 thermal paste too.

Can anyone also tell me why adding side fans actually makes the case heat up more? (2x120mm front, 2x120mm side, 1x120mm rear)

[tieran7890]

Why not get the AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition?

They are cheap and powerful,and you get L3 Cache which the Athlon does'nt,admittidly you will lose a core as its dual core,but some unlock to 4 cores,and if it does'nt you've got a powerfull and overclockabe CPU anyway.

[DanceswithUnix]

Welcome to Hexus.

Unfortunately AMD stopped making the 4 core Phenom chip that the X2 is harvested from some time ago, so they are very hard to find now.

A quick look on Scan and Ebuyer only shows Thurban 6 core and 4 core Phenoms (where the 4 core ones will be 6 core with 2 disabled).

[mikeo01]

Went for the FX-6100 in the end

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Went for the FX-6100 in the end

Could you do a favour??

When you get it,I assume you are re-installing Windows 7??

Is it possible you could do a few benchmarks with and without the patch to see what sort of improvements you get(or not)??

There is virtually no info for the FX4100 and FX6100 with the patch applied.

[mikeo01]

Never tried benchmarking a cpu, what tools could I use to do this?

I have Prime95 installed for benchmark, any other tools available? Futuremark, passmark?

Would personally like to see the performance boost also if there is any too