Which of these CPUs is the best?

[Zero X]

I'm planning on getting a better CPU for gaming purposes. I've been trying to compare the following CPUs so far:

AMD Phenom-II X6 1055T 2.8GHz 6MB AM3 Box
AMD Athlon-II X2 250 3.0GHz 2MB AM3 Box
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition

All 3 of them should fit in an AM2+ mainboard if i'm not mistaken. My current CPU is: QuadCore AMD Phenom X4 Black Edition 9600, 2300 MHz (11.5 x 200)

I've checked cpubenchmark.net and the Phenom X6 had the best score there. The scores were:

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T: 5618
AMD Phenom II X2 550: 1886
AMD Athlon II X2 250: 1707

You can check it yourself if you want. I even checked the ratings for my current CPU and this is what i got:

AMD Phenom 9600 Quad-Core: 2438

So my current CPU scores even better than the two dual cores i listed, but that can still be purely because it's a Quad Core. But since games mostly use 2 cores at max, either of the two could still be better. That's why I need help in selecting the best of the 3

So when it comes to getting the best results in games, which of the 3 CPUs i listed is the best? Anyone got ideas?

[Ulti]

I'd say Phenom II X2 550 would be the "best" for games that don't utilize more than 2 cores due to the newer Phenom II architecture as well as the higher clock speeds and cache possibly. Phenom II X6 1055T would be the best for games that use more than 2 cores. Theoretically, if the architecture of the Phenom II X6 1055T and the Phenom II X2 550 are the same, then the 0.3ghz difference shouldn't make much of a difference and they should both overclock to about the same speed.

At the end of the day though, it's more down to the graphics card than the CPU so it might be better to upgrade the graphics card and keep the CPU for now?

Didn't really answer your question but an opinion is an opinion.

Any reason why you won't go for the Phenom II 955/965?

[Champman99]

The Athlon II you listed is not a bad chip for a low budget gaming PC but I dont think it would be a worthwhile upgrade for you.

The Phenom II 550 is quite a nice chip, and also many of them will unlock to an extra one or two cores depending on the individual chip and your motherboard chipset.

You are right in thinking that alot of games arent going to get benefit from all the cores, but I'd still argue the hex core was the "best" chip there, you should be able to reach around the same clockspeed with any of them if you have decent cooling. In a recent issue CPC got a 1055 up to 4ghz.

Also again depending on your motherboard and if you dont fancy manual overclocking, the hex cores feature automatic turbo-boost overclocking, wherby some of the cores are turned off in exchange for the remaining cores getting a clock speed bump.

6 cores all at 4ghz seems tasty to me!

[Zero X]

I'd say Phenom II X2 550 would be the "best" for games that don't utilize more than 2 cores due to the newer Phenom II architecture as well as the higher clock speeds and cache possibly. Phenom II X6 1055T would be the best for games that use more than 2 cores. Theoretically, if the architecture of the Phenom II X6 1055T and the Phenom II X2 550 are the same, then the 0.3ghz difference shouldn't make much of a difference and they should both overclock to about the same speed.

At the end of the day though, it's more down to the graphics card than the CPU so it might be better to upgrade the graphics card and keep the CPU for now?

Didn't really answer your question but an opinion is an opinion.

Any reason why you won't go for the Phenom II 955/965?

Never really thought about looking for other CPUs. The Phenom X6 and Athlon X2 were available at the same store where i bought the pc from and the Phenom X2 was one recommendation of a friend. I didn't take a look at other CPUs yet that could be even better, but I guess I can take the 955/965 in consideration. However, it scores lower than the X6 at cpubenchmark

Upgrading the graphics card isnt an option yet, becuase another friend is using a card that is supposed to be less powerful than mine but yet he still has better performance than i have. His CPU however was seemingly better, so that's why I try upgrading the CPU first

The Athlon II you listed is not a bad chip for a low budget gaming PC but I dont think it would be a worthwhile upgrade for you.

The Phenom II 550 is quite a nice chip, and also many of them will unlock to an extra one or two cores depending on the individual chip and.

You are right in thinking that alot of games arent going to get benefit from all the cores, but I'd still argue the hex core was the "best" chip there, you should be able to reach around the same clockspeed with any of them if you have decent cooling. In a recent issue CPC got a 1055 up to 4ghz.

Also again depending on your motherboard and if you dont fancy manual overclocking, the hex cores feature automatic turbo-boost overclocking, wherby some of the cores are turned off in exchange for the remaining cores getting a clock speed bump.

6 cores all at 4ghz seems tasty to me!

My mainboard's an MSI K9A2GM V3 (MS-7302). Is that good enough for the X6 CPU or 955/965 like Ulti mentioned? By the way, I don't neccessarily need to overclock it. As good as it sounds, i tend not to overclock. Got little trust in it, especially in summers

[Ulti]

If you want stock performance then I'd definitely choose Phenom II 550/555 or Phenom II X4 955/965. I don't think the stock performance of the hex cores is worth it for gaming alone.

If this (http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=pr...1&prod_no=1572) is the motherboard you have then you won't be able to upgrade to any of the processors you listed apart from the Athlon X2 as it doesn't support AM3 processors with a TDP higher than 65W.

If you have the Phenom 9600 at stock then it's probably bottlenecking your graphics card, just out of interest, what is your system and what is your friends system? To be honest though an Athlon X2 250 will probably be faster than your Phenom 9600 at stock in games as I've heard the original Phenom series was pretty poor.

Here's a review that shows Phenom 965 vs 1055T: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/a...55t-reviewed/9

EDIT: Here's a nice review to compare the processors: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/981/12/

[Zero X]

I'll just use xfire and everest to make a quick rig

Processor: QuadCore AMD Phenom X4 Black Edition 9600, 2300 MHz (11.5 x 200)
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Hard Drive: 920 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+ 512MB
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: MSI K9A2GM V3 (MS-7302)

Dunno what my friend's full system is, but here's what I know


Processor: Intel i7 920 2.66 GHz
Memory: 6GB RAM
Hard Drive: Unknown
Video Card: GeForce 9800 GT 1GB
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit (Dunno what type)
Motherboard: Unknown

Anyway, I guess I'll have to replace my mainboard then, just as I feared. But at least then I can also upgrade my RAM to 6GB. And I guess I'll try looking for the Phenom X4 965 since the review you posted makes it look a lot better than the hex core. I can prolly ask the store about the right mainboard, but the only one they have right now is MSI 770-G45 - Socket AM3 - ATX (Dunno if that will be enough for the 965)

[Queelis]

Anyway, I guess I'll have to replace my mainboard then, just as I feared. But at least then I can also upgrade my RAM to 6GB. And I guess I'll try looking for the Phenom X4 965 since the review you posted makes it look a lot better than the hex core. I can prolly ask the store about the right mainboard, but the only one they have right now is MSI 770-G45 - Socket AM3 - ATX (Dunno if that will be enough for the 965)

That mainboard will do the 965 (and 1055T, for that matter) just fine.

By the way, you either want to upgrade the RAM to 8GB (which you probably don't need), or just stick with 4GB you already have. The reason your friend has 6GB is that his system has triple channel memory controller, so he adds three sticks 2GB each to have max performance. Yours has a dual channel memory controller, so you want either two or four sticks of RAM in your PC (I'd recommend just sticking with 4GB, as RAM is not so cheap it once was).

[Biscuit]

Get your BIOS updated to the newest one (check the MSI website it will have instructions and downloads) and the 1055/965 will work fine

[Ulti]

Get your BIOS updated to the newest one (check the MSI website it will have instructions and downloads) and the 1055/965 will work fine

Check the website for his mobo again, it says the board only supports AM3 processors with a TDP of 65W only.

Queelis has pretty much answered your above question nicely though so I have nothing to add in that regard.

[morda8]

I had an x2 240 running at 3.7ghz with hd 5770, when i played stalker call of pripyat it yielded it 5-10fps less than my q6600 at stock

what games will u be playing?

[jim]

The types of games you play affect it a lot.

Big strategy games like E:TW need a lot of CPU power to calculate opponents' moves and so on, same for thing like Football Manager - with those, the more cores you've got, and the more speed you've got, the better.

For graphical things, like CoD, Battlefield, racing games, so on - a dual-core is probably sufficient, and you'll get slight improvements with three and four cores, but nothing massive.

[Zero X]

I had an x2 240 running at 3.7ghz with hd 5770, when i played stalker call of pripyat it yielded it 5-10fps less than my q6600 at stock

what games will u be playing?

Mostly Aion. It's running ok with my current system, but as soon as I'm in a place with more people, I can already see an fps drop to 10-20 FPS or even lower (In mass PvP or sieges it'll definitely drop to 5fps)

[Zero X]

Ok, I talked to the store about the upgrades and here's what I got:

They can install the mainboard, but since the cpu comes from a different store, they can't install it so I have to do that myself. They also recommend me a clean reinstall of the system (Formatting the hard drive and install windows + drivers again), which I don't like at all. If I'm going through with replacing the mainboard and cpu:

- Do I really have to reinstall the system completely or isn't it neccessary?
- Since this is only gonna be because of the mainboard, can't I just wipe the drivers of the old mainboard off the hard driver with a normal uninstall + driversweeper and install the drivers of the new mainboard?

[jim]

If you're going to put a new motherboard in, I would wipe the installation. Even if you could get it working by taking the drivers off I suspect it would never work quite properly.

[Zero X]

And it would just be wiping the C drive only again (Or wherever I got Windows installed) if I have more partitions in my system, right?

[Sputnik]

And it would just be wiping the C drive only again (Or wherever I got Windows installed) if I have more partitions in my system, right?

Yes, Then do a fresh install of Windows and the needed drivers.

Some back-up programs Such as Acronis True Image can restore windows to a PC with different hardware but, I've never tried it so I cannot say how good it is taking this route.

If you have all your own documents, Photos etc on other partitions it should be very easy to just delete the Partition containing the OS and reinstall the OS again.

Do a bit of checking first so you do not delete anything you might need later and if in doubt do a back up of the partition you are going to delete.