AMD FX or Phenom II? [Quad Core]

News & General Discussion
1

I am looking to do an upgrade to my old system and put about $200 into new parts for it for a new CPU, RAM, and Motherboard. I know, that’s not a lot of money to put into things, but my budget will be continually tight for at least the next year, and my C2D needs to find a new home where I don’t abuse it all the time playing games and making games.

My current system:
Intel Core 2 Duo e6420 2.13GHz
4GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
Asus P5NSLI motherboard with a ram bus of 667MHz DDR2, leaving my CPU running at the same bus speed.

Parts not getting upgraded:
Nvidia GeForce GT 240 1GB GDDR3

I have been looking into AMD processors and am currently looking into the FX 4100 3.6GHz Bulldozer Quad Core($130) and the Phenom II X4 955/965(3.2GHz / 3.4GHz respectively [$120/$130]).

So I have read reviews on the bulldozer series and have seen many negative reviews, but then reviews that show it blowing Intel out of the water with specific tasks. Supposedly, its the shared floating point unit controller that gets it in trouble, but I can’t make heads or tales of what that means.

Which is better for Unity/3D modeling/gaming? The Phenom II X4 or an FX 4100? For either system I would want to max out the ram bus (1333MHz for PII and 1866MHz for the FX), as my current system suffers because of the motherboard and ram speed bottleneck.

Any advice? (I say around $200 as it was originally for the Phenom quad core, if I were to get the FX I would budget up to $250-275 for the higher priced motherboard and ram. However, the cheaper the better in my case, unless its worth the upfront cost if it will last longer)
Save up more money is not an option, :p. I need a cheap upgrade for my aged pc.

Edit: A current sale on Newegg, I can get a Phenom II X4 3.2GHz with motherboard and 4GB ram for $180 dollars shipped, and for $205 I can get the Phenom II X4 at 3.4GHz(which is what I am leaning towards)

2

I would personally go with the phenom II. The bulldozer hasn’t been perfected, nor do I really expect it to be.

3

Have you looked at the intel options yet?

4

I have a phenom II, its a beast. It’s cheap as shit, Its powerful, and it is amazing.

I would get it any day over intel processors.

5

Given that the cheapest quad intel I could find was 189.99, I think its out of his price range.

6

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-2500-2400-2300_7.html#sect0

i3 2100 is $124.99 @ newegg.

[Edit - found reviews - not good enough from the first few.]

7

Not a quadcore.

8

Thanks guys.

I have looked at Intel options, but i3 is only dual core and as stated by killer1390, the cheapest quad core is $190. If I had that much, I would go for the Phenom II X6 1100T 3.3GHz, however, I can’t justify 6 cores, as nothing really uses them yet, a higher clocked lower number of cores in the processor would work better in all practicality in the current OS/software world.

So I guess its the Phenom II then, as I don’t want to cripple my upgrade from the start.

Would the extra $25 be worth the jump from 3.2 to 3.4GHz? My guess is that its worth it.

9

The beast light mapper uses all six cores!

IMO it is a definite yes.

10

Yes

11

i7 or bust. intel kills everything out there if you look at real benchmarks and not some rabid fanboy. I always buy the best, and right now thats nvidia and intel.

Costs more, lasts longer. If amd and ati were the best I’d buy them instead. I have zero loyalty to any of them.

12

New system I am looking at:
130 - AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz 37 - 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 RAM (PNY Optima)
$ 50 - BIOSTAR A770E3 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

Total cost $217 with free shipping.
Not bad.
Hopefully it will all run on my 450W PSU, neweggs calculator estimates I need 384W with my optical/hard drives and graphics card so I should be good. At least I hope so, or else I will need another $70 for a decent PSU :?

13

+1

14

You are fine.

15

Yep, even the i3 2300 bests some amd quads, and 2500 is faster than all of their stuff. Amd is ok for bottom end builds now but nothing more. Bulldozer… ugh, trash… overpriced and slow! In singlethreaded perf even an i3 2100 is faster by a large margin, and most stuff only threads to 2 cores with ome using 4 well. The amd solutions just are poor in this market.

As far as psu goes, depends if it is a quality model or not.

16

Ditto on loyalty, I want an AMD system as they are the best bang for my buck for what I need.

i7’s are nice, but I don’t need that much power. I think a 3.4GHz AMD quad core will do the job nicely for the next few years. No need to buy what I don’t need.

EDIT: Yeah, AMD messed up with the shared Floating Point Unit, so if its a quad core, it can only process at most 2 cores worth of floating point data as it has 2 shared units among 4 cores. At least that’s how I understand it now. Maybe Piledriver will get the performance promised. But at least, I know Piledriver will use the AM3+ socket and not 2 more new sockets like Intel does.

EDIT EDIT: PSU is Zalman 500W 80+ Efficiency. Not a cheap-o throwaway brand. You get what you pay for with PSU’s. I made that mistake with my first build. :wink:

*here I thought it was 450W, guess that’s one of the last ones I installed in someone elses pc.

17

Just figure I ought to drop this here. You will overall be better off with any sandybridge cpu, even the cheapest.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21813/1

18

I actually just skimmed that article today. Last page shows that X4 9XX and above beat the cheapest sandybridge in bang for buck.

Anyway, depending of the source, cpubenchmark.net has the X4 965 above the i3, making it only comparable to i5’s that beat it and cost $100 more. Even the i3 sandy bridges don’t beat it. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Edit: Seems like a close race, and they clock in around the same marks and are about the same price (cheap sandy bridges and the X4 965.) I think I will still go with AMD though, as I could upgrade it to an X6 in the future making it on par with the current mid-range i5’s.

19

Devil is in the details. As I said above, “In singlethreaded perf even an i3 2100 is faster by a large margin, and most stuff only threads to 2 cores with some using 4 well.”. Sure, average out everything including tests that are irrelevant to virtually anyone’s actual use, and yes it looks rosier for the AMD solutions… but take it in context of actual usage and it is terrible. :slight_smile:

20

Do you know this from first hand experience with comparable systems? If so, then I would take your word for it. But I still think I want 4 physical cores now, so that when software becomes better threaded the CPU will hold out and outperform a dual core such as the “comparable” i3-i5’s it’s pitted against. I guess all i5’s are quads now though, some were just hyper-threaded dual cores in first gen chips, which means under-performing compared to true quad cores when push comes to shove with better written applications. Either way, I think the four physical cores will be beneficial, putting faith into future multi-threaded applications, no?