AMD upgrade

[Jef7]

Hey guys, I'm looking for upgrades to my current system because I feel that it is very CPU restricted especially for all that I ask of it. I already have a choice in mind but I wanted to verify that it is a wise choice.

My current set up is:
Athlon II x4 635 OC'd to 3.4GHz
12GB RAM (because I have it and it all fits so why not?)
Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drive
HD 6950 2GB
M4A89GTD-PRO mobo


I'm looking at going to the 1100T because it seems to offer the best overall performance for the socket on my mobo. I do game a lot but it seems that most games can't make use of 6 cores.

I play mostly SC2 and skyrim, but my computer also sees some heavy data analysis and acts as a media server for our network.

I'm also trying to talk my girlfriend into getting me a 60GB SSD boot drive to increase the overall responsiveness of my rig.

I'm basically just checking the validity of my upgrade choices and making sure everything meshes well.

Thanks

 

[SlowSpyder]

Short of buying a new motherboard and Intel chip, the 1090T or 1100T are probably your only real worthwhile upgrades. You could buy a better AMD quad, but the cost is so close to the hex cores I don't think it makes much sense, and how much is another ~600MHz really worth paying for?

I was in a similar situation, I had a PhII 940 @ 3.6Ghz, it did ok for me. But, I got the upgrade itch and got a hex core, and was able to squeeze an extra 430Mhz on the cores and a few hundred more MHz on the NB/L3. In all honesty it probably wasn't worth the $150 since very little of what I do uses six cores, the one game I've seen actually do something with those cores ran find on my quad already. But it was worth it in the ease of the upgrade, five minutes of time really.

 

[Maximilian]

Based on what you do the only real upgrade is an intel CPU. AMD hexcores are nice but if you're coming from a quad and dont do anything that needs an extra 2 cores then i doubt you will notice any difference.

 

[Jef7]

It was my understanding that the faster clock speed and presence of L3 cache offered by the 1100T should give a fairly significant speed increase.

That is what I'm finding in the benches at least. Bench

 

[RavenSEAL]

It was my understanding that the faster clock speed and presence of L3 cache offered by the 1100T should give a fairly significant speed increase.

That is what I'm finding in the benches at least. Bench

Correct, get an X6 while they still exist

 

[skipsneeky2]

Yup x6 would be the choice for sure and would be the last cpu the platform receives unless bulldozer is revised and fixed.

Got mine at 270 bus 15x multi 4ghzs which is a simple overclock so you get some good l3,a very overclockable chip and 2 extra cores,i say its a excellent upgrade.

 

[fourdegrees11]

These X6's are very impressive. With the way these 45nm 6 cores chips OC, I'm pretty dissapointed with AMD for not continuing the line on 32nm.

 

[skipsneeky2]

These X6's are very impressive. With the way these 45nm 6 cores chips OC, I'm pretty dissapointed with AMD for not continuing the line on 32nm.

I got some faith left in a second revision of bulldozer.

Just like the original phenom it sucked but the second revision was very nice:thumbsup:

Bulldozer 2 would have to be about 25% faster per clock then phenom 2 same pricepoint and lower power consumption to interest me besides that i will ride this baby out till haswell :thumbsup:

 

[fourdegrees11]

I got some faith left in a second revision of bulldozer.

Just like the original phenom it sucked but the second revision was very nice:thumbsup:

Bulldozer 2 would have to be about 25% faster per clock then phenom 2 same pricepoint and lower power consumption to interest me besides that i will ride this baby out till haswell :thumbsup:

+1

Hopefully AMD has something competetive by 2013, otherwise Haswell it is.

 

[Inspire]

If you are going to upgrade do so like now. AMD is discontinuing the Phenom II and Athlon II lines. Last I checked newegg was out of 1090T.

You could try your luck with a 960T and hope the extra cores unlock. Now for a mere 109.99

Edit: 1100T is gone too!

 

[Idontcare]

My current set up is:
Athlon II x4 635 OC'd to 3.4GHz
12GB RAM (because I have it and it all fits so why not?)
Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drive
HD 6950 2GB
M4A89GTD-PRO mobo

Get an 1100 or 1090, they'll OC to roughly the same levels from what I've read in the forums.

If you are looking to get a little more gas out of it then you might consider lapping the IHS and HSF.

The second thing, I bolded your harddrive above, is to upgrade your system to an SSD. You might question the intelligence behind throwing your upgrade dollars at an SSD but it makes such a difference in terms of system responsiveness.

I had a Q6600 that I was considering upgrading to a 1090. I opted instead of an SSD. Best decision ever. Loved it. And that was coming from raid-0 raptors. It was zippy enough that I held off upgrading my cpu until just this past summer.

Food for thought.

 

[Jef7]

The second thing, I bolded your harddrive above, is to upgrade your system to an SSD. You might question the intelligence behind throwing your upgrade dollars at an SSD but it makes such a difference in terms of system responsiveness.

I was actually already checking into an SSD as a boot drive. I mentioned above that I was trying to talk my girlfriend into getting me a 64GB for Christmas. I was thinking about an Intel or Samsung because I was wanting to lean more towards a reliable drive instead of an ultra-fast SSD.

 

[Idontcare]

Even the reliable ones are "ultra-fast". Just because there are faster ones don't be thinking the less-than-fastest ones are slow, they aren't slow by any means.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Even the reliable ones are "ultra-fast". Just because there are faster ones don't be thinking the less-than-fastest ones are slow, they aren't slow by any means.

Once again, IDC gives good info. :thumbsup:

 

[Jef7]

Definitely, I was just meaning that I was more concerned with reliability then getting every last Mb/s of write/read out of the drive.

 

[MangoX]

Definitely, I was just meaning that I was more concerned with reliability then getting every last Mb/s of write/read out of the drive.

Agreed. I had a OCZ Vertex fail on me so I know how it feels. So far this Intel X25-M has been good to me. I'd pick up a Samsung/Crucial M4/Intel SSD.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Get an 1100 or 1090, they'll OC to roughly the same levels from what I've read in the forums.

If you are looking to get a little more gas out of it then you might consider lapping the IHS and HSF.

The second thing, I bolded your harddrive above, is to upgrade your system to an SSD. You might question the intelligence behind throwing your upgrade dollars at an SSD but it makes such a difference in terms of system responsiveness.

I had a Q6600 that I was considering upgrading to a 1090. I opted instead of an SSD. Best decision ever. Loved it. And that was coming from raid-0 raptors. It was zippy enough that I held off upgrading my cpu until just this past summer.

Food for thought.

2 reasons I disagree:

1. X6s are going out of stock fast.
2. SSDs are getting cheaper.

 

[KingFatty]

I'd suggest splurging for the 120 GB SSD, instead of the 64 GB (better performance and you won't have to worry as much about filling it up and swapping things on/off when you want to install something new).

But as a general question, can someone clarify what difference the CPU upgrade will make on a game like SC2 that is CPU limited?

More specifically, I'm running a trusty Phenom II 555 (stepping C3) that can overclock very nicely and unlock to 4 cores. SC2 appears to use 2 cores.

The question is, would SC2 run much better on an X6 1090T? Assume both are overclocked to 4 GHz. I'm unsure because SC2 only uses 2 cores. And if both are running at the same clocks, and both have the same L2/L3 cache (I think).... would SC2 run much better?

Thanks for the help and sorry for any hijacking of the thread, but I think I'm in about the same upgrade decision position of the original poster.

 

[Jef7]

I don't think you would see much (if any) performance increase. The way SC2 handles the load means the additional 2 cores won't make a difference. If the cache and clock speed are the same, performance shouldn't change.

Bench <- shows some differences in gaming performance down at the bottom.

 

[pelov]

I'm not sure why you're upgrading in the first place. Though SC2 is a blizz game and they tend to be CPU heavy, your setup is more than enough to power great framerates at 1080, even without the L3 cache. Are you running multiple monitors or does the data analysis you're doing require more juice?

Frankly, the 960T is a great chip if you need the L3 cache and want to hit near 4ghz and have a chance at unlocking 6 cores. But even then I don't see why you'd throw in a new chip that provides an unimpressive performance boost.

If I were in your shoes I'd wait and get an Ivy Bridge (q2 2012?) or a Sandy Bridge now on the z68 chipset. You'd see a much bigger performance increase going the Intel route either now or later. The thubans I think are some of the best chips AMD has ever made, but unless you need the 6 cores right now they won't provide a massive boost in FPS as would opting to go Intel now or later.

I can't believe I just recommended an Intel platform as a price-to-performance winner. Jesus christ, AMD, what have you done... haha

 

[blckgrffn]

Get an 1100 or 1090, they'll OC to roughly the same levels from what I've read in the forums.

If you are looking to get a little more gas out of it then you might consider lapping the IHS and HSF.

The second thing, I bolded your harddrive above, is to upgrade your system to an SSD. You might question the intelligence behind throwing your upgrade dollars at an SSD but it makes such a difference in terms of system responsiveness.

I had a Q6600 that I was considering upgrading to a 1090. I opted instead of an SSD. Best decision ever. Loved it. And that was coming from raid-0 raptors. It was zippy enough that I held off upgrading my cpu until just this past summer.

Food for thought.

+1

Still on my first gen quad, obviously. And it's at the same OC its had since the second time it posted, no tweaking or anything. Just haven't felt the need to tweak it any further. Getting a shiny Hexcore CPU is likely going to put you in the same position.

I've used one of those new Samsung 64GB drives and it pegged out WEI @ 7.9 and is just crazy snappy.

I also have used Adata(jmicron) and a couple Kingston SSDs along with a Crucial M4 and the Intel in my rig. I have been happy with all of them. They are so much faster than spinning drives that even the slow ones are stupid fast in comparison. Just get a reliable one at a decent price and you'll be happy.

Life is too short to having a spinning drive for your boot drive - unless you're hiding it behind an SSD cache drive

 

[Lex Luger]

an intel sandy bridge dual core will destroy the phenom six core is most games, especially a game like starcraft 2 where it annihilates it.

I wouldnt bother upgrading unless youre gonna spend the money to upgrade to intel, otherwise you are throwing you're money away (imo)

You can upgrade to intel for around 200 dollars, and you and can get a amd 6 core for 150, but 6 core isnt gonna be faster than the amd quad in almost anything, especially if you are a gamer.

 

[BD231]

an intel sandy bridge dual core will destroy the phenom six core is most games, especially a game like starcraft 2 where it annihilates it.

I wouldnt bother upgrading unless youre gonna spend the money to upgrade to intel, otherwise you are throwing you're money away (imo)

You can upgrade to intel for around 200 dollars, and you and can get a amd 6 core for 150, but 6 core isnt gonna be faster than the amd quad in almost anything, especially if you are a gamer.

Hey knock it off with the misinformation would ya? An x6 destroys dual core sandy in *anything* that use's more than two cores, get your facts straight.

 

[fourdegrees11]

an intel sandy bridge dual core will destroy the phenom six core is most games, especially a game like starcraft 2 where it annihilates it.

I wouldnt bother upgrading unless youre gonna spend the money to upgrade to intel, otherwise you are throwing you're money away (imo)

You can upgrade to intel for around 200 dollars, and you and can get a amd 6 core for 150, but 6 core isnt gonna be faster than the amd quad in almost anything, especially if you are a gamer.

The X6 is definitely faster in a lot of things, but for gaming I mostly agree. There are some BF3 bench's that show the extra cores can matter. It's really game dependant at this point, with the majority of games not making use of extra cores.

 

[richierich1212]

an intel sandy bridge dual core will destroy the phenom six core is most games, especially a game like starcraft 2 where it annihilates it.

I wouldnt bother upgrading unless youre gonna spend the money to upgrade to intel, otherwise you are throwing you're money away (imo)

You can upgrade to intel for around 200 dollars, and you and can get a amd 6 core for 150, but 6 core isnt gonna be faster than the amd quad in almost anything, especially if you are a gamer.

LOL is Sandy Bridge made out of fairy dust or something? I highly doubt the Celerons and Pentium Sandys can beat the X6s. i3s maybe, but the X6s can still be overclocked. But the i3s can't be overclocked.