Athlon II to Phenom II

[Inspire]

I have an Asus M4785G-M board and was thinking of changing out the Athlon II 630 to a Phenom II 955/965 BE. Worthwhile or is money better spent on socking away for a whole new BD system.

I was thinking this upgrade would tide me over while the BD chips mature a bit and Intel can get out the Z68 and SB-E chips.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I wouldn't bother going from an Athlon II X4 630 to any Phenom II quad.

 

[richierich1212]

Just keep saving up until BD comes. Then you'll see which system to go with, AM3+ or 1155.

 

[mb103051]

just wait your not gonna see much improvement if any..waste of time and money...
wait on bulldozer and see whats up and then decide if its SB or 1366 or wait on 2011..
if i wasnt already running 1366 id go SB z68 chipset...if things go as most speculate BD will be good and equal SB in most apps but fall behind in others...you can really go wrong with SB even if BD is slightly better...it very strange amd hasnt had leaks about BD performance...so its either bad or very good...so close to release and no performance results..are they hiding something...as an amd guy with my first intel rig since 1996 id like to see BD kick butt ,who knows what we will get...my gut tells me it wont be as good as the hype which would be what amd has been doing for a while now..lagging behind intel.....go amd, i wish you good luck...im just skeptical..hopefully BD will have intel lower prices...depends on how good or bad BD is......

 

[podspi]

Have you considered OCing it? I've heard the Athlon II's are quite capable overclockers. Been meaning to try it myself on my Athlon II 620, but it is running well and I hate to mess with the HTPC

 

[toolbag]

Athlon II to Phenom II no way.

I have a Athlon x 2 and find it hard to get the phenom or Athlon II for reason of it's not all that much more. Even less in your case.

I'm just going to get the SB I think. I keep building mock builds and one of these times I'll hit the submit.

Good Luck

 

[Inspire]

I wouldn't bother OCing the 630 with a stock hs/fan.

The intention was to pick up a 212+ and a BE Phenom II and do some OC'ing. I suppose I could pick up a 1090T.

I did see an eariler post about going from a Phenom II to a faster Phenom II. In that case, I would agree that its a waste of time and money. At this point I'll wait a bit more and see what else leaks about BD. There might be a slight price drop when the Phenom II 980 comes out.

 

[drizek]

Then buy a 120mm fan. Bulldozer will (unfortunately) have the same mount.

 

[nonameo]

Personally I would just go ahead and get a SB. I doubt we'll see bulldozer perform much better than a 2600 except in applications that are pretty heavily (4+) threaded. I don't think AMD is going to try to heavily undercut intel either, AMD needs $$$. However!!! With AMD you tend to get more features for the $$$ in motherboards, so if that is important to you, something to keep in mind.

 

[weez82]

Then buy a 120mm fan. Bulldozer will (unfortunately) have the same mount.

why is that unfortunate?

 

[Cerb]

Not no, but Hell no. It might have been worth the extra cost to buy a Phenom II when you got the computer, but there's no way it will be worth it now, even if you use software that could benefit (real workstation apps, pretty much).

Overclock and/or wait.

 

[winsite]

How to speed Athlon II

 

[drizek]

why is that unfortunate?

Getting my 120mm cooler and on off with the clip thing is a huge pain. I wish they would just go with spring-loaded screws or something. The intel method with the twisty thingies is horrible as well.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Getting my 120mm cooler and on off with the clip thing is a huge pain. I wish they would just go with spring-loaded screws or something. The intel method with the twisty thingies is horrible as well.

Hyper 212+. Problem solved.

 

[Texashiker]

I have an Asus M4785G-M board and was thinking of changing out the Athlon II 630 to a Phenom II 955/965 BE.

The 630 runs at 2.8 GHz, is the extra cache and core speed worth the extra money? I am considering the same change as you, but I have an AMD 620 that runs at 2.6 ghz.

The 955 runs at 3.2 GHz Processor. Is it "really" worth around $125? All your going to be getting is about 400 mhz core speed, and extra cache.

While playing left 4 dead 2, my current AMD 620 runs about 75% across all 4 cores. I can not justify the cost until my current CPU has reached its end of life. Until its maxed out and performance starts to drop, only then will I replace it. But right now I average 75fps - 100fps in games.

Keep saving your money, and lets see what happens in the next few months.

My personal rule for upgrades, do not upgrade until you can double your speed. A gaming buddy of mine gave me that rule back in the late 1990s, and I think it has served me well.

If you have a quad core right now, do not upgrade until you can get a hexacore or octacore for a reasonable price.

 

[formulav8]

See if your chip is really a deneb core with the L3 cache disabled and turn on acc if your board has it. You can look at the core stepping. If it starts with CACxx then it is an deneb core with L3 cache. If its CADxx, then its an actual propus die and thus no l3 at all.

 

[Inspire]

Chip is a propus core.

The general rule for me is when I see lag/stuttering at the minimal gfx settings I can tolerate. Then its time to "fix" the problem.

So the best research I can do I guess is to test the existing video card I have in faster systems.

Same video card in a 2500K system with higher video settings no lag
(ATI 5770)

Going to try that video card out on a system with a Q9550 and see what the results are.

If the Q9550 is lag/stutter free I'm getting the Phenom II. If there is lag/stuttering, I'll pick up a Sandy Bridge "soon"

Thanks for the responses all. I know the SB would solve my problems at least. I don't know anyone nearby who has a Phenom II but a Q9550 is better than a 630 and should answer my question about how much more CPU power I need.

 

[razaice]

I just recently changed from a athlon II x4 635 to a phenom II 955 BE. I was able to sell my athlon on ebay for about $70, so it wasn't really a bad deal for me, but if I had it to do over again, I'd possibly not do it. There's a difference between the athlon and phenom, and you'll be able to overclock the phenom to somewhere around 3.8 ghz, but at the moment it might be best to wait and see what happens in the next few months. The difference between the two probably isn't worth the money.

 

[guskline]

Put the $$ into a faster GPU. When BD comes out and IF it is a significant improvement, the new GPU can be used with the BD. You can see from my sig that I have 2 965BEs ( one is c2 and one is c3) The Athlon II rig was built with power saving in mind. It is not as fast as the other two but not that much slower.I paid $99 for the AthlonII 640 and much more for the 965s. Even with the price drop for the 965s I think you would be smarter going to a faster GPU and keeping the Athlon II. Best bang for the Buck.

 

[Inspire]

Nope. I tried it with a faster video card with the same settings and I still got lag/suttering.

Problem is CPU bottlenecking not GPU.

 

[pantsaregood]

Overclock the Athlon II and wait.

 

[guskline]

Inspire: From your posts, you obviously have much faster systems. Why throw more $$ into the Asus M4785G-M sytem? IF the Phenom II 955/965 chips fall to @$100 maybe I would upgrade but why spend more? What HD do you have in the Asus M4785G-M?

 

[Inspire]

Its helpful to have friends with faster systems.

Hard Drive: Its just a standard SATA2 7200 RPM WD 500 GB. Nothing special.

A 128GB SSD would run about $270. That won't fix the problem if the system is CPU bottlenecked. It just means the screens load faster for me to see the lag sooner is all.



Even if I did fork over for a SB, I would still have a fully functional system with a 630.

Technically, its about a $100 if I am selling the 630 on fleabay.

I did notice razaice did a similiar 635 to 955 upgrade but regrets it? However, the deed was done.

For the moment, I am yanking off the stock cooler and sticking on a 212+ and try and see if OC'ing fixes the lag. That would be a $35 "fix" that I could use for the SB or Phenom II. If it fixes the lag, then I only spent $35

 

[fffblackmage]

If I was in your shoes, I wouldn't throw any more money into the Athlon II/Phenom II platform. It's too outdated. You might be spending less now getting the Phenom II, but it won't be long before you're here again complaining about the slowness.

 

[jimbo75]

Chip is a propus core.

The general rule for me is when I see lag/stuttering at the minimal gfx settings I can tolerate. Then its time to "fix" the problem.

So the best research I can do I guess is to test the existing video card I have in faster systems.

Same video card in a 2500K system with higher video settings no lag
(ATI 5770)

Going to try that video card out on a system with a Q9550 and see what the results are.

If the Q9550 is lag/stutter free I'm getting the Phenom II. If there is lag/stuttering, I'll pick up a Sandy Bridge "soon"

Thanks for the responses all. I know the SB would solve my problems at least. I don't know anyone nearby who has a Phenom II but a Q9550 is better than a 630 and should answer my question about how much more CPU power I need.

Wait...you're trying to fix a graphics issue by changing your cpu and mobo?