Phenon II X6 1090T or 8320E

[iranterres]

Hello,

I am struggling with a doubt, I have a Phenon II X6 1090T at stock clockspeed, and I've been thinking on a temporary upgrade to a 8320E while waiting for AMD Zen...

In a typical scenario I would never bother to do any upgrade but I have a sort of gaming setup so I'm rather concerned about a possible bottleneck in my system.

PHENOM II X6 1090T @ 3.20GHz (stock)

Nvidia Geforce GTX970

16GB DDR3 RAM

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 R5

I have a pretty decent performance with demanding games (I play them in 1080p) like GTA V, The Witcher 3 etc, but I would like to know if i'm going to have some kind of performance boost.

I know the FX series have much more memory bandwidth (around 40% perhaps?) than the Phenon peers, but I also know about Phenom's superior single thread performance, but on the multi threaded side, things are a more mixed bag. Since games (my main use for this system) is my main goal, I would like to have some feedback.

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[jhu]

If your motherboard is AM3+, then get the FX chip. Otherwise save your money for Zen.

 

[Headfoot]

Piledriver is going to have better single threaded performance than Phenom because it can clock a lot higher, as well as better multithreaded performance. It will be an upgrade across the board, as those phenoms are quite long in the tooth. Zen or any modern Intel would be a much bigger increase though

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

GA-990 sounds like an AM3+ board to me. 8370E is overall the best thing to put in there I think, unless you want to risk the 9590 with its 220W (!) max TDP...

 

[iranterres]

GA-990 sounds like an AM3+ board to me. 8370E is overall the best thing to put in there I think, unless you want to risk the 9590 with its 220W (!) max TDP...

Oh yea, it's an AM3+ board, pretty decent too...

 

[MajinCry]

Honestly, I'd wait for Zen to come out and see what's what.

Piledriver is about as fast as a Phenom II at the same clockspeeds (but can clock higher and uses less power, IIRC). Not much was improved in terms of draw call performance, far as I know, so it's not going to be a world o' difference when it's draw calls holdin' ya back.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I would overclock that 1090T, should get at least 4Ghz on air. If you do not have a good cooler, investing in one plus some good thermal paste is much cheaper than that 8320e is likely to be.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would overclock that 1090T, should get at least 4Ghz on air. If you do not have a good cooler, investing in one plus some good thermal paste is much cheaper than that 8320e is likely to be.

I agree with this.

 

[superstition]

GA-990 sounds like an AM3+ board to me. 8370E is overall the best thing to put in there I think, unless you want to risk the 9590 with its 220W (!) max TDP...

No reason to consider 9590 since 8320E will clock to 4.7 if one's board can handle it.

8370E isn't worth the extra money unless you don't want to replace the stock cooler. 8370E has a thicker quieter and better stock cooler than 8320E. But, neither one is suitable for overclocking.

 

[superstition]

GA-990 sounds like an AM3+ board to me.

What revision, though?

The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 has been through four iterations now. One of the things they seem to keep changing is the design of the voltage regulator module heatsink - and apparently they never get it quite right. At least not for this board's intended purpose; it's supposed to be an enthusiast/overclocker board, but the high VRM temps mean you can't really overclock very far before throttling or other problems kick in.

The revision 4 board actually has a pretty beefy heatpipe heatsink that's a clear improvement over the revision 3 board, and for many people (especially if you're running stock speeds) it should be good enough.

HOWEVER:

This part of the motherboard is often a "dead spot" in terms of airflow, as it sits between (but slightly below) the CPU cooler and the case exhaust fan. Overclocking usually means a hefiter CPU cooler too, which further isolates this dead zone - all that heat just sits there on the heatsink.

This sink is still barely enough to keep the VRM at reasonable temps even at stock speeds. I was getting 91C at full load (running Prime95 torture tests). Overclocking even a little bit - without changing the voltage - bumped that to 94C. And that's in a case with six 120mm case fans, and lots of little holes all over the case for passive airflow. There's just no flow right in this spot

You could do something inelegant like attaching a fan or two directly to the heatsink, or using something like the Antec SpotCool to direct air onto it. I tried just hanging a spare 80mm fan off my CPU cooler to see if directed airflow would really help, and it lowered my full load temp down to 74C at stock speed. That's a 17C improvement - hey, it works! But it's also ugly and sounds yucky, and there's no easy way to permanently attach an 80mm fan in this area.

The elegant solution?

Go push-pull on your CPU cooler.

I took my bottom 120mm case fan and clipped it to the other side of my CPU cooler as a test. Luckily my Enermax ETS-T40-VD came with extra clips, but a lot of other coolers make it just as easy to attach an extra fan. Doing this, my VRM temps topped out at 81C at stock speeds, and 85C overclocked. That's a decent enough compromise, I think, and should be a pretty comfortable max operating temp for a VRM (remember, these are worst case scenario temps). I'm pretty confident these chips won't die before my next motherboard upgrade, and my CPU won't be throttled.

WHY DOES THIS WORK?

ATX motherboards are pretty much all designed for downflow CPU coolers, because that's what AMD and Intel have used since Intel helped draw up the standard.

You'll need a fan on the VRM sink if you want to even run at 4.4 GHz with a Vishera 8 core, at least with that same heatsink (minus the heatpipe) on a UD3P. The optimal airflow is somewhat out of the case, through the sink, but mostly onto the sink.

 

[superstition]

I have a sort of gaming setup so I'm rather concerned about a possible bottleneck in my system.

PHENOM II X6 1090T @ 3.20GHz (stock)

Nvidia Geforce GTX970

16GB DDR3 RAM

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 R5

8320E, aim for 4.5 GHz. 4.4 is OK. 4.6 is fortunate. Anything higher is probably too much trouble and expense.

Disable APM.

Put fan on VRM — controlled with Speedfan or similar so it's not loud all the time. You'll be surprised how much the fan will need to ramp up to cope with Prime heat as compared to more reasonable loads. The 8320E's stock fan will suffice but it gets noisy when ramped up high enough to cope with Prime-level VRM heat.

Probably use Medium LLC. It seems to be more optimal with Gigabyte. 4.5 GHz multiplier. 1.385 CPU voltage to start with (if unstable bump to 1.39 and try again). 1.26 NB Core. Test with Prime95 custom FFT: 768—900K in place, for one hour and fifteen minutes. Monitor with HWINFO64 when stress testing, including VRM temp, northbridge, and CPU. If temps go too high, abort test and improve cooling situation or drop CPU multi to 4.4 GHz, dropping voltage to 1.35 (if unstable bump to 1.36 and try again).

You may want to do a lapping of the CPU because they tend to be concave. Be careful of bending the pins or leaving them coated with oil from you hands, though.

Your PSU will need to be up to par, as well as your case cooling and CPU cooler. Forget about something paltry like the EVO. Get at least a 140mm tower cooler, preferably a dual tower running two fans. A single tower 140mm model may limit you to 4.3 GHz with a conservative temp limit unless you use a loud fan. You'll want a cooler that gives you room to mount a fan on the VRM.

Run your RAM at 1600–2133 speed at CAS 8-9-9 (1600), 9-9-9 (1866), or 9-10-9 (2133) — depending on what you can get stable. Going past 2133 showed no benefit on my Gigabyte board with Vishera. In fact, the latency at 2400 was a drawback. I used 2400 rated RAM at 2133 with improved latency settings (like CR 1 instead of 3 which is what the RAM was rated for). You don't want to be running your RAM at just 1333. If you have 1333 rated RAM you should be able to do 1600 at 9-9-9 at least at ~1.64V.

 

[superstition]

However, given that Amazon wants $130 for an 8230E (rather than the more reasonable $90 at Micro Center) I would also suggest getting strong cooling and overclocking the Phenom while you wait for Zen and Kaby Lake — if you're not near a Micro Center. I think when those are out that will be the best time to upgrade (due to the competition).

 

[imported_falacy]

If you get the 8320, turn off Turbo, APM, and C6 state to prevent it from down clocking or changing speed at all. I hae my normal 8320 at a modest 4.0GHz all the time and it smoother than when I tried it at 4.4 turbo, 4.0 normal. Leaving C6 state and turbo on makes it like hanging out at 3.7GHz most of the time, for whatever reason.

Note that I had to upgrade my power supply to get it to run more than 4 cores without crashing. NZXT 650W was enough. Asus M597A R2.0 motherboard been fine with it for almost 3 yeara now, despite its lesser power phases.

Just to add, with a $30 Silverstone 4 pipe tower cooler it hasn't gotten any higher than 50C when transcoding on all 8 cores. Usually it doesn't go passed 40C when compiling with gcc. Idles at room temperature +5-8C or so.

 

[Loser Gamer]

If you get the 8320E then I suggest you buy and get your moneys worth which would mean not buy zen right away and waiting well into 2017.

otherwise if you got it to blow go for it. I doubt you will notice anything though. The PII 6 cores are no push over chips.

 

[TeknoBug]

The 1090T will unfortunately bottleneck that GTX970. But the CPU is still a beast nonetheless.

However, hang onto it until Zen comes around.

 

[Magic Carpet]

But the CPU is still a beast nonetheless.

Oh yeah, it will eat Skylake i3 alive in certain MT loads.

Oh yea, it's an AM3+ board, pretty decent too...

Then get the FX, and let go of your Phenom, should be no problem selling it for good $. If it's a good price, and with some luck, you could prolly upgrade to FX for free. Problem solved and you get a new toy to play with

PS. I highly doubt the upcoming Zen to be cheap anyway.

If you get the 8320E then I suggest you buy and get your moneys worth which would mean not buy zen right away and waiting well into 2017.

otherwise if you got it to blow go for it. I doubt you will notice anything though.

Vishera is better in power consumption, especially at lower loads. I'd rather have a stock Vishera versus the overclocked Thuban, power consumption difference is insane. It's a win-win no matter how you look at it, if the price is right. That, and if you encrypt your drive, the newer instructions are very, very effective at that.
I recommend this one.

 

[Leyawiin]

The 1090T will unfortunately bottleneck that GTX970. But the CPU is still a beast nonetheless.

However, hang onto it until Zen comes around.

So will an FX-8320E (I own both in one of my systems - 4.4 Ghz). Its pretty sad to see the performance boost I get in games using the same GTX 970 in either my i5-4690k or i5-4790k compared to the FX. Fallout 4 (for example) is just ridiculously better with the Intels. If I were the OP I'd take the advice of overclocking the snot out of the X6 and wait for Zen. If he can't wait just get a new Skylake system.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I'd try overclocking. The FX love ~4GHz, I doubt there is a four module FX out there that cannot clock around there with average cooling. Your 1090T also has some headroom with decent cooling. If you are power-limited, look into an FX xxxxE CPU, they turbo high but have lower base clocks, lower power use.

 

[superstition]

So will an FX-8320E (I own both in one of my systems - 4.4 Ghz). Its pretty sad to see the performance boost I get in games using the same GTX 970 in either my i5-4690k or i5-4790k compared to the FX.

Considering that the FX first came out in 2012 and now can be had for $50 ($90 for 8320E and $40 off a board) from Micro Center I'm not sure it's sad in comparison with more expensive and newer Intel chips.

The saddest thing is that AMD didn't improve the design since 2012 for enthusiast-level desktop parts. At least the process got a bit better, though.

 

[coffeemonster]

Oh yeah, it will eat Skylake i3 alive in certain MT loads.


Then get the FX, and let go of your Phenom, should be no problem selling it for good $. If it's a good price, and with some luck, you could prolly upgrade to FX for free. Problem solved and you get a new toy to play with

PS. I highly doubt the upcoming Zen to be cheap anyway.


Vishera is better in power consumption, especially at lower loads. I'd rather have a stock Vishera versus the overclocked Thuban, power consumption difference is insane. It's a win-win no matter how you look at it, if the price is right. That, and if you encrypt your drive, the newer instructions are very, very effective at that.
I recommend this one.

I agree with everything said here :thumbsup:

 

[TeknoBug]

I'd try overclocking. The FX love ~4GHz, I doubt there is a four core module FX out there that cannot clock around there with average cooling. Your 1090T also has some headroom with decent cooling. If you are power-limited, look into an FX xxxxE CPU, they turbo high but have lower base clocks, lower power use.

FX 4350 OC's to 4.7GHz with ease even on a 4+1 phase board, but the performance is meh.

An old CPU-Z submission: http://valid.canardpc.com/ehwczm

 

[Headfoot]

I still maintain it is worth it to get a cheap Piledriver 8320e or the like and overclock it. For gaming workloads this is the fastest single threaded performance you can get in your socket. Those Phenom X6's may get a second wind on DX12 where games can actually use all of those threads -- but the same applies to Piledriver's 8 thread core. Besides you can get pretty solid resale on that top Phenom chip.

I miss the Phenom days. They were solid little chips. Too bad AMD didn't continue iterative development on them like Intel did with Core

 

[Loser Gamer]

I still maintain it is worth it to get a cheap Piledriver 8320e or the like and overclock it. For gaming workloads this is the fastest single threaded performance you can get in your socket. Those Phenom X6's may get a second wind on DX12 where games can actually use all of those threads -- but the same applies to Piledriver's 8 thread core. Besides you can get pretty solid resale on that top Phenom chip.

I miss the Phenom days. They were solid little chips. Too bad AMD didn't continue iterative development on them like Intel did with Core

I remember when AMD64 chips for a single core was like $650 or something like that.

I miss the days when upgrading a CPU was a huge thing an seemed to happen often. 1 core to 2 to 4 - lots of upgrading fun. Now days once you have 4 you have plenty for everyday usage and gaming.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I still maintain it is worth it to get a cheap Piledriver 8320e or the like and overclock it. For gaming workloads this is the fastest single threaded performance you can get in your socket. Those Phenom X6's may get a second wind on DX12 where games can actually use all of those threads -- but the same applies to Piledriver's 8 thread core. Besides you can get pretty solid resale on that top Phenom chip.

I miss the Phenom days. They were solid little chips. Too bad AMD didn't continue iterative development on them like Intel did with Core

I know, this is a synthetic benchmark and may not mean a lot, but in heavy MT loads, it is still a very potent CPU. I just benched a local Thuban here (underclocked to 2.6 Ghz, single channel 8gb ddr3 stick 1600 CL10 or CL11) and scored 334,472 sec. That's in the modern i5 territory. Not bad at all, if you consider the memory, clock penalties and the age of that technology. It's excellent for web-browsing in the current state though and sips power too (100w max, could run it off PicoPSU if I wanted). Pair it with some modern video card and you can watch HD video content without stressing the CPU much at all (we are talking about sub 50w usage in this particular case). Windows 7 couldn't turbo them properly, was all fixed in Windows 8. Windows 10 makes the best use of them, though.

 

[Leyawiin]

Considering that the FX first came out in 2012 and now can be had for $50 ($90 for 8320E and $40 off a board) from Micro Center I'm not sure it's sad in comparison with more expensive and newer Intel chips.

The saddest thing is that AMD didn't improve the design since 2012 for enthusiast-level desktop parts. At least the process got a bit better, though.

I honestly don't know why anyone would spend their money on an FX CPU unless they absolutely didn't have it for a new Intel system and already owned an AM3+ board with no viable CPU at the moment (the OP does). I bought an FX-8320E last winter to build a PC for a family member from "unused" parts (not recycled from a main PC that was in use as most do). They ended up getting a laptop so I've kept it for now. It IS sad. An i5-2500k can almost keep up with an FX 8 core in productivity and beat it in most gaming scenarios. Its basically a four year old CPU (that was marginal at the time) trying to keep up with new and much more capable products.