X2 3600+ to Phenom 9600 Black Edition

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

I can get a Phenom 9600+ Black for about $140 off Ebay and wondering if this is a good purchase.
I like to play Crysis, CNC3 and Grid etc and wondering how much quad core would boost performance.

Also, how does this processor overclock.

 

[RallyMaster]

Not worth it to be honest. You'll still find that in terms of gaming performance, Intel's Core 2 architecture still has the upper hand. Save up and get an Intel system.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'd stay away from that chip. It's not even the updated version with the new stepping that gets rid of the bug. You'd want to look for a chip with a xx50 in the sequence. It more than likely will not overclock much, maybe 100 or 200 Mhz at the most without crashing. I've read alot of horror stories about the earlier AMD quads, like I said, look for one with a xx50 in the sequence. Someone recently posted a review link comparing the 8400 to an 8750 tri core which was pretty impressive.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I can't comment on the 9600, but my 9850 is fine for gaming. The Intel stuff certainly does bench better, but the Phenom is plenty fast for gaming. But, if I were you I would not upgrade, I'd stick with your A64 dual core at 2.7GHz, that should still be plenty fast to game on.

 

[nyker96]

well if you do that you might have to change your use name! :]

 

[harpoon84]

Nope, not really worth it to be totally honest. Not saying a Phenom 9600 won't be any faster, but it'll only be a marginal improvement over your current chip, especially considering Phenoms don't usually overclock that well on AM2 mobos.

 

[RussianSensation]

I would wait for E5200 2.5ghz 2mb $85 chip from Intel. Jump on that and OC that to 4.0ghz.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

but my athlon 64 x2 seems like a pretty weak chip.
in the sisoft benchmarks i'm getting really crap scores which is pissing me off.

 

[RallyMaster]

Uh. You bought a budget end chip and you're expecting it to be topping a Core 2 Duo? If it's pissing you off, replace it with something else. If it's doing everything fine though, I'd say you should apply the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

You would need to change your username.

TBH though I think you should hold off until DDR3 becomes mainstream (about a year or so). You probably are CPU limited in some games, but it shouldn't be a serious problem yet.

My CPU is similar to yours (Opteron 165 at 2.6ghz) and I can run just about any game near 60fps.

If you get anything now, you should go with either a Q6600 or a cheap 2180. The Q6600 is worth it, but keep in mind it's soon going to be a dead platform with no upgrade path.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

I wouldn't worry too much about synthetic benchmarks. Your 3600+ @ 2.7GHz will barely match a low end non overclocked C2D. But, with that being said, you simply don't need a 4GHz C2D to have a good gaming experience. There are plenty advantages to having a faster CPU then what you currently have, but for gaming what you have is certainly good enough. Don't get me wrong, it won't hurt to upgrade, but with a video card upgrade I bet you'll find you can play anything out there. My system is probably pretty comprable to yours, I have no problem gaming at 1680x1050... but I'm more of an RPG/RTS guy.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

Well an E8x00 chip at 4GHz would be close to double the performance of an X2 @ 2.7GHz in most things, but gaming isn't one of them - unless the game was very CPU bound. Crysis and C&C3 aren't, they're mainly GPU bound. I'm not sure about GRID, I haven't seen any benchmarks on it.

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wouldn't worry too much about synthetic benchmarks. Your 3600+ @ 2.7GHz will barely match a low end non overclocked C2D. But, with that being said, you simply don't need a 4GHz C2D to have a good gaming experience. There are plenty advantages to having a faster CPU then what you currently have, but for gaming what you have is certainly good enough. Don't get me wrong, it won't hurt to upgrade, but with a video card upgrade I bet you'll find you can play anything out there. My system is probably pretty comprable to yours, I have no problem gaming at 1680x1050... but I'm more of an RPG/RTS guy.

An X2 @ 2.7GHz would be quite a bottleneck for something like a HD4850 / HD4870 though, especially the latter. The OP currently runs a HD3870 which is a decent enough GPU for most games (Crysis not included ) but if he were to upgrade the GPU I'd suggest upgrading the CPU as well.

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
but my athlon 64 x2 seems like a pretty weak chip.
in the sisoft benchmarks i'm getting really crap scores which is pissing me off.

I know it's a cliche around here, but I'm gonna say it anyway because it also happens to be true:

Synthetic benchmark scores do not necessarily correlate to real-world performance.

Every hardware enthusiast has to learn this basic truth sooner or later. I remember pulling my hair out trying to get my ASRock board to run stable at 1T command rate. The difference in theoretical memory bandwidth, as measured by Sandra and other benchmarks, was HUGE! So if I run at 2T command rate I might as well flush my RAM down the toilet, right?

Wrong. As many folks on these forums pointed out to me, and as I later verified myself using real-world benchmarks (we call these "games"), it made very little difference at all. In terms of real-world performance, with my system there was basically zero difference, no matter what the benchmarks said.

The same applies to various other technologies (dual-channel vs. single-channel memory is another example that leaps to mind). The bottom line is that benchmarks are a tool. They can help you diagnose bottlenecks and other potential problems with your system. And yes, by quantifying the theoretical limits of your hardware, they can make useful comparisons easier to make. But if you're not having any performance issues with the applications you use, frustration over benchmarks alone isn't a good reason to upgrade. At the end of the day, having the biggest number on a synthetic benchmark just isn't going to make your life any better.

/soapbox

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

I think your problem is your RAM. I can't figure out how you you are running DDR2 533 @ 1066MHz on a mobo that only supports DDR2 up to 800MHz - especially with the AMD ram divisor of 5 on the X2 3800+ (that's been clocked at 2.7GHz!). And I don't really think you can overclock A-Data DDR2 533 quite like that

I would suggest downloading CPUz and checking what speed your memory is running (if you have not already done so).

You have a good mobo, video card and a decent cpu clock. If you feel the need to spend $140 buy an X2 5400+ and 2gb of DDR2 800 for around $130.

You seem to be able to clock that cpu freq. Crank it to 230MHz, drop you HTT to 4x, bump the cpu volts a bit and that X2 5400+ will be pumpin' along at 3.2GHz +

 

[Gikaseixas]

Buy this

overclock to 3.2ghz, get 2GB of DDR800 memory for $35-40

that's a $100 investment that will serve u very well until the next gen Intel/AMD cpus arrive

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: nyker96
well if you do that you might have to change your use name! :]

ahh man i was gonna say that

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

i know. its really confusing

it says in cpuz its running at 536mhz

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
then what about buying an e8200 and a cheap gigabyte or asus motherboard and overclocking to near 4ghz

Well an E8x00 chip at 4GHz would be close to double the performance of an X2 @ 2.7GHz in most things, but gaming isn't one of them - unless the game was very CPU bound. Crysis and C&C3 aren't, they're mainly GPU bound. I'm not sure about GRID, I haven't seen any benchmarks on it.

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I wouldn't worry too much about synthetic benchmarks. Your 3600+ @ 2.7GHz will barely match a low end non overclocked C2D. But, with that being said, you simply don't need a 4GHz C2D to have a good gaming experience. There are plenty advantages to having a faster CPU then what you currently have, but for gaming what you have is certainly good enough. Don't get me wrong, it won't hurt to upgrade, but with a video card upgrade I bet you'll find you can play anything out there. My system is probably pretty comprable to yours, I have no problem gaming at 1680x1050... but I'm more of an RPG/RTS guy.

An X2 @ 2.7GHz would be quite a bottleneck for something like a HD4850 / HD4870 though, especially the latter. The OP currently runs a HD3870 which is a decent enough GPU for most games (Crysis not included ) but if he were to upgrade the GPU I'd suggest upgrading the CPU as well.

Sure, his A64 @ 2.7 will bench lower, but as I said, I doubt there will be anything that he can't play. In games my Phenom @ 2.8 is only mildly faster then his CPU, and there isn't a game that I can't play at good frame rates. Who cares if you only get 80FPS instead of 110FPS. That CPU may be a bigger problem a year from now, maybe not. But I doubt very much that it's really holding him back from playable frame rates right now.

 

[Extelleron]

I think some people really underestimate the need for CPU power in modern games. An A64 X2 at <3GHz or a Phenom at 2.5-2.6GHz (as would be expected out of a 9600) is not enough to play a game like Crysis when paired with a high-end video card.

I have a GTX 280 @ 712/1458/2520 and my previous CPU was a Phenom 9500 @ 2.5GHz and my new CPU is an E8400 @ 4.0GHz.

I ran some tests with the Crysis "Assault Harbor" benchmarks with both systems. Note that there are two minor differences other than the CPU; the E8400 is running on Vista 64-bit and I had the Phenom 9500 running on Vista 32-bit, and with the new E8400 system I am using the 177.41 drivers, versus 177.39 for the Phenom system. I can't see either of these factors making a huge difference. The E8400 tests were run with 32-bit forced. The TLB patch was disabled on the Phenom system.

Assault Harbor, 1680x1050 DX9 High No AA
E8400 @ 4.0GHz : 53.0 FPS Avg, 36.3 FPS Min
Phenom 9500 @ 2.5GHz: 31.9 FPS Avg, 17.0 FPS Min
E8400 > Phenom 9500 = +66.1% Avg / +113.5% Min

Assault Harbor, 1680x1050 DX10 VeryHigh No AA
E8400 @ 4.0GHz : 29.3 FPS Avg, 20.2 FPS Min
Phenom 9500 @ 2.5GHz: 23.3 FPS Avg, 12.9 FPS Min
E8400 > Phenom 9500 = +25.8% Avg, +56.6% Min

Honestly I'm surprised at how big the difference is myself, so I'll have to see how the game performs with E8400 @ 2.0-2.5GHz or so just to eliminate any non-CPU differences between the systems. But there is no doubt that CPU plays a big role in Crysis at least, and remember that the Assault Harbor level is actual gameplay, not a flyby, so it will accurately reflect what you will see while playing Crysis. The biggest difference is in Min framerates and that clearly impacts playability. I haven't played Crysis much yet with either system (already played it several times previously) but from playing the game @ DX10 VH, it is perfectly smooth when IMO DX9 High was not 100% smooth on the Phenom / GTX 280 system.

Anyway.... I just wanted to show that the CPU is not worthless when it comes to gaming, it does make a difference. I'd highly recommend you go the Intel route.... there is no comparison in performance. My E8400 is faster in everything, including rendering (Cinebench), gaming, 3D Mark, everything I do, compared to the Phenom 9500. In fact considering I can now run 64-bit Vista (B2 Phenoms OC like crap in 64-bit Vista for some reason) I am getting ~15-20% higher Cinebench scores than with the quad-core Phenom. And my single-CPU is score is more than 2x the Phenom's.

EDIT:

I ran a DX9 High test with the E8400 @ 2.33GHz and got:

-40.1 FPS Avg, 15.3 FPS Min
vs. 53.0 FPS Avg, 36.3 FPS Min @ 4.0GHz

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

that is a different situation though.
gtx 280 vs 3870

 

[SickBeast]

Extelleron, those benchmarks are excellent and informative, however largely irrelevant to most people. Your GPU is twice as fast as what most people game with, and Crysis is really one of the few games out there that can use a modern CPU.

Out of curiousity, is there any way you could check your CPU usage using task manager while running Crysis? On my rig, I never use more than say 70% of either of the cores in my Opteron 165 while playing Crysis at 1920x1080, with most settings on 'high' (shaders and objects on medium).

If I'm not maxing out my CPUs in task manager during games, does that mean I'm not CPU limited?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
that is a different situation though.
gtx 280 vs 3870

You don't need a new CPU until you upgrade your graphics card.

 

[harpoon84]

Wow, the CPU makes a lot more difference than I thought in Crysis, then again you are using a GTX 280...

With the previous generation of GPUs Crysis was definitely more GPU limited especially at high res.

Btw, Guru3D has an article on CPU scaling in games, they compare everything from a 2.5GHz X2 all the way up to a 3.2GHz QX9770. Some interesting results there, in some games the X2 2.5GHz manages to keep up with the fastest Core 2s due to GPU limitation, but in others it lags behind terribly.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/...quad-core-processors/1

 

[AmberClad]

Sorry to tell you this, but I think "Phenom 9600 Black Edition rules sazakky" might exceed the maximum allowed username length, assuming the AT admins agree to change your name for you .