AMD Phenom, now or later?

Liqourice · Apr 6, 2008, 02:12 PM

So, a new line of Phenoms have been released that are a bit faster and bugfixed.

The question is, is it worth it to change my Athlon X2 5200 to a Phenom X4 9850 now or should I wait for the 45nm Phenoms that are believed to be avaliable later this year?

My system is decent now but I can't get all the juice out of my HD3870X2 with my current cpu.

caqde · Apr 6, 2008, 02:20 PM

Best advice I could give is this. If you feel you need the power to do something go ahead and get that chip. Otherwise feel free to wait for the 45nm versions. Typically I will only change my hardware when I need the power of the new chip to accomplish a task that my current one can't.

Other then that make sure your board supports the 9850 before you buy it. NOTE: all/most current 780g boards do not support the Phenom 9850..

EDIT: It seems that chip might be supported as of the F4 BIOS, but it is not listed on the CPU support page for your board... kind of disturbing.. So make sure you have the latest BIOS before getting the new chip. Just to be sure you might also want to e-mail or call giga-byte and ask them if that chip is supported as it is not on their CPU support page.

Mousey · Apr 6, 2008, 03:08 PM

Have you ever considered Phenom... never?
Intel currently dominates the market not only in terms of sales and price, but in performance and value.
I'd recommend any core 2 duo over a phenom.

swimtech · Apr 6, 2008, 03:33 PM

If you're concerned about your X2 5200 not giving you the full capability of your video card, I don't really think the Phenom is going to help much over your existing processor, save for apps and games (still rare...) that will take advantage of the extra cores.

What games/apps do you consider limited by your CPU, and at what resolution and AA/AF settings are you running the games/apps at? This will provide solid information for us to give you the best advice...

**kris23** · Apr 6, 2008, 08:17 PM

Phenom needs to be cheaper....

Mousey · Apr 7, 2008, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kris23

Phenom needs to be cheaper....

If it was a lot cheaper (IE. $100 lol) it would be a pretty good choice for HTPC's if the Stock cooler is as quiet as everyone says it is.

Liqourice · Apr 8, 2008, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by swimtech

If you're concerned about your X2 5200 not giving you the full capability of your video card, I don't really think the Phenom is going to help much over your existing processor, save for apps and games (still rare...) that will take advantage of the extra cores.

What games/apps do you consider limited by your CPU, and at what resolution and AA/AF settings are you running the games/apps at? This will provide solid information for us to give you the best advice...

It's mainy WWIIOnline that needs the CPU power. It's very CPU intense. I notice a major increase in performance from stock 200 MHz fsb clock to the 220 I have OC'd it to now.

This is the game I mostly play and I play it a lot. I can't run with AA/AF on at all really if I want a stutter free gameplay.

I had the same problem with my old X850 and when I moved from an Athlon 3200 to the X2 5200 I got a huge performance increase so that's why I know it will do the same if I get a faster CPU.

I have no problem with other games or apps.. but since this is THE game for me then I want more power.

But I think I'll wait for the 45nm and see if they are faster. If not the current phenoms will most likely have dropped in price anyway. I can play quite well now but I want to get the most out of my gfx card as well.

Oh, and I run at 1680x1050, native resolution of my 20" Syncmaster. With WWIIOnline I run no AA an no AF. Sadly enough that game doesn't support crossfire, not sli either for that matter.

Liqourice · Jul 4, 2008, 06:00 AM

Is there any decent benchmark out there that shows the difference in performance between some old Athlon X2's and the Phenom line of CPU's?

I would be especially interested in a comparison with OpenGL games like Quake since that will be closer to "my" game. I'm pretty sure that my cpu bottlenecks my 3870X2.