phenom II x4 955be < intel dual core ??!

K

I was planning on the phenom II x4 955be thinking it had so much of hype behind its performance but when everyone pushed me to go for an intel system instead.. just started to do some comparison online.. n came to see that the closest match (in terms of price) to the 955be was the i3 2100. just having 2 cores !
Upon seeing some benchmarks, im totally taken back by the i3 2100's performance! Though the 955be has 4 cores, it does not perform as good as the i3 2100 in games..
Is this a good reason for me to ditch the 955 be ?
I'm not sure if / how the 4 cores would actually benefit me in performance ?

Thanks !

A

For Gaming - Intel i3 2100 outperforms the Phenom by a large margin
For Media Encoding - The phenom will be faster because it has 4 cores.

K

'Media encoding' as in - playback of hd/blu ray movies Or the actual video 'building' / conversion of blu-ray video into dvd n that sort ?

I would use the system for:
- gaming
- multi-tasking as in -
. (there are atleast 40 tabs open at any time in my browser) + installing apps + hd video playback or heavy gaming + file transfers happening bt. comps connected to my home network

Its because of different technologies that those two use.

karthik316_1999 said:
'Media encoding' as in - playback of hd/blu ray movies Or the actual video 'building' / conversion of blu-ray video into dvd n that sort ?

The bold part

K

Okay.. so for my above listed PC usage, the i3 is perfectly fine ?
Only concern is.., maybe an year later, some games might demand a quad core.. wont the 955be win here ?

G

Dude if you are looking for a rig for future use i would recommend AMD ... you can always upgrade to bulldozer [may leave a heavy dent in intel's market]

plus AMD based systems got backward compatibilty so dats + point

And i3 beats AMD at most games dats true but cmon AMD is best for cheap gaming and it delivers your every penny

G

Cilus said:
At the price of Intel's i3 2100 processor, OP can easily opt for a Phenom II X4 955 which is any day an overall better performer than i3 2100, especially in Multi-threaded tasks.

Cilius has helped me with my config check my thread
He gives you honest opinions

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/pc-components-configurations/144959-casual-gaming-config-rs-30-000-a.html

karthik316_1999 said:
Okay.. so for my above listed PC usage, the i3 is perfectly fine ?
Only concern is.., maybe an year later, some games might demand a quad core.. wont the 955be win here ?

Its starting to happen.

*media.bestofmicro.com/2/V/280039/original/Metro2033.png

*media.bestofmicro.com/L/O/282012/original/F12010.png

There is nothing to be surprised of Core i3 2100's superior performance over a quad core Phenom II 955. Phenom II was actually launched to compete against the high end Core2Quad and Core2Extreme processors and performed very well on this role.
After the launch of Core2 series there are two generation of processor launched by Intel, the 1st gen Core i3/i5/i7 series based on Nehalem architecture and second generation Core i3/i5/i7 series based on Sandybridge architecture. Core i3 2100 is a Sandybridge processor and architecture wise far advanced than Phenon II series. It also has Hyper threading, resulting 4 logical cores.

But still Phenom II X4 955 is very attractive choice because:-

1. Although performance in gaming is less than i3 2100, it is not far behind and because it is an Black Edition processor, it can be overclocked to higher degree to fetch some extra performance.

2. In multi-threaded environment like Audio/Video encoding, editing or HD video decoding, due to the presence of 4 physical cores compared to 4 logical cores of i3 2100, it performs better

3. Normally games were not multi-threaded in nature and cannot take the advantage of multiple cores. But now a days, games' multi-threaded performance is increasing and upcoming games may be benefited from a True quad core like Phenom II X4 955 BE.

K

Points 1 & 2 might not be useful to me.. as I'm not planning on OC'ing .. nor do I use the PC for video encoding...
But point 3 does attract me :d

What is the best VFM mobo from Asus for the 955 be ? Leave alone the onboard graphics as im going with a discrete 6770 anyway. meaning.. I can even settle with a lower chipset..

Only thing is I need the board to have AM3+ support + minimum of 2 pci slots & 4 DIMM's

Budget - 4k

n of course.. it must support OC'ing..! (I hear ppl saying a minimum of 6+1 phase mobo is required for OC'ing the 955 ?)

Thanks!

^^for 4k you may get all other features but not 2 pci e slots.for that you have to go for 6.9k msi mobo.there is one around for 5k but i doubt its availability and it has x16 and x4 lanes and cilus told me that for crossfire you atleast need x8 lanes.btw mobo is gigabyte ga 880g-usb3 and don't confuse this mobo with 880gm-usb3 which is having one pcie slot and supports am3 plus, available at smc for 4.8k.

You can do CF two PCI-E X16 slots running @ X16 and X4 speed respectively but if any powerful card like HD 6770 or HD 6850 is plugged in the slot running @ X4, the card will be bottle-necked due to the very limited bandwidth of the X4 slot.

@ karthik316_1999

Check this before making a decision.

K

yes, this comparison page is what made me create this thread !
but, just being skeptical about being future proof (meaning.. apps / games needing a quad core are just around the corner .. )

^^ Down the line, you can upgrade to a quadcore or greater. Intel current boards also have future "ivybridge" cpu support. So you can always upgrade.

Amd boards also have "bulldozer" support. Considering phenom 2's old architecture and lack of newer instruction sets, its wise to opt for sandybridge now until bulldozer arrives.

Save up a bit and go for a sandybridge quadcore like i5 2400. It beats the heck out of all current phenom 2 processors.

K

The problem:

Being on a budget, i'm unable to afford a good mobo for the sandy bridge i3.
Budget for mobo: 4k

Took the path to 955be considering the 4 cores.But I hope everyone agrees that buying the 955be sans intention of OC'ing is foolishness. Even after making up my mind to OC it, again problem comes of not being able to afford a suitable 6+1 phase vrm mobo ! (I definitely would hate to see any component of my PC hot to the touch)

^^i guess you won't find any problem in oc with a 4k motherboard.you can go somewhere around 3.5-3.6GHz without any problem.

^^ Right. When I was having my Phenom II 955, my mobo was Gigabyte GA-MA-785GGMT-UD2H, priced @ 4.5K and having 4+1 VRM design. But Oceing the CPU to 3.6 GHz stable or 3.8 GHz sometimes with the stock cooler was not a problem.

K

On an alternate note,
Considering that I would not be upgrading any time in the future, can i settle down with a 1st gen
i5 / i7 CPU on an 1156 socket motherboard ? Are these still available at cheaper rates ?

^^ No, never do that. They are still expensive and 1156 is an obsolete platform with no future processor support. Stick with 1155 if you want intel processor.

Else get the 955be if you want a cheap quadcore along with a 880 based board that has AM3+ CPU support as well ( bulldozer).

But i will suggest 1155 platform now and going for the i5 2400.

K

vickybat said:
^^ No, never do that. They are still expensive and 1156 is an obsolete platform with no future processor support. Stick with 1155 if you want intel processor.

Thanks for responding Vicky.. I really don't mind if 1156 is obsolete as long as I can get an 1156 CPU (preferably an i5) + mobo within max of 10 - 11 k. Is that too much to ask for ?

Else get the 955be if you want a cheap quadcore along with a 880 based board that has AM3+ CPU support as well ( bulldozer) But i will suggest 1155 platform now and going for the i5 2400.

Bulldozer vs i5 2400.. which is more likely to win ?

Phenom II X4 955BE >>>> Intel Dual Core.

Core i3-2100 is slightly faster and much efficient than Phenom II X4 955 BE in games. Some might prefer Phenom II X4 for true 4 cores and faster video encoding + rendering.

Next time use right and perfect words in the thread title.

Hardware is all about being specific and to the point.

/thread

karthik316_1999 said:
Bulldozer vs i5 2400.. which is more likely to win ?

We will know after a month or two. I'd say, go for i5-2400 now. You can't go wrong.

K

My budget is max 5.5 k for the cpu

^^Then stick with 955be.

K

A first gen i5 + mobo for 10 - 11 k not possible at all ?

karthik316_1999 said:
A first gen i5 + mobo for 10 - 11 k not possible at all ?

nope.

No not possible. And why you want 1156 platform? In time of next upgrade you have to throw out both the CPU and motherboard then. But if you go with 1155 based Intel or AM3 based AMD mobo with Am3+ support, in future you can just upgrade the processor with Sandybridge-E series or Bulldozer series CPU respectively.

karthik316_1999 said:
A first gen i5 + mobo for 10 - 11 k not possible at all ?

Intel does not drop prices like amd. The i5 760 is still retailing around 9-10k even though better performing i5 2300 and i5 2400 are retailing for same or lower prices.

i5 2400 is now retailing @ 9.3k or even lower.

K

Okay, now that I've realized Intel is out of reach for a poor guy like me..
Was looking at this unlockable CPU thread
What Unlocks? -> The "Unlockable" CPU reference list - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

AMD Athlon II x4 640 unlocks to a Phenom II x6 .. hmmm..

So, does that mean AMD Athlon II x4 640 would be a better choice than the 955be ?

^^ Unlocking is not guaranteed.

No, Athlon II X4 640 won't unlock to Phenom II X6. It was only for that particular very rare batch if it's true.

Just go with i3-2100.

K

Fine... but i'm not finding any am3+ compatible mobo in asus ..
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards

Too bad.. i'd been looking in the US version of the website until now.. n shortlisted the
M5A78L_LE

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS M5A78L LE so, these am3+ mobo's haven't reached india yet..?

For Asus, only their high end AM3 mobos will support AM3+ CPUs, mainly based on 890GX and 890FX based motherboards. For the lower end chipset like 880, 870, 780 etc, they are releasing completely different version of the motherboards with M5A prefix. The M5A78LE is basically Am3+ version of M4A78LE with the capability to handle higher power requirements of Bulldozer CPU.

K

Okay.. but it is not available in india.. is it ? the whole point of opting the 955be & am3+ mobo over an i3 sandy & 1155 socket is no more !

Plus.. I read this somewhere.. !

. AM3+ is a dead socket and being replaced by FM2 for Bulldozer Enhanced in 7 months (is it so ????)
. P67 Motherboards support Ivy Bridge processors
. P67 mobo /I3 2100 < AM3+ mobo /X4 955 in terms of cost
. I3 2100 is better in games (atleast for now, where games dont recognize the actual 4 cores)

Now, the scenario changes a lot !

err dude, why are you being so paranoid?

First and the foremost, no one pairs i3-2100 with a P67 motherboard. People pair it with H67 motherboard. P67 is for overclocking and i3-2100 is a non-overclockable processor. A good H67 motherboard which I feel is worthy of purchase costs 5.5k. There are el cheapo H61 chipset motherboards too available for 3.5k but I don't like them so I rarely/never recommend them.

Second, games DO recognize 4 cores. All the latest games are very well multi-threaded.

Best for you would be waiting if you want to. Just wait for mainstream 970G chipset AM3+ motherboards to arrive. They haven't arrived yet and will arrive along with Bulldozer. Currently, only high end 990FX AM3+ motherboards are available.

yes, from what I believe, AMD will be ditching AM3+ in favour of FMx - for Fusion APU. They have maintained backwards compatibility since a loong time if you ask me. Fair enough if they do so although they might not do so and release a simple CPU. No one can knows what AMD might do and no one knows what Intel might do. Intel might have a change of mind and get a new socket for Ivy Bridge. I also remember a time when people were expecting Sandy Bridge for LGA 1156 and the Core i* processors for LGA 775. Just buy the best what you can buy now or after 2 months.

I say, just go for i3-2100 + H67 and be done with it if you want to buy now. Don't bother with X4 955 BE.

K

If upgrading to an i5/i7 2+ yrs down the line or the ivy bridge 4+yrs down the line.. an investment with the p67 chipset rather than a h67 is wise, right ?
(That is assuming the i5/i7/ivy bridge CPU's would be OC'able)

karthik316_1999 said:
If upgrading to an i5/i7 2+ yrs down the line or the ivy bridge 4+yrs down the line.. an investment with the p67 chipset rather than a h67 is wise, right ?
(That is assuming the i5/i7/ivy bridge CPU's would be OC'able)

With H67 you can use Quick Sync to encode H.264 videos but can't overclock. With P67 you can overclock but not use Quick Sync to encode videos.

Z68 = H67 + P67. You can do both. Z68 is expensive.

Now Intel likes unnecessary confusion. Earlier, we didn't even have overclockable and non-overclockable distinctions ("K") for Intel processors. (i5-2500 and i5-2500k)

You want to get P67? Get it. It is you who has to decide. I can only give you facts and can't really comment whether it is wise or not.

K

Can you suggest me a good P67 mobo from Intel / Asus ?
Somewhere around the 5 - 6k line ?

karthik316_1999 said:
Can you suggest me a good P67 mobo from Intel / Asus ?
Somewhere around the 5 - 6k line ?

Nope.

P67 motherboards start from 9000 afaik.

@karthik316_1999
oh buddy make up your mind whether to go with intel or AMD.why you are thinking about 2 years or 4 years, by that time world would have been changed by lot.now only for 4-6 months time gap new processors are launched,so then how can you say anything about 4years in future?

K

I actually made up my mind to go with the 955be. But, just wanted to be more future proof.
For eg., 4 yrs back, when I choose the 939 socket athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz CPU (the dealer created the hype that it was 64 bit etc etc), it was the most foolish decision that I made

as till now I have not used any 64 bit app & a 32-bit 3.2 Ghz CPU would have served me much much faster !

Having regretted this decision, I just wanted to make sure that I don't have to change the entire CPU + motherboard + RAM combo once again when upgrading 4 yrs down the line.

But, was shocked to hear that am3 socket is obselete. So, there is no point investing on it. Thats when the idea of shifting to intel 1155 came in.
People have told that ivy & other future gen CPU's from intel would be based on the same 1155 chipset.

So, this is where I stand now on the wall as a cat!

karthik316_1999 said:
For eg., 4 yrs back, when I choose the 939 socket athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz CPU (the dealer created the hype that it was 64 bit etc etc), it was the most foolish decision that I made as till now I have not used any 64 bit app & a 32-bit 3.2 Ghz CPU would have served me much much faster !

If that 32-bit 3.2 Ghz CPU was a Pentium 4, then your dealer chose the right CPU for you.

Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz > Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz.

heck your 64-bit point is completely moot since all amd64 processors are backward compatible with 32-bit. And Intel's processors are amd64 processors.

K

No.. not the p4.. a 3 + ghz athlon 32-bit series one.. i guess

The reason is my other p4 2.4 Ghz PC is much much smoother than this amd 64 3000+.. right from opening up browsers or booting or playback.
In fact, the p4 just has 512 mb of ram as against 1.5gb to this amd junk

karthik316_1999 said:
No.. not the p4.. a 3 + ghz athlon 32-bit series one.. i guess

The reason is my other p4 2.4 Ghz PC is much much smoother than this amd 64 3000+.. right from opening up browsers or booting or playback.
In fact, the p4 just has 512 mb of ram as against 1.5gb to this amd junk

placebo effect.

Athlon 64 3000+ is faster than Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz any day of the week.

And every AMD processor released after 2003 and Intel processor after 2005 has been amd64. It is more like 32-bit + extensions. Makes no difference. You perhaps have a bloated installation on that machine.

Note: You don't know what you are talking about.

Do you know what you are saying?

32-bit operating system will run very slow on every modern machine which has Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Phenom, Phenom II, Core i3/5/i7. Yes, all these processors are "64-bit" i.e. amd64.

karthik316_1999 said:
No.. not the p4.. a 3 + ghz athlon 32-bit series one.. i guess

The reason is my other p4 2.4 Ghz PC is much much smoother than this amd 64 3000+.. right from opening up browsers or booting or playback.
In fact, the p4 just has 512 mb of ram as against 1.5gb to this amd junk

I agrees totally. My Intel 8085 booted faster and peformed calculations faster than the AMD Junk of Athlon X2 with 2 GB RAM. :lol:

Then you guyys have serious setup or software issues with your AMD setup. An AMD 64 bit 3000+ is any day faster than the P4 prescott 3 GHz apart from Divx Encoding which favors only Intel's architecture. Check out any review. Here is one for instance.: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ CPU Review: AMD64 to the Masses! - X-bit labs

karthik316_1999, why are you keep saying AM3 socket is obsolate?? You can't find a cheap Asus AM3 mobo supporting AM3+ PU does not mean that it is obsolate. There are plenty of sub 5K AM3+ ready AM3 mobos are available from MSI. Gigabyte, ECS etc. AMD is far better in terms of backward compatibility than INTEL. On the other hand INTEL has some notorious habbits of changing the platform with every release and this is the 1st time they are providing backward compatibility.

An AM2+ mobo, released @ 2007, still can support an AM3 processor, at 2011. In this mean time Intel has released 3 generation of processors with 3 generation of motherboards.

And 4 yrs is a very long time in technology field, you simply can't tale your config will support processors of 4 years in future, no matter how pricy and future proof config you buy. But ya, in past AMD has shown this kind of customer service.

I think this conversation is going too long without any new information...only repeatating and misleading informations are getting posted.

K

After much research, have come up with just these boards based on my feature (max.dimm & pci slots) & price ..

1. The Intel DH67CL with 4 pci slots, 4 dimm slots & usb 3.0 @ 5600 rs/-
IntelÂ® Desktop Board DH67CL

2. Asus P8H67-M LX with 2 pci slots, 2 dimm slots & no usb 3.0 @ 6000 rs/-
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P8H67-M LX

3. Asus P8H67-M LE with 2 pci slots, 2 dimm slots & usb 3.0 @ 6400 rs/-
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P8H67-M LE

Thought the Intel boards would be costlier but surprisingly it appears a tad cheaper with better features.

Which one do u feel i must choose..

Cilus said:
karthik316_1999, why are you keep saying AM3 socket is obsolate?? You can't find a cheap Asus AM3 mobo supporting AM3+ PU does not mean that it is obsolate. There are plenty of sub 5K AM3+ ready AM3 mobos are available from MSI. Gigabyte, ECS etc.

No.., this wasn't the reason cilus..!
Said so considering the fact that the Bulldozer cpu's would slowly move towards the fm2 platform.. Hence, i meant am3 as obsolete keeping in mind its future upgrade ability. Even read your comment in one of the threads where-in you've said, the am3+ support is being offered only to help the slow transition to the bulldozer, the release of which has been talked for years altogether now..
Do correct me if im wrong, cheers

^^see thats what i am saying 2 posts before you told you are going with AMD and now you are posting about Intel mobos.
AMD moving from their old chipsets because they may be required some new chipsets to completely support all the features of their BD which they can't get from their old ones.i think AMD will move to new chipsets on the later versions of BD so you still can enjoy the BDs which are released in september.what else you need?

Cilus said:
I think this conversation is going too long without any new information...only repeatating and misleading informations are getting posted.

That's what I call circular discussions.

karthik316_1999, When Bulldozer will be released, it will at least stay for 1 year in production and which means two years of availability. And AMD is taking transition from AM3 to AM3+, so the company is providing Bulldozer compatibility without a complete upgrade, just like Intel Sandybridge E.... I am simply not getting what you want buddy, in fact any one is getting your need I guess. When FM2 sockets will come, they will be designed for the Trinity processors, i.e., Bulldozer with Integrated GPU. I don't think they are gonna stop manufacturing of Zambezi based Bulldozer processors.

Anyway, go with Intel 2100 + H67 based chipset as you like it.

The FM2 socket will support trinity based bulldozer APU's as well as bulldozer based "Komodo" cpu's which is nothing but updated "zambezi" with 10 core support (5 modules).
So there will be a single socket and platform for both CPU and APU. Until then, AM3+ and current FM1 will do the job.

karthik316_1999 said:
A first gen i5 + mobo for 10 - 11 k not possible at all ?

Instead of opting for first gen i5, go for i5-2400 @ 9.3K or +- a bit amount.

K

This system was built with the i5 2500k cpu.. thread may be closed now.. thanks for all the help guys.. digit community rocks..!

^^ Can we see some pictures of it?

K

wow.. is this config to that much of a 'boasty' level ?!