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Phenom X3 720 or X4 810.

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calmchaos

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Feb 7, 2010
Hello,

I am trying to decide between the AMD Phenom X3 720 and the X4 810.
I am going to be buying it with the GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 and this RAM.

I want to unlock either the 4th core of the 720 or the extra cache of the 810. Which I only recently heard is possible. lol.
The 810 costs more and doesn't have the unlocked BE multiplier, but I like the idea of the guaranteed 4th core.

I am getting a new system and am trying to keep the price $400 - $450 for the components. I already have a HD4870.

Also want to make a fairly silent system and am ****ing money away on the Noctua NH-D14, because I want to. But the cost of that isn't included in the numbers above.

Thanks for any advice!
-Brett
 
How about amd phenom x4 925 ?It is quad and has full cache.And it cost only $12 more than amd phenom x4 810.



calmchaos said:
Hello,

I am trying to decide between the AMD Phenom X3 720 and the X4 810.
I am going to be buying it with the GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 and this RAM.

I want to unlock either the 4th core of the 720 or the extra cache of the 810. Which I only recently heard is possible. lol.
The 810 costs more and doesn't have the unlocked BE multiplier, but I like the idea of the guaranteed 4th core.

I am getting a new system and am trying to keep the price $400 - $450 for the components. I already have a HD4870.

Also want to make a fairly silent system and am ****ing money away on the Noctua NH-D14, because I want to. But the cost of that isn't included in the numbers above.

Thanks for any advice!
-Brett
Click to expand...
 
Do those 925 chips tend to overclock well?

How often does the 4th core open up on the 720? Roughly... I haven't kept up with it. Is it more likely than not to open up with a little more voltage? Or is it more like a 50/50 shot.
I like the idea of unlocking the 720, but I don't want to risk it if I'll probably be disappointed. I know it's nowhere near guaranteed, but how probable is it based on what everyone has seen?
 
Last edited:
calmchaos said:
Hello,

I am trying to decide between the AMD Phenom X3 720 and the X4 810.
I am going to be buying it with the GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 and this RAM.

I want to unlock either the 4th core of the 720 or the extra cache of the 810. Which I only recently heard is possible. lol.
The 810 costs more and doesn't have the unlocked BE multiplier, but I like the idea of the guaranteed 4th core.

I am getting a new system and am trying to keep the price $400 - $450 for the components. I already have a HD4870.

Also want to make a fairly silent system and am ****ing money away on the Noctua NH-D14, because I want to. But the cost of that isn't included in the numbers above.

Thanks for any advice!
-Brett
Click to expand...

well unlocking is just an added bonus, what are you going to do when it doesent unlock stablily?

i recently bought a 720 BE OEM processor and lately i have been trying to overclock it, its a bit more difficult than it used to be all sorts of new ins and outs that help stability and performance but can also work aginst you.

at the moment the 4th core is unlocked and its running at 3.2Ghz with 1.344v
stock is 3 cores at 2.8Ghz and 1.325v

no idea on temps but its not that hot because the air comming from the fan is still cool
 
If it didn't unlock core 4 and still run stable I would just leave it at three and OC the mess out of it.

And yeah... I was wondering how people monitor core temp when they unlock the 4th core. Doesn't that mess up the thermal monitoring system? Do they use Old school thermocouples?
 
you could get the little diode thingys and stick it some place or soe boards still have a cpu socket area sensor too.

whats werid is core temp cant read it but the cpu temp in my bios is able to read fine, it was spot on to what ever core temp would say so i am wondering if its more a in windows thing than a hardware funkyness thing
 
Buying a chip EXPECTING it to unlock only leads to distress.

If it costs less and you get the unlock feature bonus!

If it does not unlock you should be happy with what you got..

The prices on all these chips are so low, get what you want and call it a day :)

I personally wit ha decent board would go with a quad over a trike. But I ran my 920 at 900 MHz, and it did not break that speed except with newer games.. or when I was playing civ 4, had 3 IM clients open, was browsing the web AND playing HD video. (SD video even upscaled still stayed at 900 MHz, HD sent 2 cores to 1800)


Gaming? Get the trike BE... Encoding? Get the quad.

Overclocking? For the joy? Or for something else? For ePeen you have 2 options.. look and see what everyone else is doing, and grab that and try and get boints. Or grab what no one else is clocking and go for cups :)

For the sheer sake of overclocking... it does not matter what you get.. you will OC and have fun doing it :)
 
Niku-Sama said:
you could get the little diode thingys and stick it some place or soe boards still have a cpu socket area sensor too.

whats werid is core temp cant read it but the cpu temp in my bios is able to read fine, it was spot on to what ever core temp would say so i am wondering if its more a in windows thing than a hardware funkyness thing
Click to expand...
I don't know of any BIOS that monitors the core temp. BIOS monitors the motherboard CPU sensor, which usually sits right under the socket. Many boards have good CPU sensors so the difference between them and core temp can be pretty small. All the ASUS boards I have are like this with Probe II (which just mirrors the BIOS readings) temps ±1°C of CoreTemp. The CPU temp doesn't rise and fall nearly as fast as the core temp when you hit the gas but after, oh, 15-25 sec or so it's up there (or down there) at the same reading as CoreTemp.

Good case flow helps this as does an upright heatsink. Horizontal sinks and poor case flow tend to make the area around the CPU hot, which leads to faulty readings from the CPU temp sensor. Cheap/uncalibrated CPU sensors can throw out false readings as well. But most sensors are fairly precise so you can "calibrate" it to CoreTemp before unlocking <whatever> and then use it as so-so core temp sensor ...
 
The Asus M4A78T-E i've worked with has a very good cpu temp sensor as well, it's almost always very close to the core temps. The core temps go up quite slowly after the 25*c idle to 35*c instant jump, and the CPU temp keeps right up.

Personally i would get the 925, it has the same TDP, 2mb more L3 cache, and 1x higher stock multi.
The 810 is a great chip, but the 925 is a better chip.
 
Neuromancer said:
For the sheer sake of overclocking... it does not matter what you get.. you will OC and have fun doing it :)
Click to expand...

Good point. I'll save the $45 and get the X3 720 BE and see what I can do with it.
Kind of excited about it all... I haven't overclocked really since I my old AMD Athlon 64 3200+, and nVidia 6800NU unlocked and overclocked to 6800Ultra.

Should I get some type of temperature sensor? Or can I trust my board and OCCT or something like that? I don't really want to run a diode makin my case all ugly, but I will if there is no other choice.
 
You can trust the motherboard's CPU temp sensor as long as you calibrate it to the core temp before you unlock anything. Board sensors are usually precise enough but they're often not very accurate - depending on the board. Once you calibrate it to see what (if any) difference there is between the board and the actual core temp you should be fine ... :)
 
Last edited:
QuietIce said:
You can trust the motherboard's CPU temp sensor as long as you calibrate it to the core temp before you unlock anything. Board sensors are usually precise enough but they're often not very accurate - depending on the board. Once you calibrate it to see what (if any) difference there is between the board and the actual core temp you should be fine ... :)
Click to expand...

Understood. Thanks.
I'll post up my experiences when I get the stuff. Which will be like next week-ish. I'll lap the cpu heat spreader and see how well that Noctua NH-D14 does. Hopefully it's as awesome as the reviews say.
 
I just got all my stuff setup today and windows installed.
What are the maximum safe temps I should look for when overclocking? And what program is best for stability testing?
 
Good programs for stress testing are Prime95 and OCCT. Load core temp (not CPU from the motherboard) should be measured when running one of those programs. OCCT has it's own temp reading and I like using CoreTemp with Prime95.

OCCT
Prime95
CoreTemp

Maximum good load core temp for OC'ing a Phenom II is 55°C ... :)
 
So did you end up with the X3 720? I don't think it can be beat bang for the buck!

I tried unlocking mine and didn't have great results. Prime would run for hours without errors then my daughter would get on there and it would lock up playing some cheese website game. I also didn't like the fact that I couldn't monitor the core temps.

It screams as a trike so it really doesn't matter.
 
Yeah i got the X3 720. The fourth core seemed to be stable up to 3.1GHz and 1.425volts. I didn't get around to seeing what it would do with more voltage yet.
Right now it is running at 3.5Ghz 1.425V on 3 cores. My temps under load are around 43°C at this setting, so I should be able to handle some more volts.

Looks like i actually need 1.49V to stay stable at 3.5Ghz on three cores. On four cores I can't much above 3.1Ghz even at 1.52V. So I'm thinking it'll run on the three core setup.

Running prime 95 now at 1.5V 3.5Ghz at OCCT reads my core temps at 43° and EasyTune 6 reads the CPU temperature as 57°. Which one of these two temps is more accurate? I lapped the cpu IHS before installing it under my Noctua NH-D14.
 
Last edited:
Just to update. Core temp agrees with OCCT on mid 40s at 1.520V under prime95 heat test. But that is with 3 cores obviously.
 
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