Getting Athlon II X2, worth it to upgrade to X3/X4 or Phenom II?

scottw182 · Mar 4, 2010

I already posted a thread about my entire build, with a couple questions, in General Hardware: LINK

But, I thought it may be helpful to ask my component-specific questions in their respective forums. They seem to get more traffic, so I will hopefully get a lot more input (no offense to anybody that helped me in General Hardware, just want to get more opinions/info).

So, I'm planning on getting the Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz. First, I wanted to know would it be worth it to go for the Phenom II X2 3.0GHz instead? It's about $20 more, would the performance increase be worth it? It looks like the main difference is the Phenom II has 6mb cache. Or, if the extra cache doesn't make much of a difference, what about going with more cores instead, like the Athlon II X3 3.0GHz, also about $20 more?

I saw a comparison on Tom's Hardware of the Athlon II and Phenom II, and the extra cache didn't seem to really make much of a difference. So, that leads me to more cores.

Would it be worth to upgrade to the Athlon II X3/X4? The last I really looked into this, not much was really utilizing the extra cores, so it was most cost-effective to just go with dual-core. Has this changed much? What are some of the more common applications that can utilize more than 2 cores now? Does Vista or 7 utilize more than 2 cores, at least when multi-tasking? I don't do anything too intensive, but I do multi-task quite a bit.

=XAF=AfterShock · Mar 5, 2010

I just finished putting together a new pc strictly for gaming and I decided to go with the athlon II x2 250 reagor. I was stuck between x2 or x4 or just going with a phenom II but after doing some reading and looking at some benchmarks and gaming comparisons I decided on the athlon II x2 for the bang for the buck factor, the extra 6megs does nothing in terms of gaming and only provides a slight advantage on benchmarks,

I also decided against the x4 because for the $40 price difference those 2 extra cores would probably sit idle most of the time. Not very many apps are properly written to take full advantage of all 4 cores unless they are benchmarking programs. Maybe when the x4 comes down in price I'll scoop one up just because but as of now, I have no regrets on passing over the phenoms.

QuietIce · Mar 5, 2010

scottw182 said:
Would it be worth to upgrade to the Athlon II X3/X4? The last I really looked into this, not much was really utilizing the extra cores, so it was most cost-effective to just go with dual-core. Has this changed much? What are some of the more common applications that can utilize more than 2 cores now? Does Vista or 7 utilize more than 2 cores, at least when multi-tasking? I don't do anything too intensive, but I do multi-task quite a bit.

I think that's the key point right there. Few reviewers really concentrate on the multi-tasking so many of us do today. Even playing games a lot of people multi-task so maybe my quad isn't using more than two cores for the game but what about the custom sounds I'm running or the VoIP I'm using to talk to my teammates?

If you multi-task a lot I'd get a quad, with or without the cache. Your desktop experience will be much smoother ...

A-Dub · Mar 5, 2010

Tom's has done a couple of good reviews about multi core processors and gaming.

Performance Scaling, 2 vs 3 vs 4 cores:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-core-cpu,2280.html

Gaming/Multitasking Benchmark:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-ii-x3,2452-11.html

Here is another area where we can see the 6MB of shared L3 cache in the Phenom II models come into play. The Phenom II X2 550 and X3 720 demonstrate a large advantage over their Athlon II X2 and X3 counterparts. However, the Athlon II X4 620 beats out all of the competition when these programs run concurrently, despite a complete lack of the shared cache memory.

Note that the dual core slows to crawl while gaming and running a virus scan, while the tri/quad cores don't slow down near as much.

rumbl3 · Mar 5, 2010

scottw182 said:
I already posted a thread about my entire build, with a couple questions, in General Hardware: LINK

But, I thought it may be helpful to ask my component-specific questions in their respective forums. They seem to get more traffic, so I will hopefully get a lot more input (no offense to anybody that helped me in General Hardware, just want to get more opinions/info).

So, I'm planning on getting the Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz. First, I wanted to know would it be worth it to go for the Phenom II X2 3.0GHz instead? It's about $20 more, would the performance increase be worth it? It looks like the main difference is the Phenom II has 6mb cache. Or, if the extra cache doesn't make much of a difference, what about going with more cores instead, like the Athlon II X3 3.0GHz, also about $20 more?

I saw a comparison on Tom's Hardware of the Athlon II and Phenom II, and the extra cache didn't seem to really make much of a difference. So, that leads me to more cores.

Would it be worth to upgrade to the Athlon II X3/X4? The last I really looked into this, not much was really utilizing the extra cores, so it was most cost-effective to just go with dual-core. Has this changed much? What are some of the more common applications that can utilize more than 2 cores now? Does Vista or 7 utilize more than 2 cores, at least when multi-tasking? I don't do anything too intensive, but I do multi-task quite a bit.

I just built the cheapest amd build i could and i got is it a athlon II x2 240 regor? Anyway 2.8 ghz. I read on some sites people pushing these babies past 4 ghz, 3 halfish on stock depending at times. Great deal 57 bucks

Anyway imo for gaming i always notice a huge increase in performance with more cache. I don't think many games are using any more then two cores right now these days that's not to say they won't shortly.

I have had a quad P2 and a tri core p2, I will say so far i loved the tri the best. Two cores for games and one core for everything else (if you set all the affinity lol) but just seemed like the sweet spot no waste plenty of power.

Acuradude · Mar 5, 2010

when choosing to build a computer you must not think about today but think about what everything will be tomorrow everything is getting bigger and harder to run and it will only get worse so for me i bought a 720be x3 am3 2.8 and unlocked the 4th core i paid $119 from newegg.com on stock settings i was able to overclock to 3.4ghz with no problems. if you get an am3 processor you will beable to upgrade better later on with it where as the am2+ is already being phased out and dont like ddr3 ram that much. this time next year any am2+ or less will have a hard time keeping up and you can forget about upgrading you will most likely have to start over. just something to think about. i love my processor and dont need nor want any other. i think in about 3 to 4 years i might need one thats one reason why im getting a 890gx asus motherboard it can handle the 6 core am3 processors that are coming out in may.

Getting Athlon II X2, worth it to upgrade to X3/X4 or Phenom II?

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