Computer upgrade thoughts

Just thinking of getting an upgrade for my current desktop. What do you guys think?

Except for the 6870, not worth it.

You'd better grab a good aftermarket cooler and overclock your Phenom II.

Per-clock, the Phenom II is faster (like 20%) than the Zambezi.
And it's a "real" 4 cores.

What do you use your desktop for?

EDIT: sorry, I misread the graphic card... What do you have ATM?

EDIT 2: per-clock comparison PhII x4/Fx-8150 http://www.core-authority.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1921

I have the phenom unlocked to a quad core already. Completely stable too. I think the new mobo is a good idea though. Mines aging and i want to sli in the future.

At the moment im not using a graphics card. Just on board. And i use it for gaming (Minecraft, Crysis 2, ect..) and school. Even though i love the site, ive always been nervous towards overclocking. I just don't really know how to go about it.

gargant said:

At the moment im not using a graphics card. Just on board. And i use it for gaming (Minecraft, Crysis 2, ect..) and school. Even though i love the site, ive always been nervous towards overclocking. I just don't really know how to go about it.

Click to expand...

You play crysis 2 with onboard video

Is this your monitor?

If your MoBo does the job, keep it!
4 Gigs are enough also.

Grab a nice graphic card, like an AMD 7850 ($250 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102986) and a Hyper 212 HSF ($30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099) instead of CPU+MoBo+4670+RAM ($380)

Here is a superb PhII OC guide:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023&highlight=dolk's+guide

manu2b said:

Grab a nice graphic card, like an AMD 7850 ($250 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102986) and a Hyper 212 HSF ($30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099) instead of CPU+MoBo+4670+RAM ($380)

Here is a superb PhII OC guide:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023&highlight=dolk's+guide

Click to expand...

+1 to this. Don't need a new CPU/mobo/RAM.

manu2b said:

per-clock comparison PhII x4/Fx-8150 http://www.core-authority.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1921

Click to expand...

Uh, you did notice that it's a clock/clock faceoff. 1/2 the 8150 was turned off. Now seriously, how is that comparison useful? Who buys 8 cores, just to turn 4 of them off? I bought mine so I could benefit from twice as many as I previously had...

Not that OP was going to buy the 8150 or that he already had a true X4 980...

He does have an unlocked 555, which is likely plenty for what he intends. So I would suggest not getting the FX Quad Zambezi.

Moving on... HIS has been working out very well for me, but my model is different than what OP is considering, so performance I can't speak about. I can vouch for quality and I can say that my HIS product works better than expected.

Corsair RAM has always been solid for me. OP probably doesn't need the amount being considered. 4GB oughtta do it.

Gigabyte was my brand of choice until a string of 4 purchases all underperformed and all failed very prematurely. That happened to me about 4 years ago (maybe 5) and probably isn't relevant at the current time, but I've had a bad taste for their products ever since. Might want to read some reviews on that model and do a web search for "GA-970A-UD3 problem". I didn't see anything alarming when I did that search, but the OP might judge differently than I do.

I would put my ca$h on 4GB of Corsair RAM and a better HIS than the one being considered. The rest, I would keep what is already owned. Put the mobo and CPU moolah on the vid card.

Vic Velcro said:

Uh, you did notice that it's a clock/clock faceoff. 1/2 the 8150 was turned off. Now seriously, how is that comparison useful? Who buys 8 cores, just to turn 4 of them off? I bought mine so I could benefit from twice as many as I previously had...

Click to expand...

The point of that review was not to compare the CPUs directly, but rather to compare the architectures. Theory is that if you have them at the same cores and clocks, then the difference in performance tells you the difference in the performance of the two architectures.

The results of that test combined with the whole integers as a octocore, FLOP as a quad thing, along with the fact that (the majority of us here being gamers) that games rarely take advantage of quads, let alone ottos, is why not many people here were a fan of Bulldozer.

Also, quote from that review, just to prove that it is in no way misleading:

Yes, Zambezi might take the lead in some specialized software that takes advantage of its AES, AVX, FMA4, and XOP instructions, but those are few and far between in the consumer software realm at the moment. As you will see in the coming pages, at full-strength the FX-8150 can deliver some impressive multi-threaded performance, but single and lightly-threaded performance has actually gotten worse despite the huge clock speed advantage that Zambezi brings over Phenom II.

Click to expand...

Knufire said:

The point of that review was not to compare the CPUs directly, but rather to compare the architectures. Theory is that if you have them at the same cores and clocks, then the difference in performance tells you the difference in the performance of the two architectures.

The results of that test combined with the whole integers as a octocore, FLOP as a quad thing, along with the fact that (the majority of us here being gamers) that games rarely take advantage of quads, let alone ottos, is why not many people here were a fan of Bulldozer.

Also, quote from that review, just to prove that it is in no way misleading:

Click to expand...

Well put. I understand your point pretty well. I never would have considered those points, myself. But it is obvious, now, why some people would and why it is a valid comparison under the circumstances that prevailed.

I didn't have any doubts about the veracity of the comparison. I just thought it biased due to disabling of cores. I pretty much fly by feel. Real performance I can see and benefit from always trumps statistics, from my point of view.

Wow, still learning something new every day...

Thanks for the explanation.

And a fx-8150 with 4 disabled cores is basically a fx-4100.

Which precisely answer the OP question...

manu2b said:

And a fx-8150 with 4 disabled cores is basically a fx-4100.

Which precisely answer the OP question...

Click to expand...

Is this true? So there are 4 more cores which could be defective buried inside the 4100 (disabled due to an 8150 that failed QC on 4 cores)? That would make me wonder if the 4100 may have other cores that could soon go kaput, and thus not be 'basically' 1/2 of an 8150.

Or were you making an analogy just to illustrate your point?

Analogy...

4100: zambezi 4 cores
8150: zambezi 8 cores

Both use the same architecture.

So, if you take a 8150 and disable 4 cores, at a given freq, it will behave/perform exactly like a 4100.

Well, I don't have a 4100. But I would like to see that proven. I had a v8 Thunderbird back in the 80's. The inline 4 cylinder escort was NOT half of my T-Bird. Some things just don't scale in a linear manner.

The OP did not ask about this and it seems that the OP is happy to keep the CPU already in-hand. So this really doesn't fit the thread, at present.

[edit]
I went walkabout on Google and found THIS. Nothing in there about 4 disabled cores. There is a difference in the architecture. NB is different and so is Turbo Core stats. Then there's the TDP. If 4100 were exactly half an 8150, then why the discrepancy?

Spend some time googling, and you'll find the proofs.

I googled. I found the link pasted earlier. In there, those hacks make assumptions, but have no proofs. My theory holds more water. The numbers don't equate, so something is different, and it isn't simply a matter of scale. I gave you a link to support my view. Now it's your turn. Don't expect me to dig up your proofs or evidence that would support your statements.

I'm not stating firmly that you are incorrect, but I am saying it appears that you are incorrect at this time. I am saying and have shown that there is info which supports my disbelief - at this time.

"This suggests that FX-6100 and FX-4100 are simply Zambezi processors with 1 module or 2 modules disabled, respectively."

From your link...

Thread closed on my side, enough time wasted with you already!

So, disabling 2 modules explains a differnce in Turbo Core and in NB frequency? Their assumption was not well founded. Just because they allege it, doesn'g make it true.

If you feel you've wasted your time on me, then why did you submit post 11, 13, and 15? Had you refrained from doing so, post 17 wouldn't be you dodging and blowing smoke up my giggy.

If you can speak with your own words and not parrot other people's flawed conclusions, I'd like to see a cogent rebuttal. If not, then I'll be glad to see you keep your promise and not waste any more of your time on me by regurgitating what you don't grasp. My time wouldn't be wasted if you zip it up.

manu2b said:

Analogy...

4100: zambezi 4 cores
8150: zambezi 8 cores

Both use the same architecture.

So, if you take a 8150 and disable 4 cores, at a given freq, it will behave/perform exactly like a 4100.

Click to expand...

It's not exactly the same. There are some very minor differences, but I think Vic Velcro was just picking at details. It's similar to saying a 2600K with HT disabled performs the same as a 2500K. It's not 100% exactly true, but for almost all intents/purposes/real-world performance (which means not benchmarks), they're pretty much the same.

^Except the L2 cache, and the TDP (obviously, with 2 modules disabled), I don't see any other difference when you clock them at he same freq.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1766/1/

"The AMD FX-4100 is a quad-core processor is basically a FX-8150 with 4-cores disabled. This obviously means that the chip has half of the L2 cache (4MB) enabled and a lower TDP (95W)."

EDIT: BTW thanks Knufire!