amd athlon ii x2 255 overclocked

[econnor]

with cpu throttling my temps stay around 30c - 34c all day no matter what i do.

 

[QuietIce]

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[econnor]

what would be a better cpu at some point??

 

[trents]

But I think you really need to look at your memory. 2 gigs of ram is plenty for Windows XP but XP is essentially obsolete and Mircrosoft will totally discontinue support for it much before too much longer - no security updates or anything. When you update to Windows 7 you will want more ram and DDR2 is becoming expensive compared to DDR3. That 790FX board you are looking at is DDR2-based. And as Quiet Ice point out, future CPU upgrades with that board would depend on being able to get bios updates that would support the new chip. I would just hate to see take a lateral step technologically speaking instead of a forward one.

By the way Quiet Ice, ASRock puts out a number of motherboards that support 140W CPU's and the last two ASRock boards I have purchased (a 798/710 board and an 870/750 board) have support for 140W CPUs.

 

[econnor]

trents, i might be stubben, but the mobo arrived today in the mail [61.00aus]. what about i run 2x 2gb 1066mhz + 2x 2gb 1066mhz kingston hyperx ram total of 8gb will that work or just run 2x 2gb 1066mhz total of 4gb as i don't do gaming just video editing, search net, download heaps of mp3 files & HD movies 1080p plus i'm updating to windows 7 pro 64 bit this weekend. Agian thanks for all your advice very helpful i must add.

 

[QuietIce]

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[trents]

trents, i might be stubben, but the mobo arrived today in the mail [61.00aus]. what about i run 2x 2gb 1066mhz + 2x 2gb 1066mhz kingston hyperx ram total of 8gb will that work or just run 2x 2gb 1066mhz total of 4gb as i don't do gaming just video editing, search net, download heaps of mp3 files & HD movies 1080p plus i'm updating to windows 7 pro 64 bit this weekend. Agian thanks for all your advice very helpful i must add.

You certainly don't need 8 gb of ram for what you do and that much ram can inhibit overclocking anyway as it puts extra strain on the integrated memory controller. 4 gigs is plenty to make Windows 7 run efficiently. I wish you well with your new purchases. Let us know how it overclocks. It might be the best choice for you given you situation. We're all good at helping others spend their money.

 

[econnor]

thanks trents i'l go with the 2x 2gb, what about i get the amd athlon x4 640 3.0ghz OC that to 3.8ghz what do you recken?? which cpu would suit my needs.

 

[trents]

The Athlon II X4s are a good value. For some reason, many people are not able to overclock the 640s as well as the 630s. I have a 630 and recently put a 640 in a friend's build and it was harder to get to the same overclock. I wouldn't count on getting it to 3.8, especially on the Zalman 9700 cooler. 3.5-3.6 maybe. But maybe you will have better results especially if you have a quality PSU that makes clean power.

 

[econnor]

trents i thinking of buying the following cpu's amd phenom ii x2 555
amd phenom ii x4 840
amd phenom ii x4 955
so what do think?? or should i keep my athlon ii x2 255 OC @ 3.8ghz.

 

[trents]

The X4 955 is a great value right now. It's got L3 cache and the 840 doesn't. It's a little more money but not much more, at least in the U.S. Its going for $135 here right now. The phenom II X4 840 is a crippled 940. The L3 cache is disabled, though some have unlocked it successfully. On the other hand, if the athlon II X2 255 is meeting your needs, why spend the extra money? But if you are doing a lot of audio/video editing you will find extra cores really speeds that up, assuming your editing software is current and can multi-thread well.

 

[econnor]

dump question.but i'll ask anyawy. So the x4 955 would be faster then my x2 255, would the x4 955 make my computer run faster, would i notice any gain?? such as web pages loading up, downloading mp3 files, downloading software, as i'm upgrading to ddr2 pc2-8500 plus windows 7 pro. trents my zalman cnps9700 wont be up to the task for the quadie OC maybe i was thinking the zalman cpns1ox performa.

 

[QuietIce]

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[econnor]

so should i keep my 255 cpu or upgrade to the phenom ii x2 555?? the phenom i x4 955 looks good though

 

[econnor]

i've been thinking and i've decided to get the phenom ii x4 955 as the old saying goes 4's better then 2

 

[trents]

I would stay with the X2 255 for now. I think you will see a noticeable performance increase just because you are moving from a board that only supports 1000 mhz HT Link speed to one that supports almost twice that much. Then too, you may get some extra overclock out of the CPU because of the 790FX chipset board you just got. If anything, I would drop a little money into a better CPU cooler. You would be throttling the overclock of a quad core anyway if you didn't.

 

[econnor]

i was thinking of the zalman cnps10x performa that would be a better cooler..

 

[trents]

It has a lot the same design as the one you have only a little bigger. Frankly, they look pretty but are not the best coolers and they are expensive! The most efficient coolers are the tower style coolers. I would recommend the Coolermaster Hyper 212+. It really gets the job done for only around $30 U.S. It is very popular and widely available around the world.

 

[econnor]

the zalman cnps10x performa is a tower, i'll put 2x 120mm fans on it.

 

[trents]

You're right, it is a tower cooler. I was thinking it was one of those barrel shaped copper things with the fan inside. But that one's $90 U.S. For that money you could have gotten the holy grail of air coolers, the Noctua D14.