FX6100, 6200, 8120... or Thuban?

[manu2b]

Hi all,

I was thinking of building a new Ivy Bridge system (3770k), but even if it will smash the BD architecture, I believe the OC process won't be either fun or challenging (same as SB I guess).

Noticing that even my old PhII fulfils my needs, I am sure that I can have a lot of fun with a BD setup, and there come the questions:
Does the 6200 overclocks higher than the 6100?
Does PS and image manipulation/publishing software take advantage of the "8 cores" 8120?

Finally, would not a Thuban be better than a FX?

Cooling is not an issue: a 360rad+3x1800RPM fans will cool the CPU only.

Thanks for the input.

 

[RGone]

Does the 6200 overclocks higher than the 6100? = Absolutely no valid idea. There has only been ONE user post in this cpu forum section with an FX-6200 and it showed no better than the FX-6100s.

Does PS and image manipulation/publishing software take advantage of the "8 cores" 8120? = IF you g00gle that question for yourself, you will see question after question asking that very same thing. And if you go to the Adobe forums...you wil not find a real answer. Only guesses and speculations. I saw some testing that showed PS was slower on 8 cores than on 4 cores. Not very much but a little.

Finally, would not a Thuban be better than a FX? = Thubans are mostly gone in the retail Usa market. You say that you don't need more power now. I would not get a Thuban but FX to play with AND not even an BD but would wait for PD.

 

[manu2b]

Thanks RGone.

Thing is that there is absolutely no launch date for PD, and I've promised my current PhII setup to my uncle...

There are a few used Thubans on the classified here in France (around $150 for a 1100t), some 6100s also ($100) and a couple of 8120s ($130).

I'm also in the process of choosing a good OC'ing MoBo.

 

[JJJC]

From an overclocking perspective, BD is a lot of fun. You can hit high frequencies on air/water and it's a tweakable platform, or at least more so than SB. I have an 8150 with a 1.36v vid (which is pretty bad) and I can still run it at 5GHz stable and 5.3GHz unstable.

That said, I wouldn't consider anything under the 8120. The cores in BD don't really count as full cores and definitely don't operate as efficiently as one. In an 8core BD chip, there are 4 modules, within each module is 2 cores sharing resources that a core would typically have to itself in a different architecture. Although untrue, a way of looking at BD performance wise is that a 6core chip is 3c 6t and an 8core chip is 4c 4t. You can gain performance in heavily multi threaded apps, but single thread performance takes a hit.

This link has a more indepth explanation into what a BD "core" is: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/2

Single threaded performance and the thuban wins hands down, only in applications that can make full use of the 8 cores (and BF3 for some reason) does BD finally pull ahead. That said, Thuban will stop clocking at 4-4.3 on air/water while BD should get you upwards of 4.6GHz. Whether or not that flips the tables I don't know, but even the 8120 is $30 cheaper than a 1100T for you so it might be your way to go.

 

[manu2b]

From an overclocking perspective, BD is a lot of fun. You can hit high frequencies on air/water and it's a tweakable platform, or at least more so than SB. I have an 8150 with a 1.36v vid (which is pretty bad) and I can still run it at 5GHz stable and 5.3GHz unstable.

That said, I wouldn't consider anything under the 8120. The cores in BD don't really count as full cores and definitely don't operate as efficiently as one. In an 8core BD chip, there are 4 modules, within each module is 2 cores sharing resources that a core would typically have to itself in a different architecture. Although untrue, a way of looking at BD performance wise is that a 6core chip is 3c 6t and an 8core chip is 4c 4t. You can gain performance in heavily multi threaded apps, but single thread performance takes a hit.

This link has a more indepth explanation into what a BD "core" is: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/2

Single threaded performance and the thuban wins hands down, only in applications that can make full use of the 8 cores (and BF3 for some reason) does BD finally pull ahead. That said, Thuban will stop clocking at 4-4.3 on air/water while BD should get you upwards of 4.6GHz. Whether or not that flips the tables I don't know, but even the 8120 is $30 cheaper than a 1100T for you so it might be your way to go.

Yep, I think it is the path I am heading toward.

A 8120 or a 8150.

Thanks.

 

[manu2b]

8120 and Asrock 990FX Extreme 4 on their way!