Gigabyte AM3 Board Opinion?

[QuietIce]

It's late so I'll leave my e-mail link for tomorrow and do some e-window shopping then.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Thank you.... I mean, its like looking on new egg at this already put together pc's... They have one with a phenom 2 x4 and 4gb of ddr3 on there for just at 400, I just don't understand why we can't build them for that

 

[QuietIce]

Well, yeah - if you use cheap hardware you can beat anybody's home-built system price because most of us won't use the junk they put in a lot of those really, really cheap machines!

If that's what you want then you can do your own shopping, just base everything off the advertised performance and the price - but don't be surprized if it won't overclock or if it dies after a year.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Yeah,.....thats what I am saying, its just like W7premium that come with all of them.....I just don't understand why they make our prices so much more bloody expensive ugh.

 

[QuietIce]

($150) ASUS M4A89GTD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131631
($90) Phenom II X2 555BE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
($84) 2x2 Gb Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600CL7 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104189


That's $324 and should overclock well. It's only an X2 but chances are very good it'll unlock to an X3 and fairly good it's an X4 in disguise.


PS
Oops! Forgot about the PSU. You'll have to settle for the Biostar 890GXE instead ($100). That will put a SeaSonic 520W PSU within reach at $60 for a total of $334. If I got it right even with S&H it'll only be $340 - right at the budget limit.

 

[ChanceCoats123]

I second the biostart build with the power supply. SeaSonic is a great build. Biostar makes solid boards for Amd now, and the other parts are great. My 555 unlocked and is a champ. That ram is solid too. HyperX is good stuff.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Ok....Now don't yell at me...but how on earth could a x2 turn into a 3 or possibly 4, I mean are they all actually 4 core chips and just 2 are disabled or what?

 

[QuietIce]

Ok....Now don't yell at me...but how on earth could a x2 turn into a 3 or possibly 4, I mean are they all actually 4 core chips and just 2 are disabled or what?

You've got it! Every Phenom II X2, X3 (they've quit making these), and X4 die is actually built as an X4. From there the dies are tested and some get a pair of cores disabled and are branded as X2's. Sometimes a bunch of dies will pass as quads but they'll have a big X2 order to fill so they take perfectly good quads, disable a couple of cores, and brand them as X2's. Lucky us! There are many reasons chips don't pass the quad test and not all of them are necessarily bad for overclockers. For example, what do we care if an unlocked X2 (now a quad) doesn't meet the 125W power specification? We're going to blow that spec anyway the minute we start cranking up the clock!

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Oh hot dog.....now what is the possibility of getting a X6? or are they completely seperate from the others being they are the 1120T or whatever it is

 

[ChanceCoats123]

The Thuban architecture is just x6's. So you can't unlock and Deneb-made chip into a Thuban, unfortunately. So you can get a quad out of a dual or a tri, but hexa's are only hexa's.

 

[QuietIce]

Oh hot dog.....now what is the possibility of getting a X6? or are they completely seperate from the others being they are the 1120T or whatever it is

Man, you give them an inch and they want a mile!

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

LOL.....If you ain't pushing you aint trying....But thank you for answering my question..So as long as you go with a "black edition" would you say you have a 90% chance of getting a tri or quad? Also, if a person doesn't go with a black edition, is there no way to overclock or open cores on those?

 

[QuietIce]

I won't even try to give odds on unlocking cores.

Black Editions have nothing to do with being able to unlock cores. The BE simply means the CPU multiplier is unlocked, which often makes overclocking easier but doesn't effect core unlocking.

Even non-BE chips can be overclocked. Before the FX series came out five years ago there was no such thing as FX/BE (same thing, different generation) and most people couldn't afford the FX chips. s939 rigs and earlier got overclocked anyway, without being FX/BE.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Understood.... That being said just for common knowledge purposes are AMD's or Intel's genuinely easier to overclock?

 

[QuietIce]

AMD's are easier in my experience. On the other hand, I'm used to AMDs and know all the labeling etc. to work my way through BIOS.

I don't think I'll ever try to OC another Intel again after my experience with the Q6600.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

LOL....Quitter! J/K Hey another question on my new build, I have several very good Dvd burners and cd burners that work just fine, being that I am upgrading significantly in every other department...Is it worth it to get sata roms as opposed to keeping my old IDE Pata ones? Will I see that big of a reading and writing difference? I realize were talking merely 75 dollars in 3 drives but I don't wanna turn lose of the cash right now unless it's a huge advantage

 

[QuietIce]

It's not a huge advantage by any means.

 

[Apht3rThawt]

I have a Heka 740/x3. It wouldn't unlock with either a Gigabyte 890fx or Gigabyte 890gx. Processes at half the ops as my 1055t/x6 at same speed, but takes 90watts to do it which is more than half the x6's of 129w. It is not power efficient but does have 6mb L3 cache, which saves it. Pushing it above 4ghz is also tricky, on 3 cores it stalls at 3900mh. As a 3 core chip it's ok but not efficient. Get a quad BE instead, I think I am. I would say always go for the unlocked multiplier, much mo' betta! Lots easier to oc.

 

[Bigsmooth1081]

Yeah...that's where my big "uphill" is going to be...Now hearing about the possibility of a X2 becoming an X4....Do I tell the brother to spend the money on the X4 955 or do we chance the X2 565; I realize it's only $40 more but that's money he could spend on the power supply.....Decisions decisions decisions

 

[ChanceCoats123]

555 BE is where it's at. I've heard more stories of unlocking than not.