Question about x6 in AM2+ board

[givmedew]

I am interested in adding a lil bit more power to my machine since it seems that my video card may be a bit above my processors capabilities.

I have a Biostar A770E ver 6.4 and it has a maximum TDP of 95 watts.
Phenom II X4 2.2GHZ overclocked to 2.4GH
4GB of Samsung 400mhz ram also overclocked just a tad
MSI Twin Frozr II R6950 unlocked shaders and overclocked
PC Power+Cooling 1000watt power supply
300GB Velociraptor for main drive SSD for games and swap file.

My question is wether or not in video games the 6 core at 2.6ghz 3.1 turbo will be much faster. Is it going to be like my processor is only 2/3rds as fast or is it going to be like a barely noticable difference?

Right now I have noticed that in almost all my games my cpu is pegged out but my video card is not to the point where even with my video card core set at stock (Still ocing the mem) there is no real performance drop.

I do not really have the money to do a complete overhaul and dont plan on having the money for another year to 2 years so am I better off getting the x6 which I wont be able to overclock since it is already going to be using my boards max core voltage or should I keep the processor I have which also I can not overclock much further because of the core voltage limit due to the 95w max.

Some insight to the possible performance increase would be nice. Remember that the ONLY performance I care at all about is games. I also will not be upgrading my video card for probably 2-3 years.


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This is kinda solved. From what I read on here I kinda decided that it would be best to leave my board completely and I got a used computer that had a better board and processor in it in the hopes of just keeping the cpu/mobo/ram and selling my cpu/mobo/ram back on craiglist for a minimal loss in cash.

 

[RGone]

Phenom II X4 2.2GHZ overclocked to 2.4GH << You don't give the model name of that cpu. It may well be one that can overclock on further. It is the 3000Mhz breakover point that you need to reach, so 6 cores at 2.6Ghz will not show much but possibly the biggest waste you have done lately. IMHO. Nope I read again and you say you cannot overclock. So>>>>>>>>>>

You need to see if there is a 3.0Ghz or greater cpu that runs fast at stock and is 95TDP or less.

 

[trents]

I didn't know there were any Phenom II X4s that started at such a low clock speed of 2.2 ghz. As far as I know the slowest one was the X4 925 which was like 2.6 ghz stock. Yeah, like what's the model number on that CPU? Are you sure you didn't mean to say Phenom I instead of Phenom II? Some of the first generation Phenoms did have those low starting clocks of 2.2 ghz.

And what are you cooling that CPU with, the stock cooler that came in the box with the CPU or an aftermarket one and if the latter, what make and model of cooler?

 

[Dabandit1]

400mhz of ram and an ssd/velociraptor powered by a 1000w with a 2.2ghz cpu.......where to begin

With the six core you will get a higher overclock,but the extra 2 cores arent going to do much.....yet
I just upgraded my 10 year old pentium 4 it had 800mhz ram....sounds like a modern mobo might be in order.

Im no computer expert but I'd go simple cpu like a 960t around 3ghz backed with a cheap modern mobo 1333mhz+ on the ram and the new sata to unleash your ssd....for just a little more than the 6core would cost and far more gain in performance,but again I'm no expert

Sticking a 6core in that mobo setup would be like throwing diesel in a ferarri (cpu being the Ferarri lol)

 

[givmedew]

Just replying to everyone at once

@RGone - OK I think I was wrong about the CPU I believe it is a Phenom X4 since in CPU-ID it is called Phenom X4 9550.

@trents yes you are correct total brain fart over hear in fact I have been saying Phenom II for like 2 years now I totally screwed that up. Also for cooling I am running a cooler master v8 and its in a with 4 huge fans and 1 gigantic fan on top all running at max RPM and even the video card itself has overkill for the cooling it runs around 60-64 degrees at full load (the video card)

@Dabandit1 I might be wrong but I am probably not you actually had 400mhz ram in your pentium 4 maybe someone else can confirm this. But yeh there is really no such thing at least as I know as 800mhz DDR2 or DDR2 1600 I believe the highest (aside from maybe some specialty ram) is like DDR2 1100 which would be 550mhz. Also I can overclock my ram to 500mhz and it will run 100% stable

 

[givmedew]

Also I did double triple quadruple check that there is NO other X6 that this board can run due to the power requirements being over 95 on all the other processors.

I do not have the money to change the motherboard and processor not to mention that if I did do both I would also be buying new memory. Also I am quite certain that I would not see too much of a performance increase going to sata3 mobo since that would only affect my vraptor since all my other drives are plugged into a sata3 controller (forgot to mention)

 

[RGone]

You might be able to get a boost with one of these if your board supports it.
AMD Athlon II X3 460 - ADX460WFK32GM (ADX460WFGMBOX)

 

[givmedew]

So is having those 3 cores at the higher frequency better than having the 6 cores at a somewhat lower frequency? Is it hard for the computer to task all 6 cores in a video game?

Also I see a phenom II x2 that is 3.5ghz has an unlocked multiplier and only a 80watt tdp meaning I could overclock it quite a lot. Would I be better off with that?


Also just as a status update I squeezed every single bit over overclocking ability out of this motherboard and am sitting at 2.7GHz a 1968Mhz HT and NB and 492MHz(x2) memory speed and it running stable. It still not really enough though because like I said before depending on the game I max out the cpu and not the gpu.

 

[RGone]

Okay I will see if I can decipher that for you about the cpu you linked which was an AMD Phenom ll x2 570 BE.

If you got smoking LUCKY, that thing with a board that has 'core unlocker' on it, could unlock the 570 BE to a 4 core at 3.5Mhz. But there is a catch. It would become a 125Watt processor. That is where it says Yes > 80W >>125W means.
AMD Phenom II x2 570 BE 3.5Ghz Dual core Triple core, quad core Phenom II x4 B70 C3 Callisto Deneb 45nm 2x512KB 6MB, Yes 80W 125W HDZ570WFGMBOX Retail

I did not look at the price of the cpu I linked you. I did not look at the price YOU linked me. So I have no idea of any price differences. You might unlock the 570 BE to 3 cores and have similar to the one I linked to you. Or you could unlock it to 4 cores and give it a go. Or look for a fast four core at 95W.

I read some time ago concerning games that can take advantage of more than just two cores, going with a 3 core CPU on average give around a 26% increase in performance. However, going from 3 cores to 4 cores yielded only around 7% more (after the first 26%) performance on average.

This same question seems to come up regular and is whether fewer higher-clocked cores or more lower-clocked ones. Games today very commonly use 2-3 threads, so you will see an advantage in having a triple or quad-core CPU compared to a dual-core CPU as long as the clock speeds of the triple or quad aren't drastically lower than the dual's. There is little benefit currently to having more than 3-4 cores strictly from a gaming perspective. However, games are becoming considerably more multithreaded as time goes on and I'd bet that games a year or two from now will support 4-6 threads and thus run poorly on a dual-core CPU compared to a quad.

And you try and find something even more "uptodate" and someone will tell you that you must have six cores. At some point you have got to make a choice and go with it. Bite the bullet. Especially where one is not going to update the whole platform.


Okay your YMMV but I would get the one yOu linked the 570 BE. It has 6MB L3 cache instead of 1.5MB and is 3.5Ghz instead of 3.4Ghz I linked. That large L3 cache is a bonus for sure. I would then see if my board would unlock it to a 3 core cpu and about 95W and have cache and speed. Even if it does not unlock the 3rd or 4th core and you could try one or the other if one is really bad to wind-up with a x3 core cpu hauling major booty and having an unlocked upwards multiplier since it is BE.

Thru. Wrote it out. Have fun and much good luck to you sir.

RGone...ster.........................................................

 

[trents]

I would certainly consider adding some copper heat sinks to the mosfets (Sidewinder Computers sells kits like that and they aren't expensive) and somehow placing a fan to blow on he motherboard electronics in the area between the cpu socket and the I/O ports. Make sure you have the bios installed that will support the new CPU you are intending to get while you still have the old CPU in place. Check the motherboard manufacturer's website for their CPU compatibility list in that regard.

 

[RGone]

I went over to BiStar and looked in the bios manual for that motherboard and the best I can tell you are screwed when it comes to anything like performance gained by an overclock. No Voltage settings at all for cpu.

All that board is going to do as best I could see is take any one of those supported cpus and read the required voltage from the cpu pins and apply that and that is it. Wish I had done all that to start with or gotten a heads-up right off from you.

So you cannot adjust shett for voltage in the manual OR in the bios you have in front of you? Right / Wrong?

If Right, then go over there to the BiStar supported cpu site and get the fastest cpu you can get and put that in it.

4 core:
AMD Phenom™ II X4 x955 HDX955WFK4DGM 3200Mhz 4000Mhz 95W

2 core:
AMD Phenom™ II X2 z560 HDZ560WFK2DGM 3300Mhz 4000Mhz 80W

Those are both Phenom ll type processors and should have some L3 cache in them Just about everything else that is fast has no L3 cache and that will hurt performance. Those two direct from BiStar website with a part number.

 

[trents]

I know there were some 95W X4 955s out there but beware, most of them are 125W.

 

[RGone]

I know there were some 95W X4 955s out there but beware, most of them are 125W.

Yep but if he bought and "they" sold by that part numbering (x955 HDX955WFK4DGM) he would be getting an OEM/Tray 95watt "locked" multiplier x955 Phenom 2 X4 processor.

I saw a couple of them for sale by that part number but not many. They were made for the likes of Dell and Compaq pre-builts to keep them from having to worry about heat and cpu cooler.

 

[givmedew]

I went over to BiStar and looked in the bios manual for that motherboard and the best I can tell you are screwed when it comes to anything like performance gained by an overclock. No Voltage settings at all for cpu.

All that board is going to do as best I could see is take any one of those supported cpus and read the required voltage from the cpu pins and apply that and that is it. Wish I had done all that to start with or gotten a heads-up right off from you.

So you cannot adjust shett for voltage in the manual OR in the bios you have in front of you? Right / Wrong?

If Right, then go over there to the BiStar supported cpu site and get the fastest cpu you can get and put that in it.

4 core:
AMD Phenom™ II X4 x955 HDX955WFK4DGM 3200Mhz 4000Mhz 95W

2 core:
AMD Phenom™ II X2 z560 HDZ560WFK2DGM 3300Mhz 4000Mhz 80W

Those are both Phenom ll type processors and should have some L3 cache in them Just about everything else that is fast has no L3 cache and that will hurt performance. Those two direct from BiStar website with a part number.

first off I have to say you guys are super duper awesome people especially if someone went through my manual for me!

So reading everything you guys where saying I thought of a 3rd option. I hit up craigslist and found a pc with the following specs

AMD Phenom II X4 B55 Processor, 3.2GHz per core (4 cores), 6MB of cache
MSI Premium AMD "AM3" motherboard, supports USB 2.0, SATA II, PCIe Express slots, PCI slot, 7.1 surround, and more.
AMD Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics with HDMI and VGA outputs!
-Cooler Master Elite 310 Premium computer case, with front panel audio and USB ports and features excellent air flow.
-Cooler Master Premium 420watt Power Supply
-Cooler Master "Hyper 212" custom CPU heat-sink with 120mm Fan installed
-Samsung 1 terabyte hard drive, 7200RPM, 32MB of cache
-A-DATA 4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM (2GBx2)
-Three premium 120mm fans installed, the front fan is a 2000RPM/low noise BLUE LED fan.

So I cross checked a couple things and found that he was a tad bit misleading in his post! Turns out this is actually a X2 555 processor but the motherboard unlocked it to a x4 I looked up the benchmark specs and it is a good amount faster than my cpu. Even better though is he dropped the price down to $250.

I figure I can do the following! Buy that take my motherboard and processor and put it in my brothers computer which is a HP with a 9560 and then sell back that computer on craigslist with the Phenom x4 2.4GHz 9560 a decent video card that I have laying around, A 750GB HD in the case I got from him and I can sell it with a legit Windows Vista HP Recovery disk. I already have a legit windows 7 license on my brothers computer.

Then if I still want anything faster I can get a 960T which straight off MSI's website this motherboard says it will make a 960T 6 Cores and handle it.

I am aware that overclocking is in the blind (temp wise) since once unlocked the temp on the cpu doesnt report back.

 

[givmedew]

Oh also the motherboard I have now does have voltage controls for just about everything they are just poorly labeled. I was able to overvolt my cpu, the ram, and the NB. Although the cpu overvoltage was minor!

 

[Niku-Sama]

ok so it makes a big difference here is it a TA770-E or an A770-E? T usually has alot of OC options, vanilla has very vew, that would include voltage

also since we are talking about the processor that you should replace it with i think that no matter what you replace it with weither it has 3 4 or 6 cores it will be faster. origonal phenoms didnt get as much done clock per clock as the new ones (see: less efficient) but if you get a dual or tri and you are able to OC some it'll be faster + your OC as well.

dont be discouraged either way you'll be going faster.

another option is a new mobo, some cheap, faster ram and a lesser processor for probably close to what the hex core by it self will cost

 

[givmedew]

It definitely just says A770E but it is the final revision. Like I said very certain that you can increase the voltage but it is very confusing as it has a place to set the voltage and then it has a place to add overvoltage. So for example I set it for 1.25V which is the max and then set the overvoltage to its max and I end up getting 1.3v which gets me stable just with a 247 bus speed but then I backed it down 1 to 246 which left me with 1968 HT Link, 1968 NB and 492MHz Ram the ram is normally 400MHz but so far I have had absolutely NO crashes.

But tonight I picked up a full computer with a Phenom II x2 555 unlocked to x4 for $250 it has a nice case, heat sink, dvd-rom and a Samsung 1TB 32MB 7200RPM HD. So all in all I will probably be able to sell it back same case power supply dvd-rom and all for around the same that I purchased it for but with my 9550 and my brothers HP factory motherboard. I will give my brother my motherboard so that he can overclock his ram and his cpu just a tad.

Plus if I can now find a used 960T on the cheap this motherboard says it will for sure unlock it to 6-Cores it specifically says that in the features of the Motherboard. http://us.msi.com/product/mb/785GM-P45.html

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

From what I know of, there is no x6 CPU that will work in a AM2+ MB, (if someone as a x6 in a AM2 MB, I like to see it )also all Phenom II's are AM3 CPU's. Now as for Athlon II's, some are listed as being for AM2+/AM3 MB's, but I would not trust that. If you can check AMD's website to see what is what.

 

[trents]

From what I know of, there is no x6 CPU that will work in a AM2+ MB, (if someone as a x6 in a AM2 MB, I like to see it )also all Phenom II's are AM3 CPU's. Now as for Athlon II's, some are listed as being for AM2+/AM3 MB's, but I would not trust that. If you can check AMD's website to see what is what.

Technically speaking, there is no problem with running any AM3 CPU in an AM2/AM2+ board as long as the bios supports the CPU and the CPU's TDP is within the working range of the board's TDP. AM3 CPUs have an integrated memory controller that is downwardly compatible with DDR2 memory. The reverse is not true, however. You cannot run an AM2/AM2+ CPU in an AM3 board because the CPU memory controller is not upwardly compatible. And yes, in real life there are some AM2+ motherboards that will support 6 core CPUs. Just the other day on this forum a user was posting who was doing that very thing - and got a good overclock on it to boot.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Ahhh ok, I've not used a AM2/AM2+ board so did not know that, I went from 939 straight to AM3

Technically speaking, there is no problem with running any AM3 CPU in an AM2/AM2+ board as long as the bios supports the CPU and the CPU's TDP is within the working range of the board's TDP. AM3 CPUs have an integrated memory controller that is downwardly compatible with DDR2 memory. The reverse is not true, however. You cannot run an AM2/AM2+ CPU in an AM3 board because the CPU memory controller is not upwardly compatible. And yes, in real life there are some AM2+ motherboards that will support 6 core CPUs. Just the other day on this forum a user was posting who was doing that very thing - and got a good overclock on it to boot.