which CPU should i get for an AM3 test bench?

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giantbucket

giantbucket

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i'm rounding up some old parts and putting together a test bench, using my HAF XB Evo chassis to hold an Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard. it'll be used purely as an offline test bench, to check ram, graphics cards, drivers, hard drives, etc.

but i don't have a CPU for it. i'm buying used only, either local classifieds or eBay.ca (Canada). the cheaper the better!

which family (Athlon, Phenom, Sempron) has the features i'd care about? i don't even know what the differences are. does it even matter?

i'll be multibooting XP, 7, and Linux on this thing.
 
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giantbucket
ok, so.... found some good prices

Ath II X2 240 = $16 Canadian
Ath II X3 435 = $23 Canadian

are those 2 and 3 core with no hyperthreading? or did they use HT back then, making it a "4" and "6" instead? i'm leaning towards the 435 just in case the extra core is useful, but the price difference is today's lunch. and i like to eat.
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need4speeds

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Everyone will be after the PhenomIIx4 and some will also want the athlonIIx4 so those will be more money because they upgrade existing AM2+ computers to a quad core.

Go for a AthlonII X2 or X3 or PhenomII X3 or X2. These are often the cpus people sell for cheap when they swapped for a faster Quad core.

The sempron is a single core cpu. That would be my last choice.
 
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giantbucket

giantbucket

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Nov 17, 2013
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ok, so.... found some good prices

Ath II X2 240 = $16 Canadian
Ath II X3 435 = $23 Canadian

are those 2 and 3 core with no hyperthreading? or did they use HT back then, making it a "4" and "6" instead? i'm leaning towards the 435 just in case the extra core is useful, but the price difference is today's lunch. and i like to eat.
 
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need4speeds

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The athlonIIx2 has 1mb of cache per core and the athlonIIx3 has 512kb. This makes the AthlonIIx2 a bit faster per core. The two cpus are really close in speed.

Some games need 3 cores to run and were made for the tri-core xbox360 and ps3. Because of that the athlonIIx4 and other quad cores are not much faster in games than the X3. The X3 was known to overclock well and some even can unlock the 4th core. Some are the phenomIIx4 die and can even unlock the L3 cache.
-It will need a decent cpu cooler if you start to overclock and unlock stuff.

The athlonIIx2 is 65 watts, they will overclock on the stock cooler without overheating. The X3 will run hot at stock speeds with the tiny oem cooler.
 
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