Athlon or phenom?

hey everyone, i know that its a stupid question and i know phenom is a better processor, but it turns out my budget for my new cpu is way lower than i had hoped, so basically im wondering, with a good athlon black edition dual core would that bottle a xfx 4890 overclocked to 930mhz on the core and the memory overclocked to 1200mhz, im looking for the best possible upgrade for my current setup as im moving from my phenom 9750, my main concern is getting rid of the bottleneck, if athlons really really dont perform as well as the phenom im going for the phenom 720 black edition, also i cannot unlock 4th core if i do get that cpu, so basically, whats better for my situation?

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------------------------------ gigabyte ga-ma790gp-ud4h
amd tri core 720be at 3.6ghz
4 gig crucial ballistix 1066
Xfx 4890 1gb oc'd to 935 core and 1200 memory

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the difference is only the l3 cache. why would u upgrade? cant u just overclock ur cpu a little?

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Reply to jimishtar

jimishtar wrote :

the difference is only the l3 cache. why would u upgrade? cant u just overclock ur cpu a little?

A phenom 1....

jimishtar makes joke methinks.

@ Dacca... Depends on what you do. If mostly just gaming, then any dual core will do just fine. The BE's OC well, so you should be happy.

If you do video / audio encoding photo rendering or the like, then the more cores the better. Also holds true for the RAM, but that question wasn't asked.

------------------------------ Badges? We don' need no stinkin' badges...!
Reply to croc

i mostly game but im a media student, so i do video editing aswell, im upgrading dude cuz the 9750 has a locked multiplier and as my mobo is sb600 chipset it is a pain in the ass to upgrade with a locked multiplier. Im swaying back towards the phenom 720 which was my original choice, the main concern is removing the cpu bottleneck really

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ gigabyte ga-ma790gp-ud4h
amd tri core 720be at 3.6ghz
4 gig crucial ballistix 1066
Xfx 4890 1gb oc'd to 935 core and 1200 memory
Reply to Dacca

Dacca wrote :

i mostly game but im a media student, so i do video editing aswell, im upgrading dude cuz the 9750 has a locked multiplier and as my mobo is sb600 chipset it is a pain in the ass to upgrade with a locked multiplier. Im swaying back towards the phenom 720 which was my original choice, the main concern is removing the cpu bottleneck really

Sounds like your original choice was a sound choice for your needs.

------------------------------ Badges? We don' need no stinkin' badges...!
Reply to croc

sweet, ive been back and forth with this question so many times, everyone has already said to get the 720, and its not that i dont trust the advice or dont think its sound, its just i dont want to overlook anything, i would have kicked myself if i had bought the 720 to find that one of the athlon dual cores scores higher in benchmarks and is a fraction of the price! sweet only one thing left to do now then order myself a new processor

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ gigabyte ga-ma790gp-ud4h
amd tri core 720be at 3.6ghz
4 gig crucial ballistix 1066
Xfx 4890 1gb oc'd to 935 core and 1200 memory
Reply to Dacca

look man, why dont u get a solid 770 chipset board, they are cheap, u can take that cpu to 3 Ghz i guess. the 720 BE is a beast, but with a good board. wont make much of a difference as it is.

Reply to jimishtar

Dacca wrote :

sweet, ive been back and forth with this question so many times, everyone has already said to get the 720, and its not that i dont trust the advice or dont think its sound, its just i dont want to overlook anything, i would have kicked myself if i had bought the 720 to find that one of the athlon dual cores scores higher in benchmarks and is a fraction of the price! sweet only one thing left to do now then order myself a new processor

Rest assured, in most video editing software, all cores will be appreciated. Were you not a student, I'd have suggested some even more robust solutions. But I do understand students on a budget. Be happy. Good compromise.

------------------------------ Badges? We don' need no stinkin' badges...!
Reply to croc

Dacca wrote :

hey everyone, i know that its a stupid question and i know phenom is a better processor, but it turns out my budget for my new cpu is way lower than i had hoped, so basically im wondering, with a good athlon black edition dual core would that bottle a xfx 4890 overclocked to 930mhz on the core and the memory overclocked to 1200mhz, im looking for the best possible upgrade for my current setup as im moving from my phenom 9750, my main concern is getting rid of the bottleneck, if athlons really really dont perform as well as the phenom im going for the phenom 720 black edition, also i cannot unlock 4th core if i do get that cpu, so basically, whats better for my situation?

First of all, define "bottlenecking" in this situation. A Phenom X4 9750 is still a relatively modern CPU and more powerful than just about all games require for good gameplay. Does it actually make the games unplayable, such as not being able to run at your LCD's native resolution at medium detail at 30 fps? Or you are seeing your buddies with the same Radeon HD 4890 but paired with a Core i7 overclocked to 4 GHz on a cooling tower getting 150 fps in a game rather than your 110 fps.

If you are in the situation where something is actually unplayable, overclock the 9750 and then later get a Phenom II when they are end-of-lifed and become cheap. Even though you have an SB600 board without Advanced Clock Calibration, you should still be able to hit about 3 GHz on the 9750 and that should be plenty of CPU power. If you run into thermal issues, go get a 120 mm direct-heatpipe-contact heatsink like my Xigmatek HDT-S1284 or a Core Contact Freezer. They cost about $30 and should keep a 3 GHz Agena Phenom plenty cool.

------------------------------ Upcoming Overdue Build: Dual-socket workstation, ~32 GB DDR3, OS on a fast SSD, high-end GPU, all wrapped up in a huge tower case. Coming H2 2011.

Yes, I am actually still running the Pentium III 1.0B Coppermine in the picture.
Reply to MU_Engineer

its more the fact that all benchmarking software that im using is showing the cpu really under achieving! after buying a 4890, i wanted it to be able to be used at its full potential, i ran arma 2 on max detail with my old 8800gtx, with low anti aliasing. it was playable, i then ran with same settings on my 4890, there was not a massive amount of difference, benchmarking software, when comparing systems similar to mine, i notice that what holds the system back is my processor, i am not overly confident with overclocking, i have never properly had a go at it, so thats why the be processors seem like the safest bet, it seems that most people are getting around 3.6-3.8 just by upping the multiplier and not altering voltage or fsb. thats why im going with it, and besides my 9750 was already up for auction and now sold for a good price

------------------------------ gigabyte ga-ma790gp-ud4h
amd tri core 720be at 3.6ghz
4 gig crucial ballistix 1066
Xfx 4890 1gb oc'd to 935 core and 1200 memory
Reply to Dacca

as far as aftermarked cooling goes, i have this http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] ch-specs#p i dont know how good it is in relation to other hsf but when i first installed it i did notice around a 10 degree drop off stock cooler, my 9750 runs at 38 degrees with this

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ gigabyte ga-ma790gp-ud4h
amd tri core 720be at 3.6ghz
4 gig crucial ballistix 1066
Xfx 4890 1gb oc'd to 935 core and 1200 memory
Reply to Dacca

I'd have tried to overclock that 9750 for all it's worth (c'mon 3.0 GHz ). Anyway the Phenom II 720BE would be a good choice for you. You could also go with the cheaper (generally) 710 but of course you would have to overclock using the FSB. There is a decent article here on Toms about doing just that. "Making Lemonade: Overclocking Your Locked AMD Processor "

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2396.html

The 9750 can be overclocked to 3.0Ghz easy with an SB600... you just need to play around with the voltages and bus....... Private message me if you want to try and overclock....

------------------------------ 550 @ 4.0 Ghz 1.425v
BFG GTX 260 (216)
4GB G.Skill @ 940MHz
Thermaltake TP 850w
Reply to OvrClkr

Dacca wrote :

as far as aftermarked cooling goes, i have this http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] ch-specs#p i dont know how good it is in relation to other hsf but when i first installed it i did notice around a 10 degree drop off stock cooler, my 9750 runs at 38 degrees with this

If you are getting 38 C full-load temps on a stock Phenom X4 9750, then you have more than enough heatsink to overclock the CPU quite some bit. You should be able to get it to 3 GHz without too much trouble.

------------------------------ Upcoming Overdue Build: Dual-socket workstation, ~32 GB DDR3, OS on a fast SSD, high-end GPU, all wrapped up in a huge tower case. Coming H2 2011.

Yes, I am actually still running the Pentium III 1.0B Coppermine in the picture.
Reply to MU_Engineer

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Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - Athlon or phenom?