Athlon vs. Phenom

[josh the cat]

Hello

What's the difference between an AMD Athlon II X4 and an AMD Phenom II X4?

like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706

 

[Upendra09]

the phenom II has more cache and superior microarch

the Athlon has less TDP, less power used.
the Phenom has more cache and better tech in the CPU than the Athlon

 

[B-Unit]

What?!

The AthlonII is a PhenomII without its L3 cache. There were two batches of AthlonII chips, the first ones were literally PhenomII chips with the L3 disabled. The newer ones are a unique design that does not include L3 and has a larger L2. They both use the same (k10.5) microarch, and at the same clockspeeds perform pretty close to each other, with the PhenomII's L3 cache helping in some apps.

 

[josh the cat]

What?!

The AthlonII is a PhenomII without its L3 cache. There were two batches of AthlonII chips, the first ones were literally PhenomII chips with the L3 disabled. The newer ones are a unique design that does not include L3 and has a larger L2. They both use the same (k10.5) microarch, and at the same clockspeeds perform pretty close to each other, with the PhenomII's L3 cache helping in some apps.

I've heard that you can unlock the L3 on and Athlon II. Would that be possible on:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704

and how do you do that?

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

You can find your answer here and here

And for unlock the cores and cache here

 

[BadTrip]

Unlocking disabled cache is a horrible idea.

 

[josh the cat]

ok, sorry to keep askin stop but on newegg theres both a 2.6 GHz and a 2.8 GHz propus Athlon II X4.

.2 GHz difference isnt much is it? and wouldnt overclocking allow me to go over that anyways? should I just get the 2.6?

 

[saint19]

The diference isn't big, BUT some games are more friendly with the high clocks (2.8GHz or more), so, in this case i will get the 2.8GHz and for $13 more isn't expensive (IMO)

 

[Upendra09]

What?!

The AthlonII is a PhenomII without its L3 cache. There were two batches of AthlonII chips, the first ones were literally PhenomII chips with the L3 disabled. The newer ones are a unique design that does not include L3 and has a larger L2. They both use the same (k10.5) microarch, and at the same clockspeeds perform pretty close to each other, with the PhenomII's L3 cache helping in some apps.

well i am retarded so

 

[Upendra09]

ok, sorry to keep askin stop but on newegg theres both a 2.6 GHz and a 2.8 GHz propus Athlon II X4.

.2 GHz difference isnt much is it? and wouldnt overclocking allow me to go over that anyways? should I just get the 2.6?

don't spend 13 extra dollars for 200 mhz, you won't see a difference, unless you are gaming even then it is like 2-3 FPS off

i would buy the cheapest one there (620 @ 2.6 ghz @ 99 USD) and OC it, the Propus is very capable you can maybe get it to 3.2 stable with out an aftermarket cooler

 

[loneninja]

Athlon II X4 only has 512kb L2 cache per core just like Phenom II X4, while having no L3 cache, that is the only difference between Athlon II X4 and Phenom II X4. Some early Athlon II X4 were Phenom II X4 with the L3 cache disabled, probably due to high demand upon release or a way for AMD to make money off Deneb that has faulty L3 cache. However, most Athlon II X4 processors are built on the native Propus die which still features the same amount of L2 cache as Deneb, but doesn't have the L3 cache. Same exact architecture, just one is made with L3, the other isn't.


Personally I picked up the Athlon II X4 630 over the 620 since there was only a $13 difference, I wanted the higher mulitplier for overclocking and easily took the processor up to 3.5Ghz using the stock cooler from my Phenom II 940.