Battle of the athlons, help!!

[chuckyboy05]

Hi,

im confused on wether to get the Athlon II 635 X4 2.9ghz processor for £80

or the Athlon II X3 440 3.0ghz processor for £60, ive got a corsair H50 Watercooler, and i want to overclock one of these to around 3.3ghz stable.

Not many applications use all 4 cores so its made me think twice, after currently owning a Phenom 9950 Black edition CPu that sucks very much at only 2.6ghz, which i paid like £150 a year ago for it!

And heads up would be good.

Thanks!!!

 

[rolli59]

I would go for the X3. Changes are if you have the correct motherboard that it would unlock to X4 but not guarantied.

 

[chuckyboy05]

I would go for the X3. Changes are if you have the correct motherboard that it would unlock to X4 but not guarantied.

I have a Asus m3n78-VM, not very good but it does the job for me.

Would that perform just as good or better than the X4 for gaming?

And does it overclock easier too?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

My opinion, if you have the extra cash, grab the x4. If you don't, get the x3. Long story short. You may be able to unlock, but there is no guarantee. Also, some of those cores could be disabled due to defects. So you won't be guaranteed to get an x4 from the x3. Number one rule when buying parts, if you intend to keep it a while, buy the best you can then later on you don't have to upgrade as soon if you don't want to. That's my 2 cents.

P.S. Can't speak for the gaming or overclocking of the x3, but my guess is they are a decent gamer chip as a lot of guys seem to be recommending them for budget builds.

 

[simon12]

Most games use up to 3 cores but some use 4 or more so the 3 core will be better or as good for most current games but future ones will be using more cores. Aslo less cores normally means more overclocking room.

 

[saint19]

Hi.

The big jump performance is with tri core, so, in this case £20 more for a 4 core is expensive IMO.

I think that u can go with the X3 without problems and get a very solid performance in games and applications.

 

[chuckyboy05]

I think i will go for the X3 then guys, as i want to achieve at least 3.4ghz overclock, maybe 3.5 depending on the temps.

I've got the extra money to go for the X4, but more cores isnt always better.

Thanks

 

[saint19]

With the £20 u can get a cooler for the OC since the stock cooler isn't the best for the OC job and with the X3 I think that u can get 3.5GHz without problems.

 

[chuckyboy05]

Ive already got a corsair H50 water cooler, will this allow me too reach 3.5ghz?

 

[saint19]

^Yeah it's enough for the 3.5GHz.

 

[chuckyboy05]

thanks

 

[saint19]

Any time, that's why we are here. Come back to the forum