Phenom ii 720

[Nashsafc]

I have a xfx 8300 motherboard, and it allows CPU up to 95 watts. The pii 720 is 95 watts. But will i be able to overclock it since, overclocking it to some extent requires more voltage and power. Since the motherboard says it takes only up to 95 watt processors does that mean i can't overclock with having a pii 720 if i am going to increase the voltage above stock level by a tiny bit?

 

[Wisecracker]

I don't know much about the XFX 8300 but I would think (as in most cases with the PhIIs) at stock volts you may add around 400MHz to your clock speed without really stressing anything (or effecting temps).

 

[Nashsafc]

So i will not really be able to increase the voltage on my motherboard. When my mobo says accepts up to 95watt cpu does that mean that i can add slightly more power through increasing voltages and it will still be actually safe, and is it just that adding a cpu over 95watts would be dangerous?

 

[erdinger]

I thing if you increase voltage you not only increase the danger of your cpu breaking(like always) but also that your motherboard could break!

 

[Nashsafc]

only by a slight bit. I'm talking about milivolts here. That sort of stuff is done in overclocking and it works if you increase the voltage sensibly. That would make sense what you said if someone increases the voltage to much, or increases it more than the processors frequency actually needs.

 

[smithereen]

I would feel very comfortable upping the voltage to 1.45. This is the warrented voltage for Phenom II 945s.

 

[Nashsafc]

so it doesn't matter if my motherboard says takes only 95 watt processor and i increase the wattage of the processor above 95 watts. Say 2 or 3 watts more or less

 

[smithereen]

I think you would be alright, but I can't say for sure.

 

[Nashsafc]

cool, i wonder if i will see much FPS increase in my games at least by 3 lol. I'm happy with the current graphics card GTS 250 and i play at a 1280 x 1024 resolution, so i thought it would be more sensible to go foe a gts 250. With a better processor, would it mean that i get a higher minimum framerate compared to with a worse of processor. Looking at the phenoms compared to the old am2 athlon x2s there is clear difference. Currently i have a phenom ii 545.

 

[smithereen]

I'd stay with the Ph2 545 for a while yet. The third core is useful, but it's not worth replacing what you have so far.

 

[Nashsafc]

I've been looking at overclocking reviews for the 720 and it says that it can be overclocked to 3.2ghz before you will start to need to increase the voltages. Everytime you increase the frequency over 100mhz from here you need to add 0.5v to the cpu voltage to make it stable. So would my phenom 545 actually run faster for games, since i can overclock it to 3.6ghz without doing anything else to it and i get the same temperatures as on stock level frequencies? The phenom x3 at the same frequency as the 545, is it not really that much better than the x for gaming? So i should stay with my phenom 545 or 550, i will get higher overclocking and ultimately better performance in games optimised for two threads?

 

[smithereen]

If you own a 545, keep it. If you are buying a new CPU, go for the 720.

 

[Nashsafc]

Just recently i have seen that the 940 can overclock to 3.6ghz on stock voltages plus it is 95 watts. Is the 940 a better overclocker then compared to the 720. Since i heard after 3.2ghz you have to add 0.5v to it everytime after 100mhz increase and it stops at 3.7ghz. Aught i go for the 940 in that case, even though i don't need four cores BUT it only costs 30 pounds more, is a better overclocker and will work on my current motherboard. Is it true i can overclock it to 3.6ghz on my am2+ xfx 8300 motherboard.

 

[Nashsafc]

OH NO, the 940 is not 95 watts it is 125 watts lol. I just found out. But for gaming, seeing how with a phenom ii 720 i would only be able to overclock it to 3.2ghz because of my mobo only allowing a 95 watt cpu (no voltage increase), would a 545 overclocked to 3.6ghz be faster than the 720 for gaming or about the same?

 

[JofaMang]

On the rare game that utilizes more than 2 cores, you might see an advantage over the 545 with the 720. But that difference is not universal, so using a dual core OCed to 3.6 for the most part, will be a better performer. Come back in a year and it could totally be different, but games have to run on a large range of platforms, and most gamers have not adopted quads, yet.

 

[Nashsafc]

but 3 cores at the same frequency perform better, have you got any links to show me comparing the 550 and the 720? But how much better isn't it usually by 5 FPS more? In most games, apart from the most demanding games like Crysis which require a really significant processor over the gpu to see a performance increase.