Phenom 2 x4 960T or 960?

[vin20]

The online portal through which i have ordered AMD phenom 2 x4 960(3.3ghz) have messed up and shipped me Phenom 2 x4 960T(3.0 ghz) black edition.

Both of these are compatible with my current age old MB, however the question is which is better?

Edit : Are there even CPU in the box for the 960 edition?

 

[Ohmybad]

i think the 960T can be unlocked to 6 core if you have the right mother board, other then that I think it's the same architecture as the 960 and OC's to 3.6+

 

[amuffin]

960t! You lucked out, if possible you can unlock it into a phenom x6 cpu!

 

[vin20]

wow, ok. i will upgrade the motherboard later. is it compatible with m2n68- am plus?

http://in.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M2N68AM_PLUS/#CPUS

Edit : i am wondering how is 960T a six core processor?

 

[truegenius]

i think 960 3.3ghz daneb is oem exclusive, while 960t 3.0ghz zosma is also available in box.
960t is unlockable to 6 core, while 960 is not.(960t is a thuban derivative, amd only dissbled 2 bad/less stable cores on a x6 thuban and then named that cpu as a x4, this is known as die harvesting)
Both are 95w cpu.
960t have turbo, while 960 don't.
960t is available in black edition, while 960 is not as it is oem tray cpu.

So if you know overclocking and unlocking and have supported hardware then 960t is better otherwise 960.

 

[truegenius]

NVIDIA Geforce 7025/nForce 630a is minimum to support unlocking, but i found only asrock boards with this chipset that support unlocking.

But you can try. And if your board supports unlocking then....
your board support cpu only upto 95w and thus overclocking and unlocking can damage your board.
But you can try unlocking + undervolting + underclocking to get rid of risk of damaging board.

 

[vin20]

Thanks for the quick responses, i've took your advise and installed the 960T however i'm facing a new problem now, the pc doesn't log into windows if i use a ram chip in DIMM2.

 

[vin20]

And the worst part is that the phenom 2 x4 920(125w) used to idle at 48 deg in this MB, now 960T is idling at 58 deg.

 

[truegenius]

you need to update your bios to latest available. And a fresh installation of windows.

You used a 125w cpu on a 95w supported board?!?

 

[wr6133]

58 is too high you may want to check the heatsink is seated correctly. Mine ran cooler than that when i first got it and OC'd it using stock cooler.

You really got lucky getting the 960T. If it unlocks it will show as a 1605T and run 6 cores but this is not a given not all will unlock stable. If that doesnt suit your board you can hit around 4.0GHZ normally as a quad core (with a upgraded cooler). When I first got mine i ran it on stock cooling for a week at 3.5GHZ without particularly high temps. For gaming as no game will really make good use of 6 cores OC'ing it at 4 cores is probably a better idea anyway.

 

[truegenius]

also you can use the cooler of that 920 as its cooler is designed to handle 125w and thus will keep your overclocked 960t @ 3.9 @stock voltage under prime95 below 50'c.

 

[vin20]

also you can use the cooler of that 920 as its cooler is designed to handle 125w and thus will keep your overclocked 960t @ 3.9 @stock voltage under prime95 below 50'c.

I don't what i am doing wrong but i'm using the 920 cooler and the core is hitting 56 while idle.

 

[vin20]

you need to update your bios to latest available. And a fresh installation of windows.

You used a 125w cpu on a 95w supported board?!?

For almost 2 years.

 

[Wisecracker]

Your motherboard may be over-volting the 960T - - try bumping back the VCore and see how she runs . . .

 

[vin20]

Your motherboard may be over-volting the 960T - - try bumping back the VCore and see how she runs . . .

The Vcore is constantly at 1.28-1.30, and undervolting only resulted in couple of degrees loss. At this point i'm not sure if there is a problem with the thermal compound or the motherboard because the RAM chips feel very hot when i touch them and a 450 w psu is more than sufficient.

 

[Wisecracker]

I suspect your readings are inaccurate or misleading -- and this gets back to the motherboard more so than anything.

Because of 'Turbo' you may have a number of cores well beyond 1.3v. Whatever utility you are using is simply not reading the higher-volted cores.

Your best shot at getting something close to accurate readings may be the Asus Probe utility - and it may not run on the nVidia chipset

 

[vin20]

I've been using the PCI probe and Speedfan, they both show similar readings.

I've just replaced the 920 stock cooler with 960t cooler and the no noticeable drop in temperatures i'm afraid and the ram chips are still burning.

Asus has just replaced the motherboard a couple of weeks ago with a new one.

 

[noahscorp]

try using CPU-Z's hardware monitor software. I had a few problems with other software providers for temp readings but this one works fine for me

 

[vin20]

CPU-Z hardware monitor shows the same, in fact it's reading the fan's rpm as 12000 :O

 

[vin20]

Ok, this is weird, reapplied the thermal compound and now the 960T is still idling at 52-55 degrees? Hold on, i was playing Syndicate and Skyrim and the CPU core reads 56-58 degrees? wowiee! At last some consolation.

Also ran the stress test for 10-15 mins and the core reached 64 degress which is like 2 degrees above the safe operating temperatures.

The Cooler that i got with the 960T is a disgrace, it's a common 65w am2, am2+ and am3 cooler. Pretty popular with Athlons, 65w cooler with a 95w processor? What was AMD thinking? :?

Thanks for listening to my ramblings, you guys are the best.