AMD Phenom II X4 980T vs AMD FX-6100

The Phenom II X4 980T and FX-6100 are both currently $150. After looking at reviews, benchmarks, tech sites, and forums it really looks like a toss up between the two CPUs. The FX-6100 is better in multithreaded apps and the 980T is better with gaming performance. Lets say you have access to both of these CPUs (I currently have both of them sitting on my desk), which one would you use for you're everyday use? (Please no "ditch AMD get an i5" talk, I'm not interested in your opinion if that's all you have to say.) Like I said I have both and my primary PC use includes games such as ME3, MW3, TF2, FM12 and other than that internet use and video streaming. (I like to watch ESPN3 while I play Football Manager 12). If any of you were in my shoes which one of these processors would you use and which one would you try to resell? Or should I use the 980t and hold on to the FX-6100 and hope for an OS patch to help improve performance. I remain hopeful in the theory that Bulldozer can be fixed by a patch or Win8. But if you had both processors today which one would you use and why?
 
yeah its the 980t, I'm not sure that my motherboard has a core unlocking feature anyway. Gigabyte GA-990FA-UD3, I've only tried the FX-6100 and I'm tired of not being able to fully disable turbo and CnQ, I have to disable turbo manually in AMD Overdrive everytime I want to benchmark even though its off in BIOS. Also to get an accurate temp reading I have to use Overdrive as well. I'm hoping I wont have the same troubles with the Phenom II 980t. I have my FX-6100 OC'd to 4.3, I'm hoping to get close to that with the 980t but have 4 REAL cores instead of 3 cores with 2 modules a piece. I think the FX-6100 might be an easier resell too because I actually have the box and stock HSF whereas my 980t is OEM and processor only. I'll probably try it on ebay hopefully someone will just pick it up wanting the new tech, who knows. I just need to keep one and sell the other, the one I keep I want to use for a year or two and maybe AMD will come out with something more efficient by then. The IPC is higher on the 980t so even if my OC'd clock speed is lower it will still be more effective. Also I'm hoping to get it at a higher voltage with a lower temperature.
 

wr6133

Guest
Feb 10, 2012
2,091
0
19,960
That mobo does have core unlock if the processor is a 960T (there is no 980T there is a 980 but thats a deneb native quad core.... cant unlock). You unlock the cores in the advanced settings on the bios when you get in to it its pretty self explanatory. I have the same 990xa-ud3 board.

On 4 cores I can hit 4GHZ at stock voltage. At 6 cores I only make 3.89GHZ on stock voltage. So you have plenty of room there, I suspect with voltage tweaks a little more can be obtained.
 
oh i see, Advanded BIOS --> CPU Unlock. Well I have the 980 so I wont be using that, but good to know. Yeh I have the FX-6100 in the slot right now and I'm doing some testing on it and I will compare my results with the 980 once I get that in. I'll probably wait for the weekend because to take off my HSF I need to get the mobo out of this case and I don't have time for all that right now. Perhaps I'll post my results once I test both.
 

Anonymous_26

Honorable
Mar 22, 2012
336
0
10,810


I agree I would take the Phenom II. Unless you're working on one of the few programs where Bulldozer actually does half decent I wouldn't bother with it. In most cases the Phenom II will give better performance.
 
I put the phenom in last night. So far then phenom beats my 6100 on 3dmark11 and 3dmark06 stock and overclocked. Only problems is I must have done a bad job with thermal paste cus my idle and load temps are 5 degrees higher than average. Also the phenoms memory controller does not support 1866 MHz ram
 
lighten that load on your thermal paste.

if you have the 980BE.
go back into the bios and click the multi twice to 4.1GHz, that's it.
(not telling you how to overclock)
two clocks on the multi will run on stock voltage and stock settings.
you might get higher without tweaking things but I know you can 4.1GHz just like that.
the Deneb C3 stepping ships are the best AMD made and has made to this point.
Thuban E0 stepping is a slight notch below.

yeh I got it running stable @ 4.0ghz stock voltage. I'll wait til the weekend to reapply thermal paste, i tried the two line method and may have used too much. i did the tiny dot method on the fx-6100 and i noticed when i took off the cooler the paste didnt cover the whole chip so i tried a different approach. I think the tiny dot works better because my idle temps on the fx-6100 were 25C and right now my idle temps are 35C. I should be around 30C with stock voltage on the 980. I have a decent cooler so the temps should be lower than they are right now. I have an offer from a guy on craigslist to trade my FX-6100 plus a 23" monitor i just bought for $50 for his 16GB of 2400mhz ram worth about $250. You think i should do it? I'd like to just get cash but he wants a trade. I live in south carolina so techies are few and far between i doubt im gonna get too many bites on my $120 craigslist ad for my fx-6100

heres a link to my cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074
 
yeah i have the clearance, its already installed ive had it for a month almost. nice thing too is it doesnt block the ram. also it looks like maybe my thermal paste just needed to chill out for a few hours because im back to 32C idle and 50C full load and I can live with that. going to try to crank the voltage up in a few days and get 4.3ghz stable.
 
The Phenom II X4 980 is better than the FX-6100. Its actually more evident than I thought it would be. Its faster and scores higher in every benchmark I have done. It sucks that I spent $300 on AMD processors in the past month but I have comfort in knowing that I have the fastest quad-core AMD has ever made (that is unless you consider the FX-8150 a quad core, lol). I'm happy and now I just have to find some sorry sucker to buy this FX-6100.
 
Well I had 4.3ghz stable but it got too hot for my taste, 75C in large FFT on prime95. I backed it down to 4.1ghz with just .25 volts over stock voltage and it runs fast and cool. Heres a CPU-Z:

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2305683

I think I'll stay here for a while, I don't see a need to burn my chip for a possible +400mhz. This thing is the bees knees, you know what else is cool? All my monitoring software works better with it, no more adding 10C to my temp to find the real temp, no more futuremark software telling me I have a tri-core. Theres a bunch of other things that work smoother than the FX did.
 
Nice! We're motherboard bros! Hah, nice board. Yeh I was looking in the BIOS and to set my RAM higher than 1600mhz I have to do it via overclocking the FSB. So I'm gonna tell that dude with the crazy 2400mhz RAM no deal. He needs to come up with some cash money or maybe a 6870 I can crossfire with. I told him I'd even trade for a copy of Win7 Pro because I have my son's computer I'm running on Linux because microsoft no longer lets you use the same cdkey on more than one computer. My son and wife can't figure Linux out, even though they only use the internet and its the same thing as any other computer. Oh well..But the guy is a computer tech and has a company so I figured he'd have some stuff lying around to trade, we'll see.
 
lol, yeah mine is just the 300 but I put 2 blue LED fans up front so its basically the illusion now. They actually had it one day at best buy for $50 so I bought it. I had this crappy old case and i was trying to do a build for my son with some older parts and I wanted to put them all in a dell case i had but it wouldnt work. So we went to best buy and i saw the 300 and bought it, i put a blue LED fan in his computer and he thinks its so awesome. Having a 6 year old is great they think everything is amazing.
 
Haha that's crazy, well my kids computer isn't that nice he has an Athlon 64 X2 4400 @ 2.2ghz it's a socket 939 so I got regular DDR ram 4gb (only 3.25 usable) a MSI k8n neo4 platinum board and a MSI GeForce 430. I have an artic 64 cooler but I can't get a stable OC without downspeeding the ram like crazy. All he does are web browser games and online homework so stock is good enough. I did have an Athlon 64 3700 single core but I found a dual core on eBay for $40 and figured why not
 

AlbusDlx

Distinguished
Dec 25, 2011
75
0
18,640
I went from a Phenom 2 @ 4.1GHz to a Fx-6100. With the 990FXA-UD3 mb we have pretty much the same system. I have it fully stable at 4.7GHz and it runs past the Phenom in every application. Temp wise, well... Core says 24° and mb says 35° in idle and everyday situations. Around 50° when gaming. The QnQ/Throttle issue were disabled when I turned off the APM. I think the FX-6100 is a nice cpu and have no intentions of changing it for somethin else.
 
Yeh buddy I overclocked the crap out of my 6100 but when most applications treat I like a tricore and 80% of the IPC of the 980 it's not as good for gaming. I enjoyed my time with the 6100, but I'm having a much better time with the 980

And malmental, I came home and took off my cooler and reapplied thermal grease and computer wouldn't boot, no post no display period. After about three hours of testing diff CPUs, GPUs, ram, turns out it was the psu. I also got it at best buy about 20 days ago. After my sons baseball game tomorrow I'm gonna go down there and give them hell. Corsair said to take it back to them and I know they'll tell me different when I get there. Oh well
 

Anonymous_26

Honorable
Mar 22, 2012
336
0
10,810


Well woopy dee freaking do good for you. Stock Bulldozer vs stock I5 the I5 beats it out in most games. Overclocked Bulldozer vs overclocked I5 and guess what the I5 wins again. It's ok though we know you feel the need to defend your buy no matter how inferior it is.