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Intel i5 (Quad Core) 2400 under-performing AMD Phenom II X2 555

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  • Quad Core
  • Intel i5
  • CPUs
  • AMD
  • Biostar
  • Phenom
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November 9, 2013 12:57:01 AM

Until a month ago I had a home-built PC...

AMD Phenom II X2 555 (4th core unlocked, overclocked to 3.67GHz)
Biostar TA890GXB HD
4GB Kingston HyperX Blue (Single)
PNY GeForce 9800 GX2
Cooler Master Silent Pro M600 600W
1TB Western Digital Caviar Green HDD
Running Dual Win7 Enterprise and Scientific Linux 6.4

The Motherboard burned up (stuck in permanent freeze when trying to load OS), I borrowed a Computer from the Physics Dept. at my university and combined it with my other (working/compatible) hardware. The only differences between the configuration above and the new configuration are as follows...

Intel i5 (Quad Core) 2400
ASUS P8H61-M

The problems that I have been experiencing are encountered playing games and using Math/3D rendering software. My wife plays games like Peggle Nights, Delicious9, Tales of Lagoona 2, and the Testament of Sherlock Holmes. I play games like Mass Effect 3, Fallout:New Vegas, and Star Wars: TOR. I also run Adobe CS5, MATLAB 2012, Sysquake for LaTeX, AutoCAD 2013 and PTC Creoparametric 2.0.

All of these applications ran exquisitely on my old system. The new system runs Mass Effect, and Fallout with higher FPS than the old system (a whopping +40 FPS faster), and MATLAB and AutoCAD respond much faster as well. Other than that every thing else has tremendous problems with chopping, skipping, lag, delayed or absent quadrants of refreshed images, etc. What is going on here? Why do I have a more powerful Intel processor (5x to 10x better according to 3DMark, Passmark, Geekbench, and Cinebench) and yet I am having a poorer experience as compared to when I had the Phenom II's?

More about : intel quad core 2400 performing amd phenom 555

November 15, 2013 12:12:24 PM

you have to reinstalled the os cause it still got drivers installed from the other mother board and chipset drivers and cpu drivers
a c 473 à CPUs
a c 117 À AMD
November 15, 2013 12:41:46 PM

Good call from cooldex. Reinstall the OS.
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November 15, 2013 12:57:47 PM

cooldex said:
you have to reinstalled the os cause it still got drivers installed from the other mother board and chipset drivers and cpu drivers


It is a clean install. I double-checked for newest drivers for all the hardware (direct from manufacturers site).
November 15, 2013 1:06:18 PM

and you made sure its on performance mode and did they give it to you for free like they knew something was wrong with it
November 17, 2013 9:12:25 AM

Everything is cranked up to med-high settings (as it was on my old system). To answer the second question: no, I don't think anyone was aware that there was anything wrong with this tower when I took it home (it wasn't given to me, it is just being loaned out). I used turbo boost over this past weekend, and increased the speed by 700MHz. At this point everything is now running pretty seamlessly, I am now seeing better performance (on par with old system for most programs, with the Intel rig getting a slight edge in really cpu intensive programs). But I shouldn't have to use turbo boost to beat Phenom II 555's. cpuboss.com puts the i5 (stock) well over the 555 in every single category. Why would this be happening?
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a c 117 À AMD
November 17, 2013 9:46:47 AM

Well firstly don't use sites like CPUBoss unless you like synthetic tests, personally despise them.

It is really odd that you're getting that kind of performance. The only thing I could think of is it being a defective chip or motherboard. You could try measuring your CPU temperatures, if they're too high you'll see a performance drop. Did you apply thermal paste?
November 18, 2013 11:43:01 PM

I just checked the thermal paste: it isn't caked on like a double-stuf oreo, but it appears to be sufficient enough to cover the chip all the way to the edge, and thick enough to obscure the make and model number.

I used CoreTemp to confirm that the temperature is 51°C (idle, stock-clocked), and 82°C (max, overclocked). Normal temps run everywhere in-between the SC'd configuration and the OC'd configuration. I have to amend my previous statement and add that even OC'd the i5 is still having stuttering/rendering issues playing bluray discs, and editing Creo files of greater complexity.

I am utterly confounded by this business. I have used quad i3 and quad i7 rigs and been totally blown away (particularly by the i7 4770!). This is my first experience with the i5 processor, and at least with the i5 2400's that my university has, I'm feeling very cold. I tried playing a bluray on some of the other i5 2400's at school and they stuttered worse than this one (probably due to the fact that I have the 9800 GT, and the ones at school have Radeon 5450's). All of these i5's are up to date as far as drivers and codecs are concerned (I've installed them myself).

I am starting to feel that it must have something to do with the OS, which is Windows 7 Enterprise. Does that sound plausible?
a c 167 à CPUs
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November 19, 2013 1:34:52 AM

No, windows 7 Enterprise is basically Ultimate edition, for business - it runs everything fine.

Does sound strange though, the i5 2400 should be much better than the phenom.
a b à CPUs
November 19, 2013 1:53:22 AM

If you have clean installed everything and only get issues with certain apps or games, and they are all video related, I would bet you a round of beer its a compatibility issue between the old card and new ish board. My pc does it. Borrow a newish dx11 nvidia card and sweep the drivers etc. mixing generations is torture.
Oh, and dont use a 6 series. there shite for the same probs. ideally use a 460.
November 19, 2013 5:53:16 PM

chrisso said:
If you have clean installed everything and only get issues with certain apps or games, and they are all video related, I would bet you a round of beer its a compatibility issue between the old card and new ish board. My pc does it. Borrow a newish dx11 nvidia card and sweep the drivers etc. mixing generations is torture.
Oh, and dont use a 6 series. there shite for the same probs. ideally use a 460.



That's a novel idea! I know where I can borrow a PNY GeForce GTX 650, is that a better pairing than the 9800 GT? (I know you said to avoid 6 series, but this is probably the newest I can find atm)
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November 20, 2013 1:30:10 AM

Yeah a 650 would be worth a try. Probably similar performance to the 9800 GT
November 22, 2013 3:23:23 PM

^^^^^ Sorry, I have to make a correction the GPU is a PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 (Enthusiast Edition) card, not a 9800 GT ^^^^^

Okay, I swapped the PNY card for an EVGA 650 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI 3.0 and the results are in...
Success! chrisso's suggestion indeed solved the problem. Now that I am seeing an increase in performance over the Phenom II's, I think that I owe the i5's an apology. The increase to graphics processing over the old system is in the neighborhood of about 30%, rendering software appears to be no more than comparable to the Phenom II's, but the Matlab and Sysquake are faster than ever.

The next question has to be: what should I replace the 9800 GX2 with? Since I have to return the 650, I will have to pick up a new card asap. Unfortunately there is a problem... I am horrifically short on scratch, so the replacement part is going to have to be really cheap (around $50), I saw that Newegg has a Powercolor 7750 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI 3.0 for $50 after mail-in-rebate.

The 7750 is only on par with the 9800 GX2, but I'm hoping that the issue lies in the fact that the old card was designed for DirectX 10, and OpenGL 2.1 API's, whereas the 650 was designed for using DirectX 11, and OpenGL 4.2 API's. Any thoughts on that, or alternate suggestions?
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November 25, 2013 4:17:06 AM

Yeah a 7750 is probably as good as you will get for $50

Alternativly, if you look on the used market (ebay) you can often pick up bargains. GTX 460 can often be picked up for peanuts and would blow the 7750 away in performance, and is still a modernish architecture, runs DX 11.
January 14, 2014 10:21:47 PM

Waited a month and went outside of my budget and got the Radeon 7780. I'm very happy with the results. Special thanks to chrisso and RobCrezz for the suggestions.
!