The New AMD Building Thread

Haha I would never OC a 125W chip in anything but a 790FX board. Maybe a Phenom II in a 790GX. But the 95W Phenom II tri-cores OC beautifully even in 780/770 boards. My friend I recommended the 770 to has a 3.8GHz 720 BE

 

i wouldnt call them dreadfull. and i doubt youd notice the difference in your electricity usage.

and how long does anyone keep a chip in reality, 1 maybe 2 years?

 

You'd be surprised, it depends on the level of usage but people who spend hours rendering videos etc. spend significant time at load. At just three hours' load a day, even stock a Phenom II is costing an extra £8 a year. If it was overclocked, even worse. £8 a year might not seem much, but owning the chip for only 18 months at that level of usage is almost sufficient to make the price difference between it and a Q9400. If it were heavily used, say an average of 7 hours load per day, and was used for 18 months, that's more than the difference between it and a Q9550, which incidentally has recently been price-dropped, and is now £13 less than a Phenom II 955. Food for thought...

 

I think the next revision of chips from AMD is going to be much better on power consumption. I have reason to believe it's also the high TDP that limits overclocking. So maybe we'll see something interesting happen. Remember the Athlon 64 kicked the ever loving crap out of Pentium 4 and had lower power consumption. We might see that happen again. Maybe just a re-hash of Phenom II but that's not exactly a bad thing.

Also, the 940 has dropped below $200 on newegg. Let's see what the future brings

 

Well i have purchased the MA-770-UD3 board and last years x2 2.8Ghz AM2...my reasoning is the board is good and last years CPU is ok and clearly has an upgrade path of new CPU if stepson does so desire. If he doesnt then no big deal either I covered the basics...I gave him a choice of any NewEggs $25-50 cases and he countered by offering 2 lawn mowings and 2 landscaping jobs to bring himself up to the $50-75 bracket cause he seen Coolermaster Mystique
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119129
Damn kids...

 

Hey at least he has som ambition and work initiative. Honestly he is very lucky. I would never have gotten my dad to buy me a PC. I had to build my own entirely with my own money. Wish you luck with the build though. Have fun

 

No offense meant to you personally, but why is it, that the group of enthusiasts that wastes the most power, are the biggest complainers about power consumption figures? Hard Core Gamers don't give a Rats A$$ about power consumption, with their 1 to 4 high end video cards, in SLI or Crossfire? Some of those draw more power at Boot-Up than it takes to run mine for an hour! A lot of motherboards come with much touted power saving features, but they only work at stock settings. If you overclock, they are disabled!

I've lived in this house for over 3 years now. We've had at least two heavily used (and sometimes very inefficient) computers in the house ever since. We've had a Dual 1GHz P-III and my Prescott, when I first moved in. That changed to a 3.0 Prescott and a D-940, to a E4300 and the Prescott, to an Athlon 64 4000+ and a E6750, to an Athlon 64x2 and my current AMD. The average per month difference is less than $3 over the last 3 years. I'm not talking increase either, it goes both up and down! The point I'm trying to make is that we just don't see the amount of increase in consumption the way you say we should! We are also talking about two computers that spend more than 50% of the time being used, not just turned on! We both average 14-17 hours of use a day on our computers.

Another thing is, the Core 2 Quads will always cost more than the AMD Quads to manufacture, even though AMD's process is more expensive, because of the need to have Human Beings manually connect the two dual cores, to make the Quads! Consequently, AMD's true Quads will always cost less to produce. Intel can lower the prices, but the bottom line will still be the overall cost to produce them over time! That certainly shows in the sales!

C2D production has dropped 15% in the last 7 months down to 39.7% overall, while the only appreciable increase has been Core i7, and it only only accounts for 12.6% of Intel's total production, or an increase of less than 1% in the last month. AMD's Quads account for 41.6% of all of AMD's production, a number it shares with the 64x2 Dual Cores, as they just matched each other's production numbers in May! Right now AMD is the only one selling in any appreciable numbers! People see them as a better value, and all the talk of power consumption isn't going to change that!

Respectfully,
Russ

 

Deadrum33,
I quite agree with Estuansis here. Just the fact that he has the ability in this day and age to fairly negotiate with you over the case is a very good sign for his future. Now if he doesn't do the work as promised, that's a different story. I did something similar when my oldest wanted to get a car. We signed an agreement I drew up that challenged her to save as much as she could, and whatever amount she saved, I would match. Cost me $1100 (in 1992). She doubly surprised me by buying her mother's old Hundai for $400, and putting the rest in the bank! I highly recommend a contract between you two. This way there can be consequences if he doesn't live up to his end of the agreement! Builds Character!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Sorry to say but Russ is right. I really honestly don't give a s*it how much power my PCs consume. I bought them based on my personal preferences, not power consumption. In the end, all CPUs will use power, period. The only place the TDP makes a real difference is in server environments where you have multiple CPUs. Heck, I only use the TDP an indicator of whether or not my board will catch fire.

Sam, if you truly cared about power consumption, you wouldn't use quad graphics, a quad core, and a 30" display. Also you wouldn't have 3 PCs. It's really a dead point coming from a hardcore gamer like yourself.

I mean, so what if my 940 is a 125W chip. It made 3.7GHz, can easily go higher if I wanted, and is fast as lightning. Really I prefer AMD chips because of how they work. They're much more interesting to overclock and benchmark. That's why the Phenom II is so appealing to me. I don't care how they relate to Intel, I only care what I can do with my individual chip. I already have a fast quad core Intel system and I KNOW how fast it is. The 940 is a completely separate subject.

 

We already have several AMD chips out that have relatively good power consumption, the X3 705e and X4 805e are 65W chips. They just cost quite a lot for how they perform. No real issue as Intel's 65W quads are even more expensive. As far as I can see, it's not the high TDP that limits overclocking, but what the lower TDP does mean is that to overclock a CPU to a reasonable limit no longer requires blistering temps on expensive coolers.

Russ: Actually I do care about power consumption, I care about it very much. This is one of the big reasons apart from quietness that I built a separate PC to use when I don't need to play games, because the idle power usage of that game system is a waste. The reason why I own it in the first place is that there is no more efficient way of getting that level of performance. With CPUs it's different, we're selling people 125W chips when there's an 80-85W alternative that does exactly the same job. If there was a Quad crossfire setup that used two thirds the power but cost a bit more, I very likely would have bought that instead. Do you not think as an Environmental Scientist I have some some degree of care?
You will very rarely see the impact of the power you use in electricity bill. For a start most bills are adjusted to remain the same or similar even if your usage dramatically differs. Having compared electricity usage month by month myself I know that a variation that small isn't true, so you are seeing adjusted monthly payments for a usage figure that varies far more.
few people consider power consumption figures as any reason to buy a CPU. The mainstream don't even realise there's a difference, the slightly above mainstream realise but don't really care, the top end enthusiasts are too rich to care, and the hardcore fanatics simply brush it aside as one of those disadvantages they can't bear to hear.
AMDs probably do cost less to produce given the new fab plants that AMD built at a substantial cost to the company, but the fact is, Intel are in a position to charge whatever the hell they like for a CPU and pretty much always have, even in the dark Pentium D era.
Remember Intel also have huge production queues to sale. If they slow production it's going to take a long time before there are fewer CPUs hitting the market.
As for the last comment, I'm not really sure what to suggest, because the fact that it's only AMD chips that sell is ludicrous and you know it.

This might come off as another anti-AMD rant, it isn't. The AM3 technology puts AMD in a very nice place for tech sales, and I hope the 65W chips catch on well. AM3 is perhaps not the ideal platform to start selling everything off, but it's certainly more reasonable than i7. However, some of the stuff that posted in this thread, especially by you is mad.

 

shall we just drop everything and move on now

 

There might be some tension, but I don't think there's any intended aggression. I actually welcome the conversation. It gives an interesting insight on the current state of the market and the general opinion of the end-user. Of course opinions will differ. That's why we have such a wonderful discussion forum to voice them

My only advice is to keep an open mind guys! Don't forget that everyone is coming from a completely different point of view. Myself included. I would be dumbstruck if everyone actually agreed

In other words, as long as you keep it civil, there's no reason we shouldn't continue this discussion.

 

Sam,
I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like Intel is selling nothing, what with contracts with Dell, HP, Compaq and others. It's just their sales have kind of stagnated, and are very flat at the moment, with no decisive direction or trends. In October C2D's counted for 54.8% of all Intel's production down to the current 39.7%, while Quad production over the same period went from a high of 22.6% in November to the current 20.7%. The only increase you can measurably see was with i7. They went from 10.8% in April to 12.6% in may. My guess for that increase is Intel's focus on the server market for i7!

Contrast AMD where the Phenom's and 64x2's account for 83.2% for all of AMD's production. It's very likely that Phenom production will continue to go up, but not too much more! I think the market will always be there for 64x2's! It's interesting that all the Phenom and Phenom II's are lumped together. Then again with all the different x2. x3. and quads, I guess there's just no practical way to differentiate between them. Production of all phenoms has increased 32.6% in the last year, from 9.0% last June to 41.6% today.

Selling the Fabs, has turned out to be a brilliant move for AMD, as it relieved them of all the Billions of dollars of previous debt, while still maintaining control of them! The real brilliant part is that AMD didn't have to pay a dime for the new Fabs! The new owners paid for them! Deal of the Century, if you ask me!

As far as the mad part goes, I don't see it that way. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with work at the moment and I do a considerable amount of research every day, and I report what I find. I do have my opinions based on what I find. I'm not always right, but you have to admit, I do come close! I'm also fortunate to know people who have tens of millions of dollars invested in AMD, so I do occasionally get some information that's not known to the General public. I know I've been used a few times to perpetuate rumors, but since most of the AMD rumors turn out to be fairly factual, I don't mind! LOL!! Sometimes dumb luck has had a lot to do with what I've learned. I did beat the press by over a year when I reported the "Future' triple. AD and dvdHounds can lay claim to an exclusive first! ROFL!! I wasn't exactly right about how it would all work, but they have appeared, and are fairly successful, especially the new ones! Overall, I've been right more often than I've been wrong, but AMD is moving along and growing. Maybe not for some the reasons I predicted or tried to foresee, but still, here they are, and we have a ballgame again! That's very good for all of us and our pocketbooks!

Just like you said about AMD, this is no rant against Intel either. Every computer I've ever owned before was an Intel. Some had chips made by AMD, but still basically Intel. This one being my first AMD build for myself, has surprised me. I think my mindset when I built it, left me in a position to be easily disappointed. I had a fast E6750 that I liked a lot, and I knew in advance that it didn't do certain things as well as the Intel's did. Several problems that I had with the build didn't do anything to help the situation either! I've found out that having two major hardware problems is a rare thing, but it can happen, and it does make sorting it all out very difficult. Still, even with all the problems, an admiration for the AMD grew! It's grown even more since it's finally finished. The last tweak of raising the CPU NB Frequency and the HT Frequency 400MHz each has finally shown where it matters (I was begining to wonder about that fatter memory bandwidth), The rebuild times in a DVDRB/CCE encode are amazing (4 minutes faster with my last DVDRB/CCE), as is the difference in Encode times. I've deliberately left the same drive setup I had on the E6750 so I could make an honest comparison. I also kept notes of some of the more challenging DVDs (the one's that take the longest) and have compared all of them against the times of the 3.55GHz E6750, and thanks in part to my recent tweaks, it isn't even close! The AMD, even at a slower clock speed, is an Animal at video encoding!

I do a lot of Video Encoding, surf the net and research stuff, visit various forums and play games. The AMD doesn't do RAR files very fast, and isn't as good a number cruncher, but for my uses, it's a perfect choice! I forgive it's shortcomings, and use the hell out of the rest! I can honestly say, with a lot of affection, I Love my AMD!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Ok Russ, I'll start by apologising for what I said earlier. Retrospectively a lot of what I say seems to come off very rude. I'm walking a fine tightrope with my academic progress at the moment, and it's difficutlt to judge whether I'll be successful in my current uni degree, which is my last chance at further education, or else, standard fare job.
Intel's sales stagnating doesn't surprise me in the slightest, what have they offered recently that's new? Very little, the i7 975 is all I can think of, and it doesn't take much to see they won't be selling many of those. AMD on the other hand have come up with a wealth of new products, and it is only fitting that they take some of the market share back from Intel. They aren't likely to take back all of what they lost, but it'll be a good start at least, with increases in competitiveness, and very little new on the Intel front, though the reason for that is obvious, as none of Intel's products have actually been beaten other than perhaps MIPS/$, there's no reason to bring out anything new. AMD are still a way off from offering a faster quad core than Intel can manage, and a long way off a faster dual core, the E8600 and Q9650 are still happily ahead in almost everything, with the very few zones the Q9650 loses out, there's i7 to fall back on, which to this day is still falling in price.
Something to consider with intel's sales statistics, what do you consider to be a Core 2 Duo? Any 45nm or 65nm dual core? Don't forget a large proportion of, and perhaps the sales majority of Intel's dual cores go under the Pentium Dual core name. That is how my E5200 is branded, as with the E2 and relaunched E6 series, which are all rivals as far as the X2 250, encompassing every xxxx+ series chip and the 7x50 range as rivals.
For AMD, counting Phenoms and 64X2s together, what's actually left? Semprons and Opteron, server grade, and real bottom-end. With dual core CPUs from £40, there's very little reason for people to buy anything else from AMD, so it's no small surprise that these sectors account for 83% of AMD's sales, I'm not really sure what these figures are trying to prove. If it's that simplicity is on AMD's side, that's out. I still don't understand which AM3 CPUs do and don't have DDR2 memory controllers for AM2+ boards.

From a personal standpoint, apologies if this isn't the case here, or if you take offense (none is intended) but it seems to me recently that you're the sort of guy that likes to buck the trend, use something unusual to achieve results as close as possible to everyone else with the mainstream. When X2s were all the rage, you bought a Pentium D. When Core 2 Duo E6 series chips were all the range, (like myself), you bought an E4. When Core 2s with 45nm architectures were steaming ahead, you bought the X2 7750. As someone that usually likes to use brands apart from the obvious, I can sympathise with this, I genuinely can. The difference is, above this I place the priority of getting the most out of something that I need. My needs vary to compared to others, so buying products on feature merits, I for instance chose a Toshiba MP3 player over an ipod. The software is worse, the design is more simplistic, but it's a mark against the 'every man and his dog has one' argument.

 

Sam,
No apology needed as you didn't say anything you need to apologize for.

For sure, I've built some strange ones, but I was in the C2D camp for about 2 1/2 years with the E4300 and the E6750, after the D-940. All the figures show is the percentage of production each type of chip claims. I should have said Intel Dual Cores, and they include all dual cores in their stats. The Intel Dual Cores have dropped just over 15% in the last 6 months, without a corresponding rise in the percentage of others, so I'm assuming that it's business that went elsewhere! I could be wrong!

I can easily look at both our machines and say that we each have what is best for our intended purposes. As far as your Uni Degree goes, I know you are smart, and I'm sure you will get your degree, and wish you the best of luck on that front! I went to school full time my last two years and I worked as well, and had a family, so I know how tough it can be. I also compliment you on your style with this post!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hmm indeed, maybe I should restrict my posting to when I've already been up for 15 hours... :S

 

Sam,
I know that all the GigaByte boards except the nVidia chipset ones and the GA-MA770T-UD3P motherboard are rated up to 140w for the CPU!

Russ

 

Here's a review of the new Athlon II 250 and the Phenom II x2 550 from The Guru of 3D.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon-ii-x2-250-and-phenom-ii-x2-550-be-review/1

Enjoy,
Russ

 

ok all you AMD guys. i got a series of questions/problems.
well i dont a friend i work with does. he has a AMD build ill list his stuff shortly. he is scared to OC his phenom 1 9550 i told him it is easy todo and tried to explain some to him but not knowing anything about AM let alone their multi's and such im not much help. he does have it oc'd right now from 2.2 to 2.36? 10% he took it up. he is trying to adjust his mem so he can oc the cpu more. i dont knwo how to tell him what to do with his mem cause i dont know how the AMD's work. so here is what he has.

he is trying to OC his mem he has ddr2 800 crucial ballistix. he wants to know how/where in the bios to OC his mem? ive never had a AMD rig so i cant really tell him

CPU Arch : 1 CPU - 4 Cores - 4 Threads
CPU PSN : AMD Phenom 9550 Quad-Core Processor
CPU EXT : MMX(+) 3DNow!(+) SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4A x86-64
CPUID : F.2.3 / Extended : 10.2
CPU Cache : L1 : 4 x 64 / 4 x 64 KB - L2 : 4 x 512 KB
CPU Cache : L3 : 2048 KB
Core : Agena (65 nm) / Stepping : DR-B3
Freq : 2200.97 MHz (200.09 * 11)
MB Brand : Asus
MB Model : M3A78-EMH HDMI
NB : AMD 780G rev 00
SB : ATI SB700 rev 00
GPU Type : GeForce 9800 GT
DirectX Version : 10.0
RAM : 8192 MB DDR2 Dual Channel
RAM Speed : 400.2 MHz (1:2) @ 6-6-6-18
Slot 1 : 2048MB (PC2-6400)
Slot 1 Manufacturer : Crucial Technology
Slot 2 : 2048MB (PC2-6400)
Slot 2 Manufacturer : Crucial Technology
Slot 3 : 2048MB (PC2-6400)
Slot 3 Manufacturer : Crucial Technology
Slot 4 : 2048MB (PC2-6400)
Slot 4 Manufacturer : Crucial Technology

any help would be greatly appreciated.
im gonna give him a link to AD so he can join up here.