The New AMD Building Thread

Shaff,
No they don't. There are very few AM3 Processors that won't work in an AM2+ motherboard, as currently all but one will, as it has no DDR2 memory controller, just DDR3. All the rest providing that the MB can handle the wattage, work!

I know they are not targeting upgrades, but upgrades and low cost powerful Duals and Quads are going to be the bulk of the business market for all the on-line places, like Newegg, at least in the US, for a while to come! I've lived in 7 going on 8 decades, and I've never seen anything like what's going on today! If things are getting better in Europe, that will help improve the entire World's Economy. We might just get there last, though! LOL!!

Happy Holidays,
Russ

 

Well, I found my lost memory speed. I upped the HT-Link multiplier to 8x and did the same for the Northbridge, so they are both running at 2080MHz and the memory speed went from 880MHz, to 1066MHz again!



It certainly fluffed up the Memory Bandwidth! a bunch!



I'll have to do some more testing to see how much difference it all makes! Stay Tuned!

Happy Holidays,
Russ

PS http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-11/24/content_9031876.htm
here's some even more encouraging news!
JRS

EDIT:
Damn dyslexic eyes. I swear I can't read or type! Just not sure which I can't do! LOL!! I didn't find my lost memory speed, but I did fatten up my memory bandwidth. I'm just not sure why! Does upping the HT Link frequency multiplier and the Northbridge frequency multiplier do that? Both the HT link frequency and the Northbridge frquency are at 2080MHz with an 8x multiplier. I ran a DVD rip through DVDRB/CCE, 2 pass and it knocked off 4:03 from the same rebuilder job I did last night in 31 minutes. That's a pretty good improvement if it was the 8x multiplier that did it!

Russ

 

No, not really. I have an innate distrust of having to update a BIOS. I'm willing to do it (for Gigabytes at least, I'm not touching an Asus BIOS, but then, I'm not owning another Asus board) but I would never recommend it to other people. With the stock BIOS for example, Gigabyte boards let you use Auto volts for overclocking, which makes it a breeze. You try that once you've flashed the BIOS, the CPU will be dead within weeks from an insane voltage.
You seem to think that I'm saying Intel BIOSes aren't bad to flash. You know that's not what I meant. What I mean is if you buy an Intel CPU you don't have to flash the BIOS. With an AMD it's pretty much mandatory, and it shouldn't be!
You can go on about how a $199 CPU is unaffordable in the USA. That's a load of rubbish. Seriously? A $199 CPU with motherboards starting at $100, and DDR3 being cheaper than DDR2, 4GB of it for $90? I've spec'ed at least a dozen systems with CPU/board/RAM twice as much as that in the last couple of months, just from US customers, just on afterdawn!
To say people can't afford i7s had some merit to it. To say people can't afford i5s is utter crap, AMD systems don't cost a penny less. I'm sorry, call me stubborn, but I won't stand to see that argument.
Not living in the US, I don't know what Black Fridays are usually like, but what I do usually note of stores in the UK is that the best deals tend to be relatively low-key, you troll through a huge list of the 'today only' offers and occasionally you find an amazing bargain, not put up in huge big flashy adverts on the front page.

 

Sam,
I don't know what rock you've been hiding under, but virtually every new CPU that comes out, usually needs a bios flash, generally if the MB is out before the CPU. It was that way with the D-940, the E4300 and the E6750. The E4300 wouldn't even post on many motherboards. Remember all the gripes people had because they needed a different CPU so it would post, to allow you to flash the bios? I didn't need a bios flash for the 7750 or the 630, as all the motherboards I tried came with the required bios, already installed. In fact, none of the AMD motherboards I've bought required a bios flash, and all have recognized the CPU. I upgraded the bios to F8 on mine to unlock more features inherent to the 630!

The core i5 is at the very least a $400 proposition, and only if you have all the other components to start with! A from scratch build would be considerably higher! $200 for the CPU, $100 for a motherboard, and about $100 for the memory. DDR2 and DDR3 are about the same price here, at the moment, with a lot of 2x2GB sets going for around $90 to $100. Then there's tax and shipping to add another $30-$40 or more to the total cost. You have VAT and we have sales tax!

I'm not arguing which system is better, as the i5 is superior, but only if you can afford it! You seem to be living under the illusion that people will buy them because they are more affordable than the i7 was, and are a much better deal for the money spent. Sure people would like to have them, but they wind up having to settle for lower cost systems. I live in the richest state in the US, and very few have the money to build an i5 system! You can say what you like, but I live here, you don't! We live with the problems of lack of money every day! Unemployment is nearing 15%. If it hadn't been for the Stimulus provisions to aid and extend unemployment benefits, we wouldn't have been able to make it at all! If you want to talk about how things are in England, fine! I'll listen, but don't be telling me about the economy where I live, or that "you won't stand for that argument", because you don't know what you are talking about! If you are looking for a revival with i5 like with the C2Ds in 07, you can forget it, at least in the US.

Completely new builds are way down this past year, in fact I'm one of the few that did a completely new build. Just about everyone passed on i7, and so far all there is, is talk about i5. No one's built one yet except Rob, and it wasn't even for himself! We've see a lot more upgrades than we have new builds. Just a few months ago I figured I would build about 60 new PCs for customers this year. Now I know that's not going to happen. I've recently had a couple of builds canceled, because of lack of money! I may wind up with 50 or 51 builds for the year, and that's only because of the recent shift in the economy.

Speeds have reached to point where you have to ask yourself, "How fast is fast"? It's not like the old days where upgrading to a new platform reduced encoding time by half. Half back then was 1.5 hours from 3 hours. Today, I process most DVDRB/CCE jobs in less than half an hour, with my personal best being 17:26 total time for "Alice, Sweet Alice"! Even if i5 was twice as fast, you are not talking about a huge amount of time difference here. You're also talking about gamers here. What do we have here on AD for high end gamers? 4 or 5 people? Everyone else is looking for productivity they can afford! The i5 platform has a better chance of success than the Core i7 did, but it's still way off the mark in terms of affordability. It is cheaper than i7, but as money gets tighter, it just doesn't matter. Had they brought out i5 instead of the I7, when they did, it would have made all the difference in the world, but as the buying power of the Dollar has shrunk, so has Intel's chances of success for i5! It may be better for the money, but when the money you have isn't equal to the cost, you will look elsewhere! I would have loved a Phenom II 940, but I'm willing to settle for about 95% of one with my 630, at 2/3 the cost! I don't give up very much, and gain a lot over what I had before. I'm happy and not the least bit annoyed that I couldn't afford to build an i5 system, as it wasn't on the radar from the start! I couldn't afford it then and I can't afford it now! I feel for the people that have to struggle to make ends meet these days. There are a hell of a lot of those people right here on AD that are all in the same boat as I am!

Most of us at AD have families, and don't live at home with Mom and Dad (not meant as a slur, but simply fact). Believe me when I say that Computers are way down on the list of important things in life. A place to live and the ability to keep the Gas, Electric and water running from one month to the next are what's important now! Food on the table, clothes, and things like that, to take care of your family's needs! These are the things that are becoming pressing issues for the people of the US! My best guess is that there will be a lot of upgrading, but not that many new builds in this coming year. I don't see i5 being a factor except for gamers that can afford it!

Russ

 

Often true of the Core 2s (though not always), but not true with i5s or i7s to my knowledge.
The E4300 I owned POSTed right away, even on the dodgy P5N-E SLI. The X2 4200+ did so first time on both the A8N-SLI SE and A8R-MVP and all my gigabytes have never needed flashes, though it's often been recommended for the CPU type to be listed correctly.
As for the rest of the post, I'm ignoring it, it's exactly the same as your last post. You keep saying $400 for CPU, board and RAM is too much when most AMD quads cost just as much.

This reminds me why I keep not posting in this thread. I like the X4 600 CPUs, but you can't just use them as yet another excuse for claiming the i5s are too expensive. Firstly it's not relevant, and secondly it's not true.

 

Sam,
Fair enough! Here's what it costs someone to buy a MB, CPU and memory to build an AMD Quad! $270



The total you gave before was for $390. Even if I use the 630 as an example, the difference is still over $100, that most people in this country do not have to spare at the moment! The AMD costs less. I would call a price difference of $120 for a 620 and $108 for the 630, both relevant and true! I didn't even cherry pick the components either. I could have made the price difference larger if I shopped around more. In fact you could buy the most expensive Quad AMD makes, and still spend less!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103692

That makes it very relevant and true!

My apologies for getting the motherboard wrong on my wish list. I clicked on the wrong 770 board!


That makes it another $5 cheaper!

Russ

 

Because an X4 630 is in the least bit comparable to an i5...
I would still consider the X4 600s a good deal when compared with a Q8200, you'll hear no objection from me there.
What I do object to though, however, is the blanket statement that the whole country if not the world can't afford CPU/Mobo/RAM combos that are only $400. It just isn't true. You'll see a lot of sales for the X4 600s because they're so cheap, no doubt about it, but the fact is, the i5s are good value too, and they will sell well because of it, or as well as any CPU can sell in the current economic climate. Yes, people are poorer, so fewer people buy new builds, but when they do, there will still be plenty of i5s for sale. A large number of my friends will be upgrading to i5s in the near future. Some of the proportion that don't already have i7s. Some of the others at least have Yorkfields like mine, which would still rival even the best of AMD's offerings. A world dominated by AMD sales would be a world where AMD's amazing low-cost CPUs extend into the competition zone of the i5s and i7s.

 

Thanks Sam, and russ. I think i'll now look closer for myself, and weigh the options. I may just give this i5 a chance for my mothers build. Depends on the price/performance ratio. Which I suppose I've already seen thanks to certain people If the i5 can keep her afloat for at least another year or two over the Propus/Phenom, it may just be worth it to her... and i'll have a comparison machine

 

Sam,
You still don't understand, do you? AMD doesn't have to compete with anything but the price! The Athlon II x4 620 and 630 have shown that they're quite good. Good enough for people to want to buy, when they can't afford something more expensive!

I don't mean that no one is going to buy Core i5, but I doubt that it will be in serious numbers for a good while yet. I talk to people all over the world, and when I talk to most people in the US, they are all hurting financially at the moment. In some places, worse than others! Consider too, that most of my Contacts are Professional people, making a far larger income than average folks. They are also more concerned with the way things are going, and no one is spending more than they have to at the moment! Traditionally, HealthCare is one of the last things to be affected by a bad economy, and usually one of the first things to recover when it's over. This Recession is different. HealthCare could always see the light at the end of the tunnel in the past, but this time there's no tunnel! This is the 4th or 5th recession I've seen in my lifetime, and this one has broken all the standards set by all of the previous recessions I've witnessed and lived through!

I'm glad to see things are better in the UK than they are here. At least it shows some sign of World Recovery. The US will recover, they just might be the last to do so!

Russ

 

thats the thing, there is no need to upgradwe, realistically for most gamers aswell. but yet we do, its a diseaase

 

LOL! Indeed. I have the disease I think. I have this certain feeling that I have to have the best or at least close to it The idea that one has state of the art devices feels really good...

Sure is a tease though when you can't afford it.

 

Shaff,
True, but one that requires lots of money!

Happy Holidays,
Russ

 

While I will agree that i5 is a fantastic CPU and a good value, I don't think they will sell too well for a while. I must agree with Russ that the economy is getting hit hard in the US. Jobs are disappearing, wages are shrinking, and companies are going out of business. And it's not just isolated cases in certain areas. It's happening EVERYWHERE. Combine that with the increasing cost of living and you'll understand that every penny counts. The Athlon II X4 represents a powerful spot in the market right now because it's fast and cheap. Whether or not i5 is a good deal makes no difference to whether or not it's affordable.

I must also agree with Russ on CPU speed Sam. You constantly make the point that a faster CPU is needed. You stress it so badly. But i5 really doesn't represent our next step forward in overall speed. No matter how fast it is, it's still just a beefed up Core 2 Quad. If Core 2 Quad and Phenom II are too slow, then why do they still sell? I have never found a situation where my CPU was a limiting factor in my enjoyment of a game or program. Russ hit it on the head with this:

Though, Russ, your reasoning applies to gaming as well and more than you might think. As easily as I could go get one right now, I have felt absolutely no squeeze to upgrade to an i5. My Phenom II is blazingly fast and near overkill for most of my games.

 

Omega: It's pretty simple really. Compared to say the X4 600 series, the i5 platform is around 40% more expensive, but typically 40% faster, if not more.
I don't often consider upgrade potential for new systems as quite frankly, as chipsets change and so on, even if the socket still exists, you're usually still after a new board for the CPU, and in the case of now upgrading from Core 2s to Core i5s/i7s or from original AM2 AMDs to the current AM3 crop, possibly RAM as well.
Russ: The same goes for any CPU that costs less money than another. People set different budget limits, the i7 platforms were out of reach of a large number of them. The AMD 600 series is not, but neither is the Core i5. Of course, in several examples, people will only be able to afford an X4 600 system and not the i5. However, those hit by the financial downturn may have cut their budget from what would have before bought an i7 to now what buys them an i5. A nose under $400 for CPU/board/RAM really isn't that much to ask for a performance PC system. Knowing just how powerful the Core i5 platform is will be enough to persuade a lot of people to nudge their budgets slightly higher. I know, because I've already seen it happen a couple of times.
Shaff: Depends what you already own. There are a few people out there with midrange or older dual cores or original Phenom quad cores who want to upgrade due to some of the CPU-demanding new games that come out.
I wouldn't call PC upgrades a disease, but a habit/obsession, sure. I justify it by the fact that I'm still probably spending less than a chain-smoker or binge-drinker, and have more than either lung cancer or a few thousand boozy photos on facebook to show for it.
Jeff: Appreciably I don't have the first-hand experience of the economic situation in the US, but it would have to be pretty dire to render sales of a $390 platform CPU system mediocre. I think it should really be considered from a more relative perspective. ALL CPUs will be selling badly by comparison to a healthy economy. As to how much of an exponential effect that has on PC components as they go up in price, I wouldn't like to speculate, I'm no economist, but quite frankly, I don't see it coming under the grouping of 'extreme purchases' until you reach at least more like $600. My X2, A8N and 2GB of DDR1 set me back £450 back in 2006, that wasn't exactly extreme - I could have spent £100 more on an A8N-SLI Premium and another £150 on getting 4GB of RAM instead of 2. That would have been extreme back then.
I'm going to have to ask you how much you paid for your CPU, RAM and board. I'm willing to bet it was at least $350 or so. I forsee that (I can't believe I'm having to go into this much detail just to make it stop it seeming like economic downturn means people only buy AMD CPUs) there is a price tipping point where people think about a potential PC build, and even after cutting their budget due to the economy, consider anything above this tipping point as unnecessary. As far as I'm concerned the i5 750 is the perfect CPU to sit as close to that tipping point without crossing it. It's the cheapest CPU in its class, and offers the same performance per dollar as low-end chips, which is rare in the high-performance sector.
Then consider prebuilt PCs, they outnumber custom-built PCs by goodness knows how many times. A CPU/board/RAM platform for less than $400 means you can slap in the standard cheap PSU and case, basic HDD and graphics card for your essential 'performance workstation', it would probably work out at a $600-$700 PC in many cases. We would never buy one, but sadly, they sell like hotcakes compared to the sort of stuff we build.
Yeah, the sales of i5 aren't going to be great, but no CPU is going to have sales anything beyond 'not great' in this sort of era. I don't see any reason for the i5 to do badly by comparison.
As far as the whole 'CPUs are fast enough' argument goes, putting together an X4 940 with a 790GX board that isn't cheap and tacky runs almost $350. $40 for the gap between an X4 and an i5?
Core 2s are even worse, a Q9400 system with an EP43-DS3L and 4GB of RAM runs you $370, and an EP43-DS3L versus a P55-UD3L isn't an exact comparison.

Close performance or not, you know that's not true.

Obviously, as far as games are concerned, I have much more stringent standards, as I prefer to run games without any CPU-related spikes, which become less prevalent the higher my Q9550 is clocked, but since I can't push it that far with both PCIe slots full, I'm really down to relying on a faster CPU to get smooth performance in games. There are quite a few titles out there which won't keep a fluid 60 without an i5, and an overclocked one at that. Average frame rates don't say enough.
See this for example:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/08/intel-core-i5-and-i7-lynnfield-cpu-review/7
A 25fps minimum even with the Q9650 overclocked. 22 with it stock. The i5 750 runs 27 even stock, and a full 32 when overclocked. That's a noticeable difference, even in Crysis. Were it 40 to 50 I would have less to say about it. And no saying Crysis is an isolated example either, it isn't.

I guess what it really comes down to is that people don't seem to care about getting as much, or more extra performance for extra cost these days. A couple of years ago, just to get 20% extra performance for 20% extra cost would be something to scream about. Now it's even better than the ratio, nobody seems to care - and wait for it "CPUs are fast enough already" - fine proponents for technological advance we are....

 

but if th eUS is hit so badly, and peopel are so financially stretched, why woudl they bother to upgrade at all. wouldnt they rather be trying to pay for mortages/bills instead. anyone who will be upgradig though, probably have disposable income.

 

Think about the country as a whole. A large number of them aren't even going to care about the fact they've got an old P4 or Athlon XP that does the job. A significant number won't even have PCs. You will only be looking at the more affluent part of the population who will want to upgrade their PC to anything but the budget basic $250 off-the-shelf unit anyway. That already skews the perspective of what's affordable and what isn't.

 

Hi everyone,

i have been looking for a Cpu upgrade from Athalon X2 5000+ would a AMD Athlon II X4 620 be a worth while upgrade for gaming and doing Transcoding. Ans what proformce boost will i be looking at.

 

navskin,
First it has to be an AM2+ motherboard, that's capable of running a 95w CPU. I have the 630, and I feel it's worth the extra $12. As far as the performance goes, it's more than twice as fast as the 7750 it replaced, which is considerably faster than your x2 5000+. I have mine overclocked 700MHz at 3.510GHz, and I'm real pleased with the results!

Happy Holidays,
Russ

 

From what I can see, the M2N-SLI Deluxe will only take original Phenom CPUs, which means you will have to buy a new board to use an Athlon II with it.

 

that was ny next question that i was going to ask, bu thanks for clearing that up for me sam. As it gose i think that i am in the market for a new motherbord can you please recermend one that will go nicely with this cpu. I can buy new ram if needed. thanks for the help.