AMD launches six new Athlon II CPUs

[Idontcare]

Thread needs more underlined text! And more cowbell, stat!

 

[DrMrLordX]

SuperPi loves tight timings, which is what you ran with 6-7-5-15-1T. FatalOne probably had C7 or slower it seems.

No clue what RAM timings he had (or what NB speeds he had), but SuperPi also loves cache more than it loves system memory, especially when the working set is small (1M). My 1M times were never better than 20s, even on "suicide" runs in the 3.85 ghz range, which was clearly inferior to the "16s club" times a lot of the XS posters w/ Phenom IIs were/are getting. No matter how much I worked on my NB speeds and system memory speeds/timings, getting SuperPi 1M lower than 20s just wasn't happening. The lack of L3 cache really hurt there.

When I increased the size of the working set (32M), cache stopped mattering as much and system memory started mattering more. It's easier to get low system memory latency on K10 when you have no L3.

Would gaming/enconding stand to gain anything on tighter timings on the AM3 platform as well? I'm stuck at 9-9-9-32-1t wondering if a few new sticks of DDR3 would do any good.

Survey says: probably. Running tighter timings is a bit like increasing your NB speed: it should reduce latency and increase bandwidth. Now, the question is: how much good would it do? That much we can not answer, since K10 memory controllers are a finicky lot. Corsair Dominators/Dominator GTs would probably be an upgrade, but who wants to spend that kind of money on memory? If I had to go out there and point to some el-cheapo DDR3 and say "yeah, you can hit CAS6 with that", I would be blowing smoke since I can't make any guarantees. $199 DDR3-2200 got me CAS6 at DDR3-1600, sort of, but thanks to the IMC on my 635, it wasn't any better than that, and multiplier hell conspired to limit my top overclocks to DDR3-1520 anyway. That chip clearly needed more NB multipliers.

haha you plus a 25 dollar chip?? Experiment time. C2 isn't so bad, that's a steal NIB. Interested to see if you get that third and fourth core myself, I've yet to have any luck unlocking an athy/phenom .

The Sempron 140s are actually single-core chips that are "failed" Athlon II x2s. They are the chips with 1MB L2/core that have no third or fourth core. So, if it unlocks, it'll be a dual-core, nothing more, nothing less. But these things usually retail for $35 so it was a steal.

This chip will probably not live long. All it needs to do is last long enough for a BIOS update to enable Thuban support.

Thread needs more underlined text! And more cowbell, stat!

Ask, and ye shall receive.

 

[richierich1212]

Would gaming/enconding stand to gain anything on tighter timings on the AM3 platform as well? I'm stuck at 9-9-9-32-1t wondering if a few new sticks of DDR3 would do any good.

At what memory speed?

 

[faxon]

all i know is i could go to fry's practically any day of the week and get the following:

quad core AMD + board $90
4 GB of ram $90
halfway decent power supply $30
more harddrive space than anyone not ripping movies will ever need $50
dvd burner $25

if you aren't gaming or recoding that's plenty of system right there.

no you cant. halfway decent PSUs start at $40 for an antec basiq 430w (80+, active PFC), and the quad + board combos usually run $120 starting. RAM sure, if you're getting DDR2. DDR3 is starting $109 right now, and those $25 DVD burners are usually out of stock, though they're getting more of them per order now. those $50 HDDs though are usually pretty good deals if you're just looking for a cheap drive, but lot's of em are refurbs though so watch what you're getting

 

[mfenn]

The 640 is not available for purchase from the Egg. I can't believe that AMD is paper launching 100Mhz speed bumps.

 

[veri745]

The 640 is not available for purchase from the Egg. I can't believe that AMD is paper launching 100Mhz speed bumps.

It's available if you search via google shopping. I've never heard of the website before, but it's at
http://www.provantage.com/amd-adx640...x~7AAMD2F0.htm

 

[BD231]

At what memory speed?

Currently at 1600. I also have one of those lame boards that won't do much past 250nb. Maybe it's the fact that I don't go any higher than 1.3v on the NB(?), haven't tried a higher voltage.

The Sempron 140s are actually single-core chips that are "failed" Athlon II x2s. They are the chips with 1MB L2/core that have no third or fourth core. So, if it unlocks, it'll be a dual-core, nothing more, nothing less. But these things usually retail for $35 so it was a steal. This chip will probably not live long. All it needs to do is last long enough for a BIOS update to enable Thuban support.

Thought the x2's were mostly failed x4's?

 

[Markfw]

It's available if you search via google shopping. I've never heard of the website before, but it's at
http://www.provantage.com/amd-adx640...x~7AAMD2F0.htm

Thats special order....

 

[Phil1977]

Seriously! How cheap is this stuff getting. Ram now costs more than 3/4 of all the AMD processors right now for a system build. Or eat some ramen for a week instead of mcdonalds value meals and you got yourself a X6.

Awesome post! And sooo true.

Ram prices have exploded. A year ago or so 2x2 GB DDR2 went for peanuts. Not the CPUs are cheaper than you mobo + RAM.

Also the Sempron 140 is THE value chip. Even here in Australia it sells for A$39! It is almost guaranteed to unlock in a dual core and with a bit of overclocking you have a X2 250 - X2 260.

 

[jvroig]

Thought the x2's were mostly failed x4's?

The Phenom II X2's are binned Phenom II X4's.

The Athlon II X2 is a completely different chip (a pure dual core) from the Athlon II X4 (Propus die, which only gets binned down to an Athlon II X3).

That is as far as I remember AMD's Athlon II lines. I don't know their reasoning for their strategy of diverging from the Phenom II-style binning for their Athlon II, but it is probably to get a better profit margin on the high-volume Athlon II X2 sales - make a purely dual core, sell them as such (instead of a "disabled" X4), and bin the rest as Semprons instead of designing yet another die since the Athlon II X2 die is already small enough anyway. It definitely beats binning an Athlon II X4 to X2 and Sempron when their yields are so good as it is now that they will keep on sacrificing good X4 die just to accommodate the high volume X2/Sempron market.

Also the Sempron 140 is THE value chip. Even here in Australia it sells for A$39! It is almost guaranteed to unlock in a dual core and with a bit of overclocking you have a X2 250 - X2 260.

And it walks all over the Celeron in its price range (Celeron 430; locally, the Celeron 430 is even $5 more expensive, but I realize pricing may differ in certain areas.)

 

[V1V1D]

Microcenter has a special right now for 3 different AMD setups. The one that really looks good is the X4 640 + A760G for $99. Or you can grab the X2 555 Black edition with same board for $99 as well. I think I finally found my new HTPC setup I've been looking for.
http://www.microcenter.com/specials/...AMDbundle.html

 

[Phil1977]

That is indeed a awesome bundle!