Any AMD X3 users here?

[perdomot]

Now that the X3s have been out a bit, just wondered if anyone built a rig with one and what their impressions have been. Please add mobo info too. Thanks.

 

[svodka]

*tumble weed*

 

[taltamir]

they look really interesting... until you see the price tag and decide to buy a wolfdale instead.
145$ for a 2.1ghz X3...
195$ for a 2.3ghz X3? (more then the E8400 3ghz Core 2 Duo).

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: taltamir
they look really interesting... until you see the price tag and decide to buy a wolfdale instead.

:thumbsup:

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: taltamir
they look really interesting... until you see the price tag and decide to buy a wolfdale instead.
145$ for a 2.1ghz X3...
195$ for a 2.3ghz X3? (more then the E8400 3ghz Core 2 Duo).

The 2.3GHz X3 goes for $30 less than that, $195 will get you the 2.4GHz X3...or the 2.2GHz X4...or the Q6600...

Dualcore isn't the only viable solution just because that's what you decided to go with.

 

[taltamir]

Dualcore isn't the only viable solution just because that's what you decided to go with.

Yet every solution you suggested is also vastly superior to the X3...

$195 will get you the 2.4GHz X3...or the 2.2GHz X4...or the Q6600...

It will also get you the E8400...

And of those 4, the x3 is by far the worst purchase.

what you seem to fail to understand, is that an E8400 will beat the more expensive 2.4ghz x3 in everything... INCLUDING video editing and highly threaded tasks.
The only 100% perfect scaling task I know of is distributed computing... where that price gets you 2x3ghz wolfdale cores for 6ghz wolf. Or 3x2.4 phenom cores for 7.2ghz... But it makes much more sense to get a 2.2 X4 instead for 8.8ghz or a Q6600 if you want folding.
I know video encoding is singificantly faster on a wolfdale then on a phenom (even if you don't consider SSE4), and there is a good chance that the phenom x3 will fold better then the E8400, but not better then the Q6600 / 2.2ghz X4.
The 780G IGP is also very attractive complement to it if you are building a folding machine. But again, that means choosing an X4.

Any machine that does actual tasks and is not part of a folding farm, would be better served with a Q6600 or an E8400 instead of the overpriced x3 phenom.

for games at least:
Wolfdale = 10~15% faster than C2D @ same clock speed
Wolfdale = 16~26% faster than Phenom @ same clock speed
C2D = 9~15% faster than Phenom @ same clock speed

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/69737/

Based on that data the 6ghz wolf is equivalent to 6.96ghz to 7.56ghz of phenom, compared to 7.2 of the real phenom... And again, this only occurs in distributed computing, which is the only thing I know of with perfect scaling...

Don't forget power consumption and OC capacity...


The target audience of the X3 is ignorant people who will say "hyuk, 3 is faster then 2" and are too cheap to buy a 4 core machine...

That, or people looking for an upgrade on an existing AM2 mobo, don't want to pay more for an even SLOWER per core X4 because they game, but still want to benefit from phenom's new capabilities.

 

[graysky]

Too bad no one in here replied that did had one... I would REALLY like to see how they perform in the x264 benchmark HD

 

[Extelleron]

I own a Phenom X4 (bought it because it was cheap & I like AMD) but I would never buy the Phenom X3's.... they just suck price-performance wise.

The Phenom X3 8450 is the only one reasonably priced and it can be beaten by a high-end X2 in multi-threaded and definitely single-threaded performance. And it doesn't stand a chance against the cheaper E7200, especially if you overclock.

The X3 8650 and 8750 are way too close to the Q6600/Phenom X4's and also they are right in with E8200/E8400 pricing.

The idea of a 3-core CPU isn't bad... but the pricing and clocks are. AMD needs something like the X3 8950 (2.6GHz) for $150, and the low-end of the lineup should be the X3 8650 for $110~ or so.

 

[perdomot]

Where to start??? I already know that C2D is faster than AMD right now. My current rig is an E4400 OC'd to 3Ghz. This would be for a secondary rig I want to play with and since I have a buddy who works at Tigerdirect, I can get a nice discount off the $145 price tag. I know there is a good 15-25% improvement in the Phenom vs the old X2 tech on a per core basis and I just sold my old Socket 939 X2 3800+ rig which was an excellent performer so I'm thinking a good X3 or even X4 rig might be fun to play with as a backup rig.

Graysky: This page has some info on 264 encoding:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...om-athlon,1918-30.html

Extelleron: How does your X4 system perform in your view? On a day-to-day basis I mean.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: perdomot
Where to start??? I already know that C2D is faster than AMD right now. My current rig is an E4400 OC'd to 3Ghz. This would be for a secondary rig I want to play with and since I have a buddy who works at Tigerdirect, I can get a nice discount off the $145 price tag. I know there is a good 15-25% improvement in the Phenom vs the old X2 tech on a per core basis and I just sold my old Socket 939 X2 3800+ rig which was an excellent performer so I'm thinking a good X3 or even X4 rig might be fun to play with as a backup rig.

Graysky: This page has some info on 264 encoding:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...om-athlon,1918-30.html

Extelleron: How does your X4 system perform in your view? On a day-to-day basis I mean.

All I do is game, so I don't have a problem with it. And I got this 9500 for $120, so I can't complain.

Overclocking is not very exciting, as it will only do 2.5GHz stable so far (2.6GHz appears reachable but not in the middle of the summer).

One of the biggest problems with Phenom right now is just the motherboards.... the motherboards are just not as stable/full-featured as the A64 X2 / C2D motherboards. For example my board (and a lot of other boards that I've heard of) do not work well/at all with DDR2-1066. Also my board won't allow you to change the NB multiplier which can restrict overclocking. My board also has no settings for Ganged/Unganged configurations (they deal with the memory controller. Ganged is 1x128-bit, Unganged is 2x64-bit. Unganged should be a bit better in multithreaded apps). The Asus M3A is a decent board but it won't even let you change voltage (you can change VID, but that is only unlocked on 9600 / 9850 BE).

The high-end mobos are good, but you can't get the great <$100 selection you can with LGA 775. There's no $60 IP35-e in the Phenom world.

You might want to look at the used market for a quad-core Phenom. I said earlier I got this 9500 for $120 shipped and that was two months ago. You might be able to get a quad-core 9500 for less than that X3 8450. The only thing is it has the TLB bug, but you can disable it and it is not a problem unless you run virtualization software.

All in all if I could go back, I think I would have waited a bit and gotten an E7200. I like AMD but the enthusiast in me wants that 4GHz OC.

 

[nyker96]

At their price I go for a E7200 and OC it to 4Ghz, doubt even if yo OC that X3 can catch a E7xxx at 4Ghz. Besides E7xxx at 4 will be cooler and more energy efficient to run.

 

[SlowSpyder]

The X3's would probably be a lot more enticing if they weren't priced so close to equivalent clock speed X4's. Looking at Newegg a X3 @ 2.4GHz is $195. A Phenom X4 @ 2.4GHz is $215. I don't see why anyone looking to get a Pheonom wouldn't spend the extra $20 and get a 4th core. The Phenom 8750 (2.4GHz) at $140ish would probably be a bit more exciting.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: graysky
Too bad no one in here replied that did had one... I would REALLY like to see how they perform in the x264 benchmark HD

I assume I can disable a core somehow (maybe device manager?) and run the benchmark for you. I think I already replied with my chip at 2.5 and 2.8GHz if I remember right, so we could see how the X3 stacks up. Anyone know of a safe way to disable a core, does it matter which core I disable? I would htink I could just do it through device manager.

 

[perdomot]

I was thinking of getting this mobo: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ductName=GA-MA78GM-S2H

It supports X3 and X4 Phenoms with the F3 bios and its got pretty much everything I'd need in terms of connections. Not to focused on OCing since Phenoms kinda suck at that but even at default settings with a 780G mobo, it looks promising. I'll have to check the used items forum to see who is selling what.

 

[daveybrat]

An X3 for $100 would be interesting...but at the current price points no reason to buy.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: nyker96
At their price I go for a E7200 and OC it to 4Ghz, doubt even if yo OC that X3 can catch a E7xxx at 4Ghz. Besides E7xxx at 4 will be cooler and more energy efficient to run.

E7200 at 4ghz is anything but cool. I run it at 3,9 ghz and is heating up my room when I'm gaming.
Of course, at stock it's much cooler then the X3 and with a slight OC too probably, but when you're really pumping voltage in it for 3,8-4 ghz the energy efficiency is totally lost.

 

[Bateluer]

The X3s exist so that AMD can attempt to sell X4 Phenoms that failed validation for 1 core. It allows them to recoup some of the losses on chips that that'd otherwise throw away. They are priced too close to the Phenom X4s though.

 

[Gikaseixas]

i would not get an X3 for $195, like someone said i would instead spend the extra $20 and get a X4 9750

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: perdomot
just wondered if anyone built a rig with one and what their impressions have been. Please add mobo info too. Thanks.

apparently none of these people have built one yet. the AMD bashing sure gets old when it has nothing to do with what the person was looking for.

 

[perdomot]

Well, we at least got an X4 response so that's something. Wonder if there are more people who do have Phenom systems but don't want to post about it because they don't want to get teased about their "lower performing system."

 

[GFORCE100]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
The X3s exist so that AMD can attempt to sell X4 Phenoms that failed validation for 1 core. It allows them to recoup some of the losses on chips that that'd otherwise throw away. They are priced too close to the Phenom X4s though.

Right. More specifically all the B2 stepping Phenoms that had 1x core or 1x L2 cache of one core fail during QA testing. All B2 triple core Phenoms are being passed onto OEM's who sell to Mr Joe six pack. The retail channel is being fed B3 stepping variants but in small numbers as AMD wants to concentrate on the quad core higher priced models, especially the newly released Opterons.

The 3/4 core Phenoms (not Opterons) are priced very closely however which proves just how little margin AMD has to make/break any potential for profits. This signals that production costs are high. The world only knows how many X3's are shipping (OEM/Retail), but what hasn't been said or won't be said (to protect share price as much as possible) is how many of the produced Phenoms in total are so bad they can't even be sold as X3's. I bet you for one this number is quite substantial.

286mm2 production on a C+ at best grade 65nm manufacturing process does not come cheap. Even Intel's 65nm manufacturing process that's a B+ in yield quality would have a fair number of chips failing with a monolithic design die size of 286mm2. Above a certain die size the yield drops significantly just like BER increases in network transmissions beyond X meters regardless of type of cable or strength/modulation of wireless signal.

The sooner AMD hops onto 45nm and gets it beyond a C+ grade then the fun will once return to AMD. They need to be pumping out 3.2GHz chips now with a max 130W TDP or 95W at best, not going to 140W TDP because they had to increase Vcore to release the upcoming BE at 2.8GHz.

I don't know how you guys contemplate it all however I for one see visible signs that AMD is a company in desperation trying in any way it can to make do with what's on the table, quite frankly a table with somewhat little on it.

Someone somewhere on the Internet today/yesterday (can't remember exactly) wrote why are the new Opterons priced so high if they're just X4 Phenoms. Regardless of why AMD can only now hope to sell as many of these Opterons at such prices as is possible. These will deliver the bread and butter to AMD. Will enterprised oblige though? I doubt they'll ignore power usage given how important this has come around the world these days due to raging prices. Whatever AMD would do, they can never match the power usage of an Intel 45nm quad core Xeons with their 65nm Opteron.