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Any difference between PhII 955 and higher in OC potential?

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birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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I'm thinking of upgrading my 940 (which just gets too hot too fast for a significant OC) with a 955 with the hope of squeezing out a bit of extra performance in SC2. I already have a guy willing to pay a good price for the 940. My question: Is there any sense in getting a 965 or a 975? Do the more expensive chips actually OC any better than the 955?
 
(sic)Klown12

(sic)Klown12

Senior member
Nov 27, 2010
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As long as the 955 is a C3 stepping, then it will have the same general limit as 965 or 975. That seems to be around 4Ghz.
 
Bigun08

Bigun08

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Nov 14, 2008
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also check which 955 you are looking at.. there is a 125w and a 140w.. stick with the 125w less heat and power consumption
 
Joseph F

Joseph F

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Jul 12, 2010
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Also, there's a 95W version of the 955 floating around there somewhere but it's ungodly expensive and has a locked multiplier.
 
(sic)Klown12

(sic)Klown12

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Bigun08 said:
also check which 955 you are looking at.. there is a 125w and a 140w.. stick with the 125w less heat and power consumption
Click to expand...

The 140w is the C2 stepping, while the 125w is the C3. The C2 chips have been phased out, so as long as he buys new he shouldn't have any worries.
 
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apoppin

apoppin

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Mar 9, 2000
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i'd seriously hold off a week or so before ordering. At any rate, a 4.0 GHz overclock (which is not guaranteed) will probably not give you a lot of FPS over 3.4GHz with a HD 6870.

What resolution do you game at?
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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apoppin said:
i'd seriously hold off a week or so before ordering. At any rate, a 4.0 GHz overclock (which is not guaranteed) will probably not give you a lot of FPS over 3.4GHz with a HD 6870.

What resolution do you game at?
Click to expand...

1920x1080. Since FPS scales pretty much linearly with CPU speed in SC2, I'd be hoping for a 10-15% improvement.

I still haven't ordered anything... What happens in a week? It'd be nice if AMD would release a die-shrunk Phenom II compatible with my old hardware ;)
 
V

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
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^

Yea don;t hold your breath on that. :)

I think the GM/C3 one is either the last last spin or MAYBE 2nd to last. I think they will be to busy with Llano and BD to worry to much about older chips since the old ones (am3) will work in new AM3+ boards so less reason to spend any engineer time on it.
 
apoppin

apoppin

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birthdaymonkey said:
1920x1080. Since FPS scales pretty much linearly with CPU speed in SC2, I'd be hoping for a 10-15% improvement.

I still haven't ordered anything... What happens in a week? It'd be nice if AMD would release a die-shrunk Phenom II compatible with my old hardware ;)
Click to expand...
That is a reasonable expectation then for SC2. A couple of frames at the minimum can do wonders for a borderline game.

May happens in a week and my review comparing Ph II vs Core i7 will be out shortly after using GTX 590 vs HD 6990 at resolutions of 1920x1200 to 5760x1080.
:whiste:

Yours would be a nice upgrade actually if the cost is low. i am doing the same thing this week for my evaluation; i have an older stepping (140W C2) Ph II 955-X4 that barely does 3.9GHz while cooking under my ThermalRight Ultra-extreme cooler. i am going to replace it with a lower-wattage, later stepping, higher stock-clocked Phenom II in hopes of matching or exceeding my i7-920's overclock over 4 GHz.
():)
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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apoppin said:
That is a reasonable expectation then for SC2. A couple of frames at the minimum can do wonders for a borderline game.

May happens in a week and my review comparing Ph II vs Core i7 will be out shortly after using GTX 590 vs HD 6990 at resolutions of 1920x1200 to 5760x1080.
:whiste:

Yours would be a nice upgrade actually if the cost is low. i am doing the same thing this week for my evaluation; i have an older stepping (140W C2) Ph II 955-X4 that barely does 3.9GHz while cooking under my ThermalRight Ultra-extreme cooler. i am going to replace it with a lower-wattage, later stepping, higher stock-clocked Phenom II in hopes of matching or exceeding my i7-920's overclock over 4 GHz.
():)
Click to expand...

It's a for-profit upgrade sorta. I still have $150 left of a Newegg promotional gift certificate and a buyer for my 940 at $80. So I get a faster CPU and convert ~60% of my gift card to cash. :)
 
D

DrJohnFever

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Jan 9, 2011
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I don't see how you would need this... My Athlon x4 635 at stock speeds and 1920x1080 easily maxes SC2. If you can't max SC2, something is wrong.
 
S

SickBeast

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Jul 21, 2000
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There are times when Starcraft 2 can slow down *any* CPU given the right circumstances. If you're having a massive battle with hundreds of units on the screen, yeah, it will bog you down.

OP, I think it's silly for you to upgrade to a newer stepping. My C3 Phenom II only hits 3.75ghz. If you do anything it should be to go with an X6 Thuban, or as others have said, simply upgrade your entire platform.

With Bulldozer and Llano right around the corner, I think you should sit tight for a bit.
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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DrJohnFever said:
I don't see how you would need this... My Athlon x4 635 at stock speeds and 1920x1080 easily maxes SC2. If you can't max SC2, something is wrong.
Click to expand...

Really? I find it chugs occasionally even on my 4GHz i5 system. It never gets unplayable on my 940 system, but it can't come close to a smooth, constant 60 FPS. Maybe I should reinstall Windows though... the computer has been through a video card upgrade (NV -> ATI) without a fresh install.
 
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birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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SickBeast said:
There are times when Starcraft 2 can slow down *any* CPU given the right circumstances. If you're having a massive battle with hundreds of units on the screen, yeah, it will bog you down.

OP, I think it's silly for you to upgrade to a newer stepping. My C3 Phenom II only hits 3.75ghz. If you do anything it should be to go with an X6 Thuban, or as others have said, simply upgrade your entire platform.

With Bulldozer and Llano right around the corner, I think you should sit tight for a bit.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've considered this too, of course. But for a net cost of $50 in gift certificate, I can go from 3.4 -> 3.8-4.0, which is a pretty respectable 10-15% gain in clock speed with better thermals. If I upgrade mobo+CPU+RAM, then I'm probably looking at a couple hundred after I've managed to sell my old hardware. Plus, I like having an AMD and an Intel system... the only sensible upgrade for me is to Sandy Bridge right now (no use for Thuban's six cores), so that would get rid of my dual platform setup.

Maybe you're right though and I should just sit tight for a while. It would be nice if we could see some BD numbers one of these days so I'd know if AMD is close to catching up on IPC (since parallel muscle doesn't mean anything in the one game I play). It's a tough call at this point...
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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Bah, the more I think about it the more it doesn't make sense to upgrade to a 955. My other option to upgrade on the cheap might be to go to an i3 2100 + inexpensive motherboard. The primary purpose of this computer is as an HTPC after all... it only games when my friends are over for LAN party night (as the gracious host, I always let someone else use my faster computer, and I use the slow one).

I seem to recall seeing some benchmarks with the 2100 beating quite handily older platforms in SC2...
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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OK, you guys convinced me that upgrading to a faster Phenom II would have been a waste of time and money. As they say in AA, "Half measures avail us nothing"...

Ordered a 2500k + mobo this afternoon. I figure after I sell my old hardware and use my newegg gift cert, my cash outlay will only be ~$100.
 
M

marsspirit123

Member
May 31, 2009
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Yeah sc2 is cpu limited.However if you go from 3.5 to 4gzh that is only 15% OC . So if you were getting 20FPS ,15% would bring it to 23FPS .Still not playable. Look at this http://www.techspot.com/review/353-intel-sandy-bridge-corei5-2500k-corei7-2600k/page13.html
The only real upgrade is the intel 2500k . It brings 45% better performance at stock speed , so much better if you OC .

birthdaymonkey said:
I'm thinking of upgrading my 940 (which just gets too hot too fast for a significant OC) with a 955 with the hope of squeezing out a bit of extra performance in SC2. I already have a guy willing to pay a good price for the 940. My question: Is there any sense in getting a 965 or a 975? Do the more expensive chips actually OC any better than the 955?
Click to expand...
 
birthdaymonkey

birthdaymonkey

Golden Member
Oct 4, 2010
1,176
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R

RobertPters77

Senior member
Feb 11, 2011
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