Athlon 64 x2 6000+ vs Phenom II 555 BE

[mrcaffeinex]

I have a friend who is currently running a socket AM2 rig. He's got an Athlon 64 x2 6000+ installed and being cooled by a ThermalTake DuOrb cooler. On idle the system is running in the upper 40s C and while gaming seems to peak in the 64-65C range. We ran a Prime95 torture test and after about 5 minutes the system shut down due to overheating. He is currently interested in building a new gaming rig based on a socket AM3 platform, but will likely buy one piece at a time. I have already checked the specs for his motherboard and there is a BIOS update which will allow it to support the Phenom II 555 BE. I made the suggestion to him that buying the CPU would give him a reasonable entry-level socket AM3 starting point, with the added bonus of possible core-unlocking (all for under $100) allowing him better performance and significantly lower heat generation in the meantime, while he gathers the other components to build his new system.

He is running an nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2 in his current rig and the video card runs well into the 70s C under load, occasionally shutting the system down due to overheating. I was thinking that the reduction in heat being generated by the processor may even bring the overall system temperature inside the case down to the point where the 9800 GX2 might become a bit more stable. Am I on-point with these suggestions or can someone else recommend a better sub-$100 processor to get him started on the upgrade path?

-MrCaffeineX

 

[Firsttime]

What resolution does he game at? He may be pretty much be GPU bottlenecked as it is.

The X3 445 is another good option, it has the chance to unlock to quad with L3 but doesn't have it starting out. But you are for sure getting 3 working cores @3.1ghz, for $85 it's a decent deal.

 

[magomago]

Listen you definitely have this backwards.
If your system is shutting down due to prime95, you clearly have your setup wrong. You have either no or extremely poor flow in your case, or the heat sink isn't properly seated, or the fan on the heatsink is not setup correctly, or you applied thermal paste (if any) incorrectly.
An X2 6000+ is not THAT hot of a processor; I should know, I have one.

Again, you have far greater problems than needing to upgrade your CPU or GPU.

 

[LoneNinja]

I would grab an Athlon II X3/X4 before that Phenom II X2. Most new games will take the extra cores over the L3 cache, and even older nonthreaded games will run almost as well on the Athlon II.

 

[Arkaign]

I would grab an Athlon II X3/X4 before that Phenom II X2. Most new games will take the extra cores over the L3 cache, and even older nonthreaded games will run almost as well on the Athlon II.

To take it a step further, any X4, PhII preferred. While some X2/X3 models can be unlocked, the success is far from guaranteed, and we've reached the point where Quads are pretty much the standard for gaming moving forward (eg; Mafia2, Metro, BFBC2, etc recommend/benefit from quads), as well as general multitasking/encoding. It's not like it was in 2006 when a Quad was a huge expense.

Back to the situation at hand, sounds like a bios reset is in order along with a good reseating of the cpu, proper reapplication of the thermal compound and a very careful installation of the cooler/fan.

70c sounds hot, but that's actually just fine for a 9800GX2.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

A Phenom II X3 720 might be a good option, or just pony up for a Phenom II X4. What does the rest of the system of his look like? He might just be able to stick a Phenom II 940 in there and get good performance for a while, although he won't have the option to move to AM3 since 940s don't have a DDR3 controller.

 

[mrcaffeinex]

Thank you for the replies.

I'm having him bring it over tomorrow so that I can take it apart and look it over. I'll try the BIOS update and reseating the CPU cooler with some fresh thermal paste while I'm at it. Can anyone recommend something better than Arctic Silver 5 btw? It was all the rage back when I built my own Athlon 64 x2 system, but something better has probably come along by now.

I will also check the CPU compatibility list on the BIOS update again. If it supports the Phenom II 555 it may well support the 945, which if I recall correctly is the AM3 version of the 940. Price is ~$140 online right now. Talking him into the extra $40 probably won't take much effort.

I hadn't been doing my homework since I built my Phenom II 955 BE rig and wasn't paying attention to how far the prices have dropped. Even the 955 is available online for about half of what I paid for it when it came out...

 

[LoneNinja]

Phenom II prices fell sharply last September when Intel released the Core I5 750, 955 has been about $160 since than. Nothing like the $280 or whatever it launched at. lol

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you're going to pay $160 for a 955BE, you may as well pony up $200 for the X6-1055T.

Of course, by that point, you're spending twice what you'd spend on an x4 630.

 

[Arkaign]

If you're going to pay $160 for a 955BE, you may as well pony up $200 for the X6-1055T.

Of course, by that point, you're spending twice what you'd spend on an x4 630.

For that reason I like the 945 for $130 boxed. It's not unlocked, but not hard to OC to ~3.6ghz or so on any respectable cheap mobo. Not as easy as the instant OC of the BEs, but it's a good value for a few extra minutes of work.

Agree that $160 to $200 isn't a lot of $ for the two extra cores for sure though.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Da, the 945 is fairly attractive, and one of those running at 3.6 ghz will probably beat an L3-less quad pushed to its limits, though in all honestly, I have yet to try my hand at a C3 Athlon II.

The extra bonus of going up to a Thuban is that you get an E0-stepping chip, which is going to be easier to overclock and/or cool than a C2 or C3 chip.

 

[ShawnD1]

We ran a Prime95 torture test and after about 5 minutes the system shut down due to overheating.

lol. My friend's Athlon 6400 does this within 1 minute when doing the small FFT test. He still refuses to open the case and clean shit out; he smokes next to it and he lives with 2 cats.

I think your friend should get a Phenom II X4 because the X4 and X6 come with excellent stock coolers. I have an Athlon X4 and the stock cooler is a piece of shit; it can only overclock by about 15% because of heat limitations. Right now I'm posting from a Phenom X6 which came with a really good stock cooler, and it overclocks by 30% without reaching any thermal limits.

X4 stock cooler looks like this

Cheapest Phenom II X4 on newegg is the 945 for $140.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Thank you for the replies.

I'm having him bring it over tomorrow so that I can take it apart and look it over. I'll try the BIOS update and reseating the CPU cooler with some fresh thermal paste while I'm at it. Can anyone recommend something better than Arctic Silver 5 btw? It was all the rage back when I built my own Athlon 64 x2 system, but something better has probably come along by now.

I will also check the CPU compatibility list on the BIOS update again. If it supports the Phenom II 555 it may well support the 945, which if I recall correctly is the AM3 version of the 940. Price is ~$140 online right now. Talking him into the extra $40 probably won't take much effort.

I hadn't been doing my homework since I built my Phenom II 955 BE rig and wasn't paying attention to how far the prices have dropped. Even the 955 is available online for about half of what I paid for it when it came out...

OCZ Freeze is a touch less viscous than AS5, spreads better and may gain you a 1c or two.

+1 for the 945 --- not sure if the 95w C3 comes with the fancy heat-pipe cooler




--

 

[mrcaffeinex]

I have several of those AMD heatsinks with the copper heat pipes floating around. My 940 and 955 came with them, plus both of my old 4800+ processors. For the few dollars extra it probably costs them with mass production factored in, I'm surprised they didn't just ship those on all their CPUs.

I would think just from looking at it that the DuOrb should be overkill to cool any processor at standard clock speeds. Here's a pic:

Is it more efficient to have the heat spreader fins located directly on the block and with copper heat pipes in addition, instead of having everything raised away from the block?

 

[ShawnD1]

It's usually better to have the heatpipes raised away from the board. When everything is laying flat on the board, that completely cripples air flow. The fan blows against the board, and then what happens? Air hits the board head on? Terrible design.

A good design looks like this.

Air should be able to flow across the heatsink without slamming into a wall.

According to Frosty Tech, the best LGA 775 heatsink looks like this:

Second best is this one:

Notice the pattern? Heatpipes leading away from the CPU then blow air across the fins in a way that is not slamming into the motherboard.

 

[tweakboy]

I would say easily Phenom II my friend. good luck and God Bless

 

[Lorne]

It deffinatly needs a cleanout and TIM re-applied to the HSF, Also re- apply TIM to the GFX as well.