Athlon II vs. Phenom 1 vs Athlon.

[maniac5999]

So, right now AMD probably has the best processor deal out there with the Athlon II 435 at $64. There have been many articles comparing the Athlon II to the Phenom II, but what is really interesting is that it slots into Socket AM2, which has been around since 2006. (if there's BIOS support) This means that it's a tempting upgrade option for tons of people with Athlons and Original Phenoms, but there seems to be very little info as to how they stack up, which is unfortunate, as it would be very insightful to AMD's progress over the last 6 years in processor design. How does it stack up to the old Athlon? Once we strip out the K10.5s L3 advantage is it still faster than the K8? or has AMD been using the same old execution core since 2003? What about against the Phenom? we all know that 6mb of L3 is better than none but how much does 2mb help? and does K10.5 have a better IPC than K10?

Lets try to keep this discussion away from clockspeed and core count, because we all know that more cores and higher clocks are better. Personally, I have a Kuma 7750 @ 3ghz with a 240mhz bclk and am wondering how worthwhile the upgrade would be.

 

[LoneNinja]

Benchmarks have been readily available comparing various parts if you search. You can even use the bench program on this website to give you a decent idea of how all those parts stack up. Although I don't know of a review that compares them all, Phenom and the Athlon X2 7750 were compared to K8 Athlon X2 when they were released. When Phenom II came out, there were many reviews that compared it clock for clock against Phenom.

Xbitlabs confirmed Kuma to be roughly 15% faster than Brisbane.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon-x2-7750_4.html#sect0

Anand shows the difference between Phenom II and Phenom here
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2702/9

Tomshardware Athlon II vs Phenom II article about importance of L3 cache
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416-9.html

And with Anand bench you can see Phenom and Athlon II trade blows
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/106?vs=21

 

[formulav8]

I have a Kuma 7750 @ 3ghz with a 240mhz bclk and am wondering how worthwhile the upgrade would be.

It might not be worth it for you to change your Kuma to a Athlon II x2. Yes the Athlon II x2 will clock higher, but clock for clock the Kuma still has similar performance in most things and higher in other things and maybe alittle lower in others. The 2MB of L3 cache is able to feed the 2x core very nicely on average. But the Athlon II with 2x 1MB L2 will win in certain situations as well. Power consumption though will be a bit better with the Athlon II over the Kuma cpu.

I have a Kuma 9550 x2 and a Sempron II 140 that unlocks to a Athlon II x2 that I might do some basic benching to see where your kuma sits with the Athlon II clock for clock. I am just not sure when I will get the time. I have a TON of work to do in getting laptops ready to sell and such. Maybe I can in a few days though...

In my opinion - Only if your planning on big ocing and want less power consumption/heat then stick with your current cpu. Kuma is definitely no sloutch. It performs very well but has higher consumption and lesser clockspeeds as a negative. But at your 3ghz clock and apparent L3 cache and memory controller overclock it should perform very well. 🙂


Jason

 

[maniac5999]

In my opinion - Only if your planning on big ocing and want less power consumption/heat then stick with your current cpu. Kuma is definitely no sloutch. It performs very well but has higher consumption and lesser clockspeeds as a negative. But at your 3ghz clock and apparent L3 cache and memory controller overclock it should perform very well. 🙂

Jason

I'm probably not going to make any changes, this is pretty much just bench racing for me, I'm the guy who would argue about his Taurus wagon being faster than a friend's Hyundai back in HS. I'm running at 1.28v on an el-cheapo $50 mATX board right now. It's listed as supporting 140w CPUs, but I'd rather not push it. the only thing that really irks me is that my 4870 registers at 7.5 and my 4gb of RAM hits 7.1 on WEI (a bad metric, I know) while my CPU only posts a 6.4, and has really hit a wall. I need to really start to crank the voltage to get over 3.1, and I'm afraid that I'll cook the mobo (I've got a big tower cooler, so the CPU should be fine)

 

[heyheybooboo]

Your best investment might me made in a nice AM2+ mobo that plays well with your RAMs & current CPU, and gives you a nice AM3 upgrade path. When you find that special deal on an AM3 processor you can then get froggy.

You'll probably find a little more OC headroom with the additional benefit of entering into the AMD Kuma Unlocking Chip Lottery 🙂




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[maniac5999]

Your best investment might me made in a nice AM2+ mobo that plays well with your RAMs & current CPU, and gives you a nice AM3 upgrade path. When you find that special deal on an AM3 processor you can then get froggy.

You'll probably find a little more OC headroom with the additional benefit of entering into the AMD Kuma Unlocking Chip Lottery 🙂
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I thought about that (and shortly after buying my board started kicking myself for buying one with a SB700 instead of 710), but my issue with that is the classic Phenom voltage ramp after 3ghz. I might get a Quad, but it still won't clock any higher, plus it'll still only have 2mb L3. I can get 3ghz stable at 1.29v, 3.1ghz requires 1.313v 3.25ghz? about 1.5v.

Just using a simple PSU calculator, it looks like i'm going from about 112w @ 3ghx to 121 @ 3.1ghz to 166w @ 3.25ghz. That's a 48% increase in power for just a 9% increase in speed

 

[Arkaign]

I agree with hhbb, find a steal on a decent AM2+ mobo (use your current ram again), and a PhII X4BE, or possibly even one of the new X6s. Nothing short of that is going to even be noticable for you as an upgrade.

 

[heyheybooboo]

I thought about that (and shortly after buying my board started kicking myself for buying one with a SB700 instead of 710), but my issue with that is the classic Phenom voltage ramp after 3ghz. I might get a Quad, but it still won't clock any higher, plus it'll still only have 2mb L3. I can get 3ghz stable at 1.29v, 3.1ghz requires 1.313v 3.25ghz? about 1.5v.

Just using a simple PSU calculator, it looks like i'm going from about 112w @ 3ghx to 121 @ 3.1ghz to 166w @ 3.25ghz. That's a 48% increase in power for just a 9% increase in speed

I haven't had the pleasure of knowing a Kuma, but am well aware of that volt wall 😀

For whatever reason the sb710/750 (with ACC) seems to shift that volt wall a bit upward --- in your case you may be able to extend your OC as much as 10% before having to really crank the volts.

My understanding is the original Kuma/Phenoms on sb600/700 had PLL timing issues (which could only be corrected with more jigga-watts), and sb710/750 went a long way in correcting those problems (with ACC and the "six magic pins" on the CPU).

The other reason I brought up the AM2+ motherboard is that there are some really nice deals out there, BUT the number of AM2+ motherboards seem to be disappearing quite quickly.

A new motherboard may extend the life of your current rig (and most importantly, RAMs) for another few years (even giving you the option of a nice CPU upgrade in a year or so).





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[lopri]

Benchmarks have been readily available comparing various parts if you search. You can even use the bench program on this website to give you a decent idea of how all those parts stack up. Although I don't know of a review that compares them all, Phenom and the Athlon X2 7750 were compared to K8 Athlon X2 when they were released. When Phenom II came out, there were many reviews that compared it clock for clock against Phenom.

Xbitlabs confirmed Kuma to be roughly 15% faster than Brisbane.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon-x2-7750_4.html#sect0

Anand shows the difference between Phenom II and Phenom here
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2702/9

Tomshardware Athlon II vs Phenom II article about importance of L3 cache
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416-9.html

And with Anand bench you can see Phenom and Athlon II trade blows
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/106?vs=21

That is a very comprehensive list for lazy ones like me. Thank you.

 

[jhu]

I've run some benchmarks using POV-Ray since that's the most CPU intensive program I use. Here are some custom compiles using gcc 4.3 and icc 11.1 rendering the provided benchmark.pov scene file:

Povray 3.6.1

Athlon II x4, 2.8 GHz (Propus), one thread
icc 11.1, -march=core2
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 1 seconds (1 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 18 seconds (18 seconds)
Render Time: 0 hours 13 minutes 26 seconds (806 seconds)
Total Time: 0 hours 13 minutes 45 seconds (825 seconds)

gcc 4.3, -march=barcelona
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 1 seconds (1 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 19 seconds (19 seconds)
Render Time: 0 hours 14 minutes 46 seconds (886 seconds)
Total Time: 0 hours 15 minutes 6 seconds (906 seconds)

gcc 4.3, -march=k8
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 1 seconds (1 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 26 seconds (26 seconds)
Render Time: 0 hours 25 minutes 9 seconds (1509 seconds)
Total Time: 0 hours 25 minutes 36 seconds (1536 seconds)

Athlon64, 2.6 GHz (Orleans)
gcc 4.3, -march=k8
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 1 seconds (1 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 28 seconds (28 seconds)
Render Time: 0 hours 18 minutes 58 seconds (1138 seconds)
Total Time: 0 hours 19 minutes 27 seconds (1167 seconds)

It's interesting that K8 tuned code runs very poorly on K10h processors.

 

[0roo0roo]

interesting jhu, nice to know its getting decently faster per clock.

 

[maniac5999]

well, my Mobo is an ASrock A780FullHD, and the current Bios will support anything upto a 965. (No Thubans :'( ) It's just that with the SB700 I don't get ACC, which means no core unlocking, and possibly slightly worse overclocking with original Phenoms. The plan may be to eventually get a Phenom 2 X4, which would render those concerns worthless, but for now the Phenom 2s still feel a little pricey for me.

 

[Trumie]

I also have an A780FullHD
Here's a link to a beta bios that supports Thuban.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f80/beta-bios-amd-6-core-cpu-39618/

 

[pmv]

Dammit, why didn't I get an m2n-e or m2n-sli instead of a plain m2n motherboard!

Out of interest, what is it that means most of the other Asus m2n versions can support AM2+/AM3 phenom chips and mine can't (maxes out at athlon 64 6400+ x2)? Something to do with voltage regulators? Its annoying.

I guess I must have chosen the cheapest option at the time. I must stop doing that.

 

[maniac5999]

I also have an A780FullHD
Here's a link to a beta bios that supports Thuban.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f80/beta-bios-amd-6-core-cpu-39618/

Dude, you are awesome. hmmmmm.... I can only get up to 241 core clock at 1.225v. changing my HTT mult. from 9 to 8 and upping NB voltage to 1.3v doesn't help any(won't even get me to 242). Is that a limitation of the board or my current Kuma? Because if it's the board, I probably should get a 955 instead (assuming that BIOS can run it) because for gaming I'd imagine that a 4ghz x4 would be better than a 3.36ghx x6.