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Best budget AMD proc for overclocking?

The Sauce

The Sauce

Diamond Member
Helping a friend build a new budget gaming system. What is the best budget AMD CPU for overclocking? Looking at mainly the Phenom II X4's/AM3. I know a lot about overclocking and Intel CPUs but he is on a tight budget and I don't know that much about AMDs right now. Thanks.
 
Considering there are only a few Phenom II X4 processors, I would say either the 945 or 955 BE. Make sure you get the C3 stepping on either of those.
 
No C3 stepping, unless that recently changed. C3 was designed to reduce voltage and lower power consumption compared to C2. C3 is proven to overclock better than C2, it's not a dramatic difference, but there is a difference.
 
I think you should just get the cheapest model from the line of processors you want. Regardless of what the processor is sold as, they all seem to hit the wall at the same speed of about 3.8GHz. The power consumption seems to ramp up really fast near the wall, so I think 3.6GHz is a more realistic expectation.

Phenom II X2 550 - $88 newegg ($44 per core)
Phenom II X3 720 - $104 newgg not including heatsink
Phenom II X4 925 - $129 newegg ($32 per core)
Phenom II X6 1055 - $200 newegg ($33 per core)

What's cool is that they can all hit that speed with the stock cooler. The 4 and 6 core come with a much better stock heatsink, so they will run at roughly the same temperature as the dual and triple cores.

I personally picked the X6, but I think the X4 925 is arguably the best value. Not many games will use more than 4 cores at this time.
 
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if youre willing to roll the dice with unlocking, i'd go with the phenom ii x2 555. if not, i'd suggest the athlon ii x4 635, unless you either 1. really need the extra cache of the phenom in which case go with whichever of the phenom ii x4 you can justify, or 2. don't need the 4th core, in which case go with whichever of the athlon ii x3 you can justify (you can potentially unlock these as well, so that's something to think about). of course then there's the high end of the scale, the phenom ii x6 1055t; it basically depends on what you consider "budget", as really amd's entire profile is budget.
 
what's the budget? Hell, I've been surprised with the Sempron 140 and the ability to unlock it to a dual core. If you have 1066 ram, you could prolly hit 3.5ghz pretty easily, although I've heard more with 3.7~3.8ghz.

The beauty is that it's only $32 @ the egg (leaving more for v-card, and other goodies).
 
I got my 140 for $25 off eBay. It did not unlock, but I have flogged the poor thing into doing 3.95 ghz. It has even posted and run some stuff with the NB speed at nearly 3.1 ghz.

That being said, there's supposed to be a Sempron 145 around that is a C3 chip. Whether or not that is cause for excitement remains to be seen, however, since the only C3 Sargas/Regor I've seen reviewed thus far was an x2 260 with a stock vcore of 1.4v(!!!) that wouldn't OC past around 3.8 ghz, which is a pretty big disappointment for a C3 chip.
 
LoneNinja said:
No C3 stepping, unless that recently changed. C3 was designed to reduce voltage and lower power consumption compared to C2. C3 is proven to overclock better than C2, it's not a dramatic difference, but there is a difference.
Click to expand...

Thuban comes with E0 stepping. When will we see the same on the quad core Phenom II/Athlon IIs?
 
The Sauce said:
Ok, so assuming we get a P-II/AM3, which HSF would you go with?
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What's your budget for cooling?

Computer Bottleneck said:
Thuban comes with E0 stepping. When will we see the same on the quad core Phenom II/Athlon IIs?
Click to expand...

Nobody knows. Zosma (940T/960T, which are Thubans with two failed cores) chips are supposed to show up in OEM boxes someday, which means a few will trickle into retail channels from OEM trays, but that could be awhile. Even the 1035T which is already in some OEM machines hasn't made it onto any etailers that I've seen.

Native E0 x4s, x3s, and x2s may or may not ever appear. I guess it all depends on how difficult it is for AMD to transition all their fabs to HKMG (among other things) and whether or not it is advantageous for them to do so.
 
athlon 5000+ 2.2Ghz for like 40 bucks.

unlocks to 4 cores and 6mb L3 cache and then overclocks to 3.3Ghz.

That's like 400% increase in performance. Can't beat that.

The Sauce said:
Helping a friend build a new budget gaming system. What is the best budget AMD CPU for overclocking? Looking at mainly the Phenom II X4's/AM3. I know a lot about overclocking and Intel CPUs but he is on a tight budget and I don't know that much about AMDs right now. Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
The Sauce said:
Ok, so assuming we get a P-II/AM3, which HSF would you go with?
Click to expand...

Cooler Master Hyper 212+ is a great product if you can get it around the $30 retail price, many etailers have recently jacked the price upward near $50 and there are without a doubt better coolers in that price range.
 
LoneNinja said:
Cooler Master Hyper 212+ is a great product if you can get it around the $30 retail price, many etailers have recently jacked the price upward near $50 and there are without a doubt better coolers in that price range.
Click to expand...

Yah for the HSF looking for something budget like $30 or so. Really the best bargain performer. Not top-of-the-line Tuniq or Megahalems.
 
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yasasvy said:
Go for the Scythe Mugen2. Its on sale at ewiz right now. Far better value than hyper 212+.
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better hurry, today is the last day for the promo.

I was going to say 555BE myself, but not sure what athlon 5000+ really is. If it does unlock both, then is it the same as PhII? Not sure which process it is based on...
 
There is an Athlon x2 5000+ floating around that has an 11x multiplier that is a C2 Deneb with two failed cores and failed L3 cache. It is reportedly an easy unlock, but the multiplier limits the value of the chip.

There is a 550 BE around with a C3 stepping that may be a (slightly) better budget buy than the 555 BE. Then there's the Athlon ii x3 445 (C3 stepping) that's on the Egg right now that is apparently a Deneb with one failed core and failed L3 that is going for about $85. There should be x3 440 and x3 435 C3 chips which might also be Denebs, but good luck finding them for sale.
 
925 is a good value PII X4. Mine is happy at 3.5ghz at stock voltage. Don't count on other chips unlocking cores. I've built 4 other machines for other people with "failed core" chips and none of them have unlocked extra "good" cores. 2 555 x2 BE's, 1 140 , and a 440 x3
 
ShawnD1 said:
I think you should just get the cheapest model from the line of processors you want. Regardless of what the processor is sold as, they all seem to hit the wall at the same speed of about 3.8GHz. The power consumption seems to ramp up really fast near the wall, so I think 3.6GHz is a more realistic expectation.

Phenom II X2 550 - $88 newegg ($44 per core)
Phenom II X3 720 - $104 newgg not including heatsink
Phenom II X4 925 - $129 newegg ($32 per core)
Phenom II X6 1055 - $200 newegg ($33 per core)

What's cool is that they can all hit that speed with the stock cooler. The 4 and 6 core come with a much better stock heatsink, so they will run at roughly the same temperature as the dual and triple cores.

I personally picked the X6, but I think the X4 925 is arguably the best value. Not many games will use more than 4 cores at this time.
Click to expand...

However, be wary with this approach. I took the same approach on my 775. E2160, yeah cheap. But its cheap for a reason, 1mB cache. And yeah, it hit the 3.4 Ghz wall on air fine just like all the other procs from the same line.However, now when I complain about performance, people tell me its the cache.

Look at "cache" comparison benchmarks before you make a decision. If such things exist.
 
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