- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,190
- 185
- 106
Hey,
So I've skipped the Quad-Cores for some time now, I've always stayed on Dual-Cores since they were made available (including three AMD X2 models back then) and now my E8400 which I've owned since its release. It's currently OC'ed to 3.75Ghz, I can do more with more voltage, but it already needs 1.4v for a mere 750Mhz increase to be entirely stable, just 0.05v below that and it crashes. But that's another story. I've seen the recent Phenom II X4 940 reviews, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see AMD finally back on track.
In some of the reviews I've seen it looks like that model is just on par with most of Intel's Quad offerings (Q9300, Q9550, etc), and to be honest I never expected to see such a thing happen especially at its price, which is the main interesting point to be honest. You get four Cores and it only costs about half of what it would cost me to upgrade to a current Q9650 (clocked at the same speed at stock). So it's 3.0Ghz, I've seen some nice over-clocks of up to 3.8Ghz on air, but the voltages needed for that seem so high when I'm used to my stock 1.2250v for my E8400, for instance one OC I've seen for 3.7Ghz needed 1.55v, what a shocker! But I bet that's normal for that processor.
Now, on to performance, and that's the main thing of this thread, I'm just wondering if going from my E8400 (let's consider it at stock speed) to a Phenom II 940 would be worth it, even without over-clocking involved at all. The thing is I would need to change my motherboard, and maybe my memory due to potential incompatibility issues (but I'll have to check the supported memory models and vendors lists for whatever motherboard I'd be going with just to make sure). When I ask the question myself and wonder just why I would like to go with it and leave my E8400 behind is because: 1) It's cheap for a Quad-Core, 2) Its performance is actually comparable if not actually better than the Core architecture at least in some circumstances, and 3) It's a Quad-Core, so perhaps I'd be seeing some performance improvements in my humble video and audio encoding/decoding work, and of course possibly gaming as well.
Now, of course, when looking at an Intel i7 920, it's tempting, but it costs more than $400 (Canadian), so, since I'm on a budget (if I ever make the move and go on with my system upgrade) I'd say that the extra $200 I'd be saving by going with a PIIX4 940 instead could serve in buying myself a nice AM2+ motherboard, and if I'm lucky I could keep my current DDR2 memory. But, I'm still just wondering... if it'd really be worth it, is Quad-Core really giving a substantial advantage in gaming that would justify such an upgrade for a gamer (primarily) like me, or am I just fine with my Dual-Core. I think I would have to ask if the current Phenom II architecture on which Deneb resides is actually just as efficient for single-threaded applications as Intel's Core is... is it? I'm asking this because when I think about it I realize that about 80% of my games collection are single-threaded games, and that about 70% of my various other applications are also single-threaded.
Should I instead be waiting for AM3 versions of the Phenom II models to surface and go for that instead? Or maybe wait even longer until Intel updates its i7 architecture just like they did to Core with Penryn? (although going with Intel would always cost me more, architecture refreshes or not, I think that AMD makes it clear enough now that their prices are much better than Intel's, and the performance we get for those prices would normally make any chairman at Intel rethink their pricing strategies, if I myself would be in Intel's shoes right now I'd start looking behind my train to see if AMD's isn't too close to mine on that parallel track).
So I've skipped the Quad-Cores for some time now, I've always stayed on Dual-Cores since they were made available (including three AMD X2 models back then) and now my E8400 which I've owned since its release. It's currently OC'ed to 3.75Ghz, I can do more with more voltage, but it already needs 1.4v for a mere 750Mhz increase to be entirely stable, just 0.05v below that and it crashes. But that's another story. I've seen the recent Phenom II X4 940 reviews, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see AMD finally back on track.
In some of the reviews I've seen it looks like that model is just on par with most of Intel's Quad offerings (Q9300, Q9550, etc), and to be honest I never expected to see such a thing happen especially at its price, which is the main interesting point to be honest. You get four Cores and it only costs about half of what it would cost me to upgrade to a current Q9650 (clocked at the same speed at stock). So it's 3.0Ghz, I've seen some nice over-clocks of up to 3.8Ghz on air, but the voltages needed for that seem so high when I'm used to my stock 1.2250v for my E8400, for instance one OC I've seen for 3.7Ghz needed 1.55v, what a shocker! But I bet that's normal for that processor.
Now, on to performance, and that's the main thing of this thread, I'm just wondering if going from my E8400 (let's consider it at stock speed) to a Phenom II 940 would be worth it, even without over-clocking involved at all. The thing is I would need to change my motherboard, and maybe my memory due to potential incompatibility issues (but I'll have to check the supported memory models and vendors lists for whatever motherboard I'd be going with just to make sure). When I ask the question myself and wonder just why I would like to go with it and leave my E8400 behind is because: 1) It's cheap for a Quad-Core, 2) Its performance is actually comparable if not actually better than the Core architecture at least in some circumstances, and 3) It's a Quad-Core, so perhaps I'd be seeing some performance improvements in my humble video and audio encoding/decoding work, and of course possibly gaming as well.
Now, of course, when looking at an Intel i7 920, it's tempting, but it costs more than $400 (Canadian), so, since I'm on a budget (if I ever make the move and go on with my system upgrade) I'd say that the extra $200 I'd be saving by going with a PIIX4 940 instead could serve in buying myself a nice AM2+ motherboard, and if I'm lucky I could keep my current DDR2 memory. But, I'm still just wondering... if it'd really be worth it, is Quad-Core really giving a substantial advantage in gaming that would justify such an upgrade for a gamer (primarily) like me, or am I just fine with my Dual-Core. I think I would have to ask if the current Phenom II architecture on which Deneb resides is actually just as efficient for single-threaded applications as Intel's Core is... is it? I'm asking this because when I think about it I realize that about 80% of my games collection are single-threaded games, and that about 70% of my various other applications are also single-threaded.
Should I instead be waiting for AM3 versions of the Phenom II models to surface and go for that instead? Or maybe wait even longer until Intel updates its i7 architecture just like they did to Core with Penryn? (although going with Intel would always cost me more, architecture refreshes or not, I think that AMD makes it clear enough now that their prices are much better than Intel's, and the performance we get for those prices would normally make any chairman at Intel rethink their pricing strategies, if I myself would be in Intel's shoes right now I'd start looking behind my train to see if AMD's isn't too close to mine on that parallel track).
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