Is 1090t a Rational Upgrade?

funehiki

Junior Member
Jan 30, 2006
6
0
0
I currently have an AMD x4 940 with an MSI dka790 platinum board (AMD2+) and 4 gigs of high quality DDR2 memory. MSIs firmware updates allow for an x6 1090t to work in my board (the compatability list does not mention the 1100t). I generally don't overclock anything more than is available at base voltage since my room is hot to begin with. I am not a gamer, I mostly use my computer for Lightroom, I have recently begun the process or ripping my 2000 CDs into Flac with EAC (should take a year or two), and I will probably be experimenting with editing short videos from my point & shoot in the near future.

Given the fact that BD or Intel upgrades would require a new motherboard, RAM and CPU I am wondering whether purchasing a 1090t (which is currrently about $160 delivered, $30 cheaper than a 1100t) would make a noticeable improvement, or whether I should just stick with what I have (which is a logical if not nearly as fun choice). If I stay with what I have, I probably won't revisit this question to sometime late next year or later when I would probably have the cash to do a full upgrade.

Any consensus?
 

gevorg

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 2004
5,070
1
0
You'll mostly gain benefits in apps that heavily use multithreading such as video encoding and 3dmax, so if Lightroom can take advantage of them, then yes. General usage and gaming, have just a slight bump in performance. There is also a factor of more heat/noise and power usage.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/80?vs=146
 

BD231

Lifer
Feb 26, 2001
10,568
138
106
It was a night and day switch going from an x3 on ddr3 1600 to the x6. For one thing you don't need nearly the amount of voltage campared to the x3/x4 C2's to achive the same overclocks. The other thing that's great is that the voltage increase for turbo is hard wired to the chip so you still get turbo in older AM2/AM3 boards that don't support C1E or Turbo features within the bios.

The x6 is a lot more than just cores slapped together, there are noticeable thermal and voltage advantages so if you're an overclocker its definitely worthwhile. Excelent chip, it's like a " perfected " phenom II imo.