Keep which rig: P45 Q9450 or 890GX 955BE? how is the USB3.0 routed on AMD?

[Obsoleet]

I have two rigs, and I need to get rid of one. Which is better, the PC in my signature, or

AMD 955Black Edition
8GB Corsair 8-8-8-24 DDR3
MSI 890GXM-G65 board
(same SSD as signature)
(same GPU as signature)

I'm a little confused by the Tom's article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...gb,2583-8.html Does this mean that I can have a USB3.0 drive in my 890GX board going full speed and it doesn't borrow bandwidth from the video at all?
Meaning, the NEC chip used for USB3.0 has it's own full 500MB PCIE 2.0, untouched bandwidth, no matter what's going on with the system?

I read the Anand SATA6 article http://anandtech.com/show/2973/6gbps...ntel-x58-p55/3 which leads me to believe I'm better off sticking with my P45's ICH10R than the new AMD southbridge?

I'm torn on which rig would be "better". It appears the ICH from Intel is better optimized. I plan on going to SATA6 and USB3 when the SATA6 Intel SSDs are here, but would move to the AMD platform if their stuff is worth moving to today. Certainly wouldn't mind having USB3 (for an external raid1 I've been wanting) or SATA6 (if it's good).

I'm currently leaning towards going with the AMD rig, due to the AM3 platform being upgradable, regardless of some slight inferiority to my current ICH10R controller (if the performance on my P45 is the same as the newer Intel chipsets used in Anand's review)

Thanks

 

[Gikaseixas]

how high can you OC the 955??? Have you tried to go higher with the Q9450 or is that all you can get from it?

 

[Obsoleet]

I haven't put the 955 together yet. The 9450 can go higher, but this is about as high as I can go on stock vcore. I don't care to go any higher on the voltage than stock.

 

[Obsoleet]

The 9450 rig is assembled, it's what I'm using right now. The AMD rig is in parts.

I'm leaning towards taking the best parts and using that as my main rig. The remaining parts are going into a family members PC.

I'm thinking the AMD rig is the better rig of the two, for the following reasons:

-I go to DDR3 with AMD, meaning my RAM isn't completely dead or useless as DDR2 is if I upgrade soon again.

-AMD's SATA6 and full PCIE2.0 lanes

-NEC USB3 (not sure how this is wired, but it has to be superior to any USB2 implementation anyway, and I believe it doesn't draw from the video from what I've read so it's virtually native

-AM3 is not dead like 775. It might, or should, support Bulldozer. This is much better than my 775 platform will do, it's essentially maxed out with no upgrade path at all.

-I move to MicroATX. Something I've been wanting to do (I like the Lian Li PC-V352). I'm tired of towers with tons of fans. I'm over the Antec 900 style.

-The switch is virtually free for me, and the parts are sitting right here. I got in on the 890GX + 955 Black Edition for $160 sale at Fry's.



Some caveats-

-AMD's SATA6 in some benchmarks can be beaten by my current ICH10R. Though I believe this will be solved with future bios updates from MSI if it hasn't already. In real-world, it's the winner according to AT with the RealSSD. But, still the best SATA6 implementation on the market due to being native with 0 bandwidth sharing restrictions.

-USB3 is non-native, but again due to AMD's chipset design, it's the best possible situation available with full PCIE2.0 lanes vs Intel's X58 having only PCIE2.0 on the GPU.

-Stock to stock, the 955 is barely faster than my Q9450. To match my 775@3ghz, I'm going to have to OC the 955. I'm willing to accept parity to move to a platform that isn't dead yet.

-I do have to get rid of ONE of the rigs. I bought the AM3 rig to put together for a relative, but they don't care if I give them my Q9450 instead. They will be using it as a email / web browsing machine (I know, overkill, especially because it's my grandma and I got her the $199 Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD from Microcenter.. but I want it to be amazing, not just an OK PC, she's got money and I built it to be incredibly quick and blow people's minds when they come over to use her new computer. I do not believe in buying or building any computer today or beyond without a SSD).


So 775 vs AM3 I think I have my answer. Please tell me if I'm wrong before I assemble this and lose all my 775 gear. This PC is really only used for gaming, and enjoying the wonders of the latest SSD drives. Considering buying the 128GB RealSSD and selling my current 160GB Intel X25M G2 if I move to the AMD. But will probably wait for Intel's SATA6 drives. I've used many SSDs and prefer Intel's over all others so far (haven't tried the RealSSD but am concerned with it's latency which is why I haven't bought one yet).

My total personal cost for moving to the AM3 platform I've described is about $135. I believe it's worth it, let me know if I'm wrong.

Thanks

 

[Obsoleet]

no one has an opinion for me? ive been looking at the recent amd hexcore review and it looks like the amd stuff gets slaughtered alot of times. im afraid that my old 9450@3ghz is still a faster gaming rig than the 955 (even overclocked).

 

[alyarb]

you have a very nice AM3 system, which is a reason for you to sell the 775 stuff while it's still worth something.

the six-core phenom wouldn't be a bad upgrade for you. from a clock perspective, a Phenom II would need on average a 200MHz advantage to "match" your Q9450, but the majority of AMD chips these days are hitting 3.6 GHz or more, so staying with AMD is the cheapest way for you to get more performance than you're getting now. You really should consider getting a Phenom II X6 ASAP while this giveaway pricing is going on. A lot of people are showing 4+ GHz overclocks on six cores, so that would really be the cheapest way to get you into i7 territory.

If you really want the fastest system, then you should sell everything and get an i7 860 or 930. You know intel has the fastest hardware, but you also know that AMD comes very close for hundreds less. You choose.

 

[jihe]

I have two rigs, and I need to get rid of one. Which is better, the PC in my signature, or

AMD 955Black Edition
8GB Corsair 8-8-8-24 DDR3
MSI 890GXM-G65 board
(same SSD as signature)
(same GPU as signature)

I'm a little confused by the Tom's article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...gb,2583-8.html Does this mean that I can have a USB3.0 drive in my 890GX board going full speed and it doesn't borrow bandwidth from the video at all?
Meaning, the NEC chip used for USB3.0 has it's own full 500MB PCIE 2.0, untouched bandwidth, no matter what's going on with the system?

I read the Anand SATA6 article http://anandtech.com/show/2973/6gbps...ntel-x58-p55/3 which leads me to believe I'm better off sticking with my P45's ICH10R than the new AMD southbridge?

I'm torn on which rig would be "better". It appears the ICH from Intel is better optimized. I plan on going to SATA6 and USB3 when the SATA6 Intel SSDs are here, but would move to the AMD platform if their stuff is worth moving to today. Certainly wouldn't mind having USB3 (for an external raid1 I've been wanting) or SATA6 (if it's good).

I'm currently leaning towards going with the AMD rig, due to the AM3 platform being upgradable, regardless of some slight inferiority to my current ICH10R controller (if the performance on my P45 is the same as the newer Intel chipsets used in Anand's review)

Thanks

Keep the DDR3, sell the DDR2 while they are still worth something.

 

[lopri]

You've done a lot of research and are now heading to the right direction. If I may throw in another consideration: There is a sizable performance difference, like 5~10%, bewteen 780G/790G (and by extention 890G as well, I assume) and 790X/790FX/890FX. FYI.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'd like an 860, ideally.

What happened is that I bought all this AM3 stuff for my grandma's computer, and ended up wondering if I'd be better off giving her the Q9450 mobo/cpu/ram.

I've refused to upgrade to anything that doesnt have NATIVE sata6 and usb3 (hence my refusal to go 860), but the AM3 offered native sata6 with nec usb3, which is good enough. The performance difference is not a lot on the CPU side, but I see major weaknesses in some gaming benchmarks with the Phenom. So I'm completely torn between the two.

I'm a little wary of the overall quality of the AMD platform to the Intel. I hate to let go of my 775 hardware and end up with buggier AMD stuff. I'm a longtime AMD user, and always hated the chipsets and motherboards available. (had a Thunderbird 700, many AthlonXPs, never any K6-2's though).

 

[ebolamonkey3]

I have the 955/890 combo as well and I'd go with that personally. The 890GX is a nice little motherboard and supports Thuban in case you want to upgrade in the future, and I'm sure you can push that 955 close to 4 ghz if you tried.

 

[Obsoleet]

You've done a lot of research and are now heading to the right direction. If I may throw in another consideration: There is a sizable performance difference, like 5~10%, bewteen 780G/790G (and by extention 890G as well, I assume) and 790X/790FX/890FX. FYI.

I checked into this claim and come up with this http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-890gxm-g65-review/20

"When looking at overall performance in both the default baseline and overclocking you will however not see any difference whatsoever to say the 785 or 790 chipsets, it's exactly the same stuff looking at it from a performance point of view,"


Take a look at some of the gaming benchmarks. Obviously the i7 960 is pretty powerful but if you look the 890GX with a 965 + 5970 is pretty impressive. I was surprised.

 

[mv2devnull]

If I may throw in another consideration: There is a sizable performance difference, like 5~10%, bewteen 780G/790G (and by extention 890G as well, I assume) and 790X/790FX/890FX. FYI.

So which one is faster? Why? (A link to benchmark would be helpful.)

 

[Dadofamunky]

In your position I'd swallow hard and keep the AM3 rig, since it supports the peripheral updates you need, and grab a hexacore, stat. That will blow away the 9450. Your grandma will be spoiled, however.

 

[Rhoxed]

You will notice a large difference between old AMD boards (pre 08) and more current boards, especially if the last ones you used were Thunderbird Athlon XP etc.

As for the platform switch, AMD leaves you more options with equal performance (or greater since its upgradeable), the boards really have gotten damn stable (unless you buy some $40 ecs junk or something) you will have DDR3, USB 3.0 and SATA6.

I dont really see a reason not to, unless the controller is much more inferior to intel, but you will have to test that for yourself. If you need any help OC'ing the AMD system or setting it up feel free to PM me - if you decide to keep it that is.

good luck with the choice

 

[lopri]

So which one is faster? Why? (A link to benchmark would be helpful.)

The boards without on-board GPU are faster. The difference seems more pronounced when overclocked via system bus (HTT). I suppose it's because of the way "xxxG" boards are designed to accommodate the on-board GPUs.

I might have exaggerated a bit by saying 5~10%, however. Maybe it's more like ~5%.

Edit: It's hard to come by direct comparisons between 780G/790G and 790X/790FX because they are in different price categories, but I remember a few comments along the line.

http://anandtech.com/show/2740/2

Our decision to go with a 790FX/SB750 combination on the AMD side is strictly based upon performance. The 790FX is about 3%~5% faster on average than comparable 790GX products in multi-GPU configurations. AMD continues to recommend the 790GX/SB750 as the platform of choice for the AM2+ and upcoming AM3 products. We disagree from a performance viewpoint; the 790FX/SB750 combination is simply the best choice in our opinion. Of course you will typically pay about $35~$40 or greater for the 790FX boards, but if you intend on running CrossFireX or benchmarking, we think it is worth the additional cost.

Found a bench.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/04/27/asus-crosshair-iv-formula-mobo-review/5

So it goes like this: 780G/785G << 790GX/890GX < 790FX/890FX. (770/790X somewhere between GX and FX)