Low Budget CPU

[gohanmoka]

i need some help i only got a budget of 200$ total for mobo and cpu and ram. i all ready got the video card. now i have the BIOSTAR TA790GX and OCZ FATAL1TY 4GB of 1066 DDRII. now i am looking at cpu i got 2 choices the x2 7850 or the phenom x4 9600. they say i can unlock the 7850 and it runs better than the 9600. with one of those 2 it will be 200 so i need a choice

 

[Sylvanas]

You have $200 for the CPU? You should get Phenom2 940 then, way better than your other choices. The 9600 and 7850 are the older P1's which are horrible compared to P2's- for a budget the Athlon 2 X2's and Phenom 2 X2's are much better value.

 

[ther00kie16]

There's only a couple of reports of a x2 7750/7850 being unlocked so it'd be like buying a raffle ticket. They are based on the Phenom core so performance isn't great either. If you can spend a little more, $119 x3 710 is based on Phenom II core and will with any sort of luck unlock to quad core.
Of course, you should've gotten a bundle, which probably would've allowed you to hit close to the $200 mark with the x3 710. As it is, if you need to go cheaper, maybe wait for all the Phenom II based dual cores coming out this month to see if any of them will unlock to quad cores. Otherwise, just save the money and get a x2 7750 as the 7850 won't overclock any better.

 

[gohanmoka]

but dont that have to be a black edition
but i cant find a black edition for 119

 

[richierich1212]

How about the 250?

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: gohanmoka
i need some help i only got a budget of 200$ total for mobo and cpu and ram. i all ready got the video card. now i have the BIOSTAR TA790GX and OCZ FATAL1TY 4GB of 1066 DDRII. now i am looking at cpu i got 2 choices the x2 7850 or the phenom x4 9600. they say i can unlock the 7850 and it runs better than the 9600. with one of those 2 it will be 200 so i need a choice

I have a Phenom 9600 and it's a great processor. They're almost being given away because people are scared of the TLB bug. If I understand correctly, the TLB bug is extremely rare and it only happens in multithreaded applications. I've run Prime on it for a week straight and I don't get any errors, so I guess it's reliable enough for my liking. Both the 7850 and 9600 are horrible for overclocking. I can only get an extra 100mhz out of that 9600.

Personally, I would still get the 9600 (again). It's a perfectly good processor that's being sold at a rock bottom price because of fear. Then again you could get an Athlon II 250 for just $5 more. It might not be faster for games or multitasking, but single threaded applications will run much faster on the Athlon. It really depends on what you're going to use this computer for.

 

[gohanmoka]

i was gonna pretty much play games on it

 

[richierich1212]

If you are going to mostly play games get either the 250 or 550.

 

[ShawnD1]

For games, the Athlon 250 and Phenom 9600 are close.
Crysis - Athlon is 14% faster
Far Cry 2 - Phenom is 1% faster
Left 4 Dead - Athlon is 11% faster

The old Phenom is more like a sempron or celeron. It's good at things that don't require a lot of caching. That usually means media creation.
Sony Vegas - Phenom is 27% faster
x264 - Phenom is 48% faster

Keep in mind that Anandtech's benchmarks for the Athlon II were done using an AM3 board with DDR3 memory. I don't know how much that changes gaming performance, but it's at least worth mentioning.

 

[gohanmoka]

thanks guys for all the help. the 9600 is only 80$
i have heard that windows 7 will work better with quad cores so i might go 9600