Phenom II X2 550

[srinivasuraju]

I am thinking of buying Phenom II X2 550. Is it better than Athlon II X2 and Intel i3??? Any better CPU within the same price range.

What is the Part # of 550BE

 

[maddie]

Try using this for performance comparisons.

http://www.anandtech.com/Bench/

As a suggestion to Anandtech. Why not have 3 way comparisons also?

 

[Vette73]

The Phenom has L3 cache and has 2 cores that are locked and you might be able to unlock.

The BE edition is the lower voltage chip. The Athlon X2 is a 2 core chip with no L3 cache.

The i3 is usually faster but cost more and the socket is being killed late this year. With AMD if you get a current 8xx series motherboard you might be able to upgrade to the Gen1 bulldozer CPU when it comes out.

I just built a HTPC and used a Athlon X2 with a AMD onboard video

 

[srinivasuraju]

The Phenom has L3 cache and has 2 cores that are locked and you might be able to unlock.

The BE edition is the lower voltage chip. The Athlon X2 is a 2 core chip with no L3 cache.

The i3 is usually faster but cost more and the socket is being killed late this year. With AMD if you get a current 8xx series motherboard you might be able to upgrade to the Gen1 bulldozer CPU when it comes out.

I just built a HTPC and used a Athlon X2 with a AMD onboard video

How abt 880G Board??..... i am planning to take GA-880GM-UD2H

 

[Vette73]

How abt 880G Board??..... i am planning to take GA-880GM-UD2H

It might be able to work with the bulldozer, but since BD specs have not been released its not known if current boards will work or not. But AMD has kinda said the current 8XX series chipsets will work with BD.

So as long as the board supports 125watt+ CPUs and its from a good compnay that updates their Bios like Gigabyte then its a good chance.

 

[jvroig]

As a suggestion to Anandtech. Why not have 3 way comparisons also?

1.) This is not the right venue for suggestions regarding Bench. They have a link there for such suggestions, perhaps you've missed it.

2.) The suggestion to be able to compare more than two products is something they are already working on.

The BE edition is the lower voltage chip.

Black Edition (BE) chips sport unlocked multipliers. The low voltage chips are "e" chips. For example, Athlon II X2 240e as opposed to simply Athlon II X2 240

I am thinking of buying Phenom II X2 550. Is it better than Athlon II X2 and Intel i3??? Any better CPU within the same price range.

Better than Athlon II X2 (but also more expensive) but slower than Intel i3 (but also a bit cheaper).

For the same price, you can get an Athlon II X4 instead of that 550. That's a better purchase than an i3 or a 550. If you only care about dual cores, and you have the budget for it, then get the i3.

 

[Vette73]

^

Yep, sorry my bad. I always see them listed as Black not be. Any letters for AMD usually - lowwer power so jumped the gun.

BE is a good thing if overclocking.

 

[busydude]

550 BE chip is c2 stepping and cannot overclock as good as a 555BE.

A c3 stepping 550 is a better overclocker, but its not a BE.

I too agree with jvroig, an Athlon II x4 is a much better value at that price point.

BTW, what is your system mainly used for?

 

[Rifter]

How abt 880G Board??..... i am planning to take GA-880GM-UD2H

I just build a system for my mother in law with this board. Its a very good board, you get alot for your money with it. Was able to OC a Athlon X4 635 to 3.4Ghz on stock voltage and a stock AMD Phenom II heatpipe heatsink. Great board and solid BIOS support from gigabyte in the past would lead me to believe if its possible for AM3 to take BD, then gigabyte will make it happen.


That said i will not make a recommendation on what you should buy until you tell us what you are using the PC for. Gaming? productivity? encoding? websurfing? what GPU are you going with?

 

[srinivasuraju]

I will be using it for Gaming...Coding...Websurfing......Photoshop........Cognos etc.... I dont intent to use any external GPU other than on board.

 

[srinivasuraju]

I just build a system for my mother in law with this board. Its a very good board, you get alot for your money with it. Was able to OC a Athlon X4 635 to 3.4Ghz on stock voltage and a stock AMD Phenom II heatpipe heatsink. Great board and solid BIOS support from gigabyte in the past would lead me to believe if its possible for AM3 to take BD, then gigabyte will make it happen.


That said i will not make a recommendation on what you should buy until you tell us what you are using the PC for. Gaming? productivity? encoding? websurfing? what GPU are you going with?

I will be using it for Gaming...Coding...Websurfing......Photoshop....... .Cognos etc.... I dont intent to use any external GPU other than on board.

 

[heyheybooboo]

I will be using it for Gaming...Coding...Websurfing......Photoshop........Cognos etc.... I dont intent to use any external GPU other than on board.

Here is a PhII 550 C3 / Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 combo.

It will most likely run 15x250MHz (3.75GHz) without a sweat (especially if you throw a $25 cooler at it).

The thing about PS (and most games) is that 2 fast cores work really, really well; the 'quads' still only boost limited filters and plug-ins (and games).




--

 

[Markfw]

I will be using it for Gaming...Coding...Websurfing......Photoshop........Cognos etc.... I dont intent to use any external GPU other than on board.

You won't be doing much gaming with an on-board GPU....

 

[Rifter]

You won't be doing much gaming with an on-board GPU....

yeah, forget about gaming on a IGP. And with gaming out of the equation im going to have to reccomend a intel i3, the i3 is going to kill the 550 in almost anything you want to do.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/97?vs=143