Phenom II X4 940, 945 or 955

[DetConan]

For a new system, for Photoshop, video editing (for my wife) and gaming (for me),
what would be the most wise choice between these CPU (power and money-wise) ?
I do not overclock my computers (i feel too insecure).

The Phenom II X4 940, 945 or 955.

NB : A i7 core system would be too expensive.

 

[LoneNinja]

If budget is a concern I would go for the 940, the extra cost of the 945/955 isn't justified to me. I picked the 940 with a motherboard up for $229 on newegg.com a couple months ago.

 

[Eureka]

If you're going to pick up one of these chips I'd recommend the 940 or 955 since they're black edition... they're very easy to overclock. Just bump up the multiplier .5x at a time until windows doesn't boot, then go back to the last stable one and you're set. These chips are very easy to overclock, not much thinking required.

The 940 is cheap, however I've seen some very cheap deals on the 955 as well. I got my 955 with a 1TB drive for $210 together AR... that puts the 955 around 140 taking out the cost of the drive.

 

[heyheybooboo]

AMD Phenom II X4 810

See if you can top Anand

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
AMD Phenom II X4 810

See if you can top Anand

Damn... 3.75ghz on < 1.3v... was that done with LN2 or something??

 

[cbn]

How well could the 945 clock on an AM2+ mainboard with DDR2 800 memory?

How much does memory and Northbridge frequency affect performance?

 

[soccerballtux]

How well could the 945 clock on an AM2+ mainboard with DDR2 800 memory?

How much does memory and Northbridge frequency affect performance?

if you can OC the cpu-nb you'll be fine.
HT speed and actual memory speed have little performance impact. In fact most times I've seen people OC their HT, their performance went down.

You can just crank up the CPU-NB to 2.4-2.8ghz and call it a day.

 

[Jovec]

Consider that the 940 is DDR2 only and that it may limit you in the future should you wish to move to AM3/DDR3. 955 C3 is the sweet spot on the x4s.

 

[cbn]

if you can OC the cpu-nb you'll be fine.
HT speed and actual memory speed have little performance impact. In fact most times I've seen people OC their HT, their performance went down.

You can just crank up the CPU-NB to 2.4-2.8ghz and call it a day.

How about the multiplier on the 945? How much of a limitation would that be?

 

[soccerballtux]

How about the multiplier on the 945? How much of a limitation would that be?

adjust the ram ratio and HT ratio and you'll be fine.
Might have to increase the cpu-nb voltage (this is where the real speedup is-- when you OC the cpu-nb).