Phenom II X4 965 or Core i5 750?

[jvroig]

I'm guessing it will be for gaming, so... place largest part of your budget into videocard. IF (notice IF) you can wait a month more, you'll be able to get Fermi NVIDIA GPU.

Fermi is coming out after a month? Is it March 2010 already now? And that's already the best case, so says even the pro-nV reporter.

 

[omber]

Im going to start a new topic to see if anyone has ideas before I decide to return this failbyte POS. Grr I was going to buy MSI but they said "Nay! Tis' unknown to us, buy this Gigabyte instead!"

 

[JM Aggie08]

I'm running a 955 at 3.9ghz at 42c stable right now on air. It does everything I need. Handles load well in game, loads photoshop like a champ....and is just awesome.

You can't beat the recent drop in price either. You know my vote.

 

[cbn]

Honestly if gaming is all you plan to do a Phenom II and an i5 will do equally as well. Yes, the i5 is a faster processor (when overclocked) but either processor hits the videocard wall at any seminormal resolution and quality settings nowadays for most games. There are some games that are CPU limited, but they're fairly rare.

This is an insightful post.

Lots of times a person looks at low resolution CPU benchmarks and naturally thinks they will get the same results in games. Unfortunately the reality can be quite different.

 

[faxon]

Im going to start a new topic to see if anyone has ideas before I decide to return this failbyte POS. Grr I was going to buy MSI but they said "Nay! Tis' unknown to us, buy this Gigabyte instead!"

Lol sounds like you should try some different ram. I have had tons of customers react the same as you with patriot/gigabyte combo before, it's possible that the problem has carried over to their p55 lineup as well. The board is a good board, I wouldn't fault it for not working with a kit of ram. Try some gskill instead, never had a problem with them on gigabyte boards

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Lol sounds like you should try some different ram. I have had tons of customers react the same as you with patriot/gigabyte combo before, it's possible that the problem has carried over to their p55 lineup as well. The board is a good board, I wouldn't fault it for not working with a kit of ram. Try some gskill instead, never had a problem with them on gigabyte boards

I too would put the issue as being the motherboard and RAM not getting along.

The stuff in my sig (Gigabyte 780G board + G.skill DDR2-1000 RAM) had a hell of a time booting when I first installed it. I had to borrow some other RAM (G.Skill DDR2-800) and update the BIOS before I could use the stuff I bought. My system would pretty much do what yours is doing: Lights and fans would come on but the system would not post, not even a beep.

So yeh, just return the RAM you have and buy other stuff. I'd also make sure whatever you get does run at 1.6V or lower.

 

[omber]

Actually it was the motherboard, it was an open box which worked fine with lower power cards but choked on my GTX 295. They replaced it with a brand new one and it works like a charm. Turbo-mode put the i5 750 at 3.2 GHz by itself and I got 21399 3d marks in performance test. Compared to approx 16000 I got before on my core 2 quad I must say I am happy with the investment. I will probably play with the overclocking some more when I have time.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[n7]

UD3R is a wonderful board for the $$$.

Glad to hear the replacement worked out.

What are the final system specs you went with & what cooler?

Here are the exact setting i run 24/7
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=28962031&postcount=4

You might have to run the RAM @ a lower ratio, & perhaps a slightly lower vcore/BCLK if your cooler isn't as good, but hopefully they can provide some help ^_^

 

[E6700]

AMD Phenom II 965 is a joke,at 4.5ghz superpi 1m=15sec LOL http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj124/Titan771/superpi4500mhz.jpg
on the other hand,core i5 at stock speed superpi 1m=13sec,even my ex q6600 can do 1m=15sec only at 3.4ghz at the moment i wouldn't touch any of AMD procs no matter how cheap they are.

 

[omber]

I basically swapped my old system. Took out the motherbaord/cpu/ram and replaced it with the stuff I mentioned..

Antec 900 Case, Antec TruPower 850W PSU, 3 year old Maxtor 500GB and 2 year old Seagate 500GB put in RAID 1 for system drive. System also has a optical drive from Samsung.

For the CPU cooler I reused my old Zalman CNPS9700NT (http://www.descom.com/catalog/images/Zalman_CNPS9700_NT.jpg) and bought $10 Socket 1156 retention bracket to go with it (the cooler is for Socket 775 and a few others by default).

 

[cbn]

Deleted.

 

[lyssword]

AMD Phenom II 965 is a joke,at 4.5ghz superpi 1m=15sec LOL http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj124/Titan771/superpi4500mhz.jpg
on the other hand,core i5 at stock speed superpi 1m=13sec,even my ex q6600 can do 1m=15sec only at 3.4ghz at the moment i wouldn't touch any of AMD procs no matter how cheap they are.

Yes, because super pi is the best indicator of real world performance I wouldn't be surprised if pentium 4 ran faster super pi than some current amd processors while being 3-4x slower in any other application/game. SuperPi doesn't mean shit, it's only useful to track overclocking progress within the same system.

 

[jvroig]

Yes, because super pi is the best indicator of real world performance I wouldn't be surprised if pentium 4 ran faster super pi than some current amd processors while being 3-4x slower in any other application/game. SuperPi doesn't mean shit, it's only useful to track overclocking progress within the same system.

Thank you for that. Somebody had to call it.

 

[omber]

Heh tried overclocking it. 3.3 GHz makes it freeze on POST. I guess I need to go learn what all those thingies in BIOS do so I can push it further .

 

[MrK6]

Heh tried overclocking it. 3.3 GHz makes it freeze on POST. I guess I need to go learn what all those thingies in BIOS do so I can push it further .

The quick and dirty:
Turn off EIST and the C-state power saving modes,
Set QPI ratio to 32x (from 36x)
Lock your PCI-e at 100MHz
Set your multiplier to 21x (keeps the BCLK lower at a given clock)
Set your BCLK to get your CPU into the 3.2-3.4GHz range
Get your RAM running at close to stock timings, voltage (should be under 1.65V), and speeds using multipliers and what not
Set about 1.2V in Vcore, which should get you running in the 3.2-3.5GHz range
Also set your QPI/VTT voltage to 1.21V (do not go higher than this though, that's Intel's specified maximum)

You should be ready to go after that, test for stability using Prime95 or another program once you're in Windows. You can then tweak (lower) the voltages and RAM timings or clock higher if you wish once you have a baseline set .

 

[omber]

One of my OC problems is that my i5 is locked at up 20x - or am I missing something here ?

 

[MrK6]

One of my OC problems is that my i5 is locked at up 20x - or am I missing something here ?

Are you saying you can only use 20x or you can only use up to 20x? The 21x multiplier was enabled in the most recent BIOSes, flash yours and update it. Note that you have to have "turbo mode" enabled to select the 21x multiplier. However, it might be easier just to stick with 20x for now, although flashing to the latest BIOS is almost always a good idea.

 

[omber]

Bah I didnt know that I will have to get one of my usb sticks from work and update it here then.

 

[Ben90]

Honestly if gaming is all you plan to do a Phenom II and an i5 will do equally as well. Yes, the i5 is a faster processor (when overclocked) but either processor hits the videocard wall at any seminormal resolution and quality settings nowadays for most games. There are some games that are CPU limited, but they're fairly rare.

Yea, but in the future you will have to upgrade the PII before you upgrade the i5 platform

 

[cbn]

From benchmarks I've seen these are more or less on par with each other so I'm leaning towards Phenom as it's marginally cheaper. Opinions?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-965-c3_7.html#sect0

Judging by this I would say Core i5 750 is much better for gaming.

I was hoping AM3 would have the possibility of a 32nm Phenom II/III with more L3 cache but this isn't on the AMD road map.

 

[evolucion8]

If you only do gaming, Phenom X4 is more than enough, if you do lots of video encoding, heavy workstation 3d rendering, F@H, Core i5 is the way to go.

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869&p=23

The Phenom II X4 results were quite different to those recorded when testing with the Core i7 processors, though this was not necessarily a bad thing. When operating at lower clock speeds, the Phenom II X4 did not fair all that well, as we saw a sharp decline in performance. However when clocked at 3.0GHz and beyond, the Phenom II X4 really picked up the pace, and in many cases was able to outclass the Core i7.
In games such as Wolfenstein, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, BattleForge and Far Cry 2 the Phenom II X4 processors were actually faster when clocked up near 4GHz! This is quite amazing as out of the 9 games tested, the Phenom II X4 series was faster than the Core i7’s in 5 of them. Although the margins were very limited, the Phenom II X4 was found to be faster, and had it just managed to match the Core i7 series with the Radeon HD 5970, we would have been impressed.

While the Phenom II X4 matched the Core i7 in Crysis Warhead, the only games where it failed was Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts, Left 4 Dead 2 and Batman Arkham Asylum. The Phenom II X4 was noticeably slower in these games, making the Core i7 the better choice here. Still, for the most part we found the Phenom II X4 to be every bit as good as the Core i7 processors when gaming with the new Radeon HD 5970.

Having said that, we recommend that AMD users looking at buying this powerful graphics card make sure that they have a Phenom II X4 processor that is clocked at 3.0GHz or greater. Most Phenom II X4 processors are capable of overclocking to 3.0GHz and beyond, while the more high-end options, such as the Phenom II X4 955 and 965 processors, come clocked at 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz respectively.

While we hardly expect there will be many users trying to pair a $600 US graphics card, such as the Radeon HD 5970, with a budget processor, it is nice to see that the sub-$200 US processors are up to the task. The Intel Core i7 920 proved to be more than powerful enough at $280 US, while the AMD Phenom II X4 955 will work just as well at $165 US, giving users plenty of great options.

 

[MrK6]

Guys, he already bought an i5 750, move on.

 

[mav451]

evolucion8 - that review was done at 2560x1600, not exactly mainstream GPU conditions. If they update with 1680 or 1920 results, then I will put more weight into it. But most of us don't have the 3007, so it doesn't even apply to the majority of users. Plus I rarely put AA on in my games b/c I prefer to have a high MIN FPS for a smoother experience.

 

[GaiaHunter]

evolucion8 - that review was done at 2560x1600, not exactly mainstream GPU conditions. If they update with 1680 or 1920 results, then I will put more weight into it. But most of us don't have the 3007, so it doesn't even apply to the majority of users. Plus I rarely put AA on in my games b/c I prefer to have a high MIN FPS for a smoother experience.

But on the other hand, are you going to spend over $600 on a GPU to play at lower resolutions?

Someone with a $600 GPU might as well be running eyefinity and play at even a higher resolution.