Phenom x4 9550 experience

[nanaki333]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: nanaki333

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: nanaki333
i have not done any overclocking on these phenoms or my servers. i overclock at home and have my q9550 running with a mild overclock to 3.4 on water. don't care to go much farther.

i'm putting together a system with another board, a gigabyte ga-m61p-s3 with 4GB A-DATA DDR2 800 and an antec 500W PSU and gonna try both phenoms in there. i ripped the original mobo out already and put a q6600 in it. i have the 9550 in there right now installing esx.

You may want to re-think that...the spec for that mobo reads

"Supports AMD Phenom X3/ Athlon X2 processors*"

Note that it doesn't support X4 CPUs...

no, they work. i just did my prime'ing with the 9550 and it hard locked after about 20 minutes at stock speeds. i'm running the 9500 right now and it's been going for about an hour. i think i may have just gotten a bad chip.

this is directly from gigabyte's website.


http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Sup...st.aspx?ProductID=2434

AMD Phenom X4 9650 2300Mhz 512KBx4 2MB Agena 65nm B3 95W 3600 F7E
AMD Phenom X4 9600 2300Mhz 512KBx4 2MB Agena 65nm B2 95W 3600 F7E
AMD Phenom X4 9550 2200Mhz 512KBx4 2MB Agena 65nm B3 95W 3600 F7E
AMD Phenom X4 9500 2200Mhz 512KBx4 2MB Agena 65nm B2 95W 3600 F7C


i'm just gonna shut it down and rma the 9550.

As you will...but think about what you're saying here:

1. You're using the mobo manufacturer's absolute cheapest mobo which is only partially compatible with X4 (only some models) and they don't even state compatability in their main advertising.

2. Two new CPUs have died, and those CPUs don't have a reputation for doing so.

3. There is even a warning about AM2+ chips (though this is only concerning HT)

4. The chipset used in the mobo (6100/430) is far older than any AM2+ chip, so any compatability is probably a hack in the bios...

Do you still believe that the CPU is the most likely problem?

i seem to be going in circles here. i've tried the 9550 on 2 different boards. the original 1, as stated, was specifically for phenom. i feel like you're just taking bits and pieces out of what i say here to try and defend a doa processor. the original 1 was a ECS A770M-A. i put it in that gigabyte board just to test it in another board, other than the 1 originally in the server that i took out and replaced with an intel. i did that, essentially for YOU. i tried a completely different board, completely different chipset, and got the same exact results with the 9550, while the 9500 actually worked. there is no argument here. the chip is doa.

i don't know what else to do to prove it. i tried it on a board with an nforce chipset and an AMD 770 chipset. i would put it on a board with a 780 chipset, but i'm not wasting anymore time on this. i can't believe i went out of my way this much to try and please you guys. some people just have a hard time accepting you can get bad chips.

you even went on to tell me that the board i tried it on doesn't even work with it. the manufacturer says only x2 and x3. i post a link where it says it supports x4, nevermind the fact i already installed esx on it and started running things, but now you're telling me because the thing has a warning at the bottom, that that will affect the cpu. funny how the cpu did the same thing on 2 completely different chipsets.

 

[taltamir]

I gotta go with Viditor. The phenoms are crap for many reasons: Cost per watt, Cost, Max Performance, Inability to compete with much cheaper X2, and so on. But a TLB fixed B3 should not be doing that, and you ARE using a crap mobo. Just because the mobo is not BROKEN and works with an X2 does not mean it is capable with X4, as you personally demonstrated.

 

[nanaki333]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I gotta go with Viditor. The phenoms are crap for many reasons: Cost per watt, Cost, Max Performance, Inability to compete with much cheaper X2, and so on. But a TLB fixed B3 should not be doing that, and you ARE using a crap mobo. Just because the mobo is not BROKEN and works with an X2 does not mean it is capable with X4, as you personally demonstrated.

and yet another person that just reads a couple lines and not read the entire thread before posting. THE CHIP DID THE SAME EXACT THING IN 2 DIFFERENT BOARDS. 1 780 CHIPSET AND 1 NFORCE CHIPSET.

 

[Viditor]

Again, you're going with the absolute lowest cost board available ($50 at NewEgg).

Often the reason those boards are so cheap is that they use the cheapest parts (capacitors, etc...) available.

I'm not trying to pick you apart, mate...
What I'm saying is that if you use the cheapest mobos, you should probably view them with suspicion.
I understand that having it happen twice makes you suspicious, but I honestly don't think you should even have tried it with that Nvidia board (despite what the manufacturer said)...

Spend a few more dollars more and get a GA-MA78GM-S2H ($90) or one of the Asus M3A boards (under $100) before you RMA the CPU...JMHO

 

[nanaki333]

as i said in another post, ECS A770M-A. not a great board, but still a 770 chipset. i have a 780 chipset based board, but my fingers hurt from screwing and unscrewing (shutup perverts!) so i think i'm done for now. testing it in the gigabyte board with the nforce chipset and getting the same results was enough to convince me it was dead.

sorry for going off the deep end, i was just getting agitated cause i've tried like everything, i even went the extra mile to test a completely different board with both CPUs. sometimes you just get a bad one. i had 1 guy tell me he got a Q6600 that would not work with stock clocks at stock voltage

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: nanaki333
as i said in another post, ECS A770M-A. not a great board, but still a 770 chipset. i have a 780 chipset based board, but my fingers hurt from screwing and unscrewing (shutup perverts!) so i think i'm done for now. testing it in the gigabyte board with the nforce chipset and getting the same results was enough to convince me it was dead.

sorry for going off the deep end, i was just getting agitated cause i've tried like everything, i even went the extra mile to test a completely different board with both CPUs. sometimes you just get a bad one. i had 1 guy tell me he got a Q6600 that would not work with stock clocks at stock voltage

I understand the frustration well...
No chip/mobo is a guarantee. Yes, I've seen a couple of Q6600 RMAs, but in those cases I would also say the culprit was most likely something other than the CPU.
In my experience, the CPU is usually the most stable and reliable of the components (OC chips being the exception).

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I gotta go with Viditor. The phenoms are crap for many reasons: Cost per watt, Cost, Max Performance, Inability to compete with much cheaper X2, and so on. But a TLB fixed B3 should not be doing that, and you ARE using a crap mobo. Just because the mobo is not BROKEN and works with an X2 does not mean it is capable with X4, as you personally demonstrated.

Um. No the Phenom's are very good at server stuff. I agree with Vidator because the OP is doing an improper test bed with very, very cheap motherboards.

Core 2 Duo based Xeons are kinda meh compared to Opteron X2s and even Phenoms for server work so whatever fanboi crap you have against AMD you should know your chips first.

 

[nanaki333]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: taltamir
I gotta go with Viditor. The phenoms are crap for many reasons: Cost per watt, Cost, Max Performance, Inability to compete with much cheaper X2, and so on. But a TLB fixed B3 should not be doing that, and you ARE using a crap mobo. Just because the mobo is not BROKEN and works with an X2 does not mean it is capable with X4, as you personally demonstrated.

Um. No the Phenom's are very good at server stuff. I agree with Vidator because the OP is doing an improper test bed with very, very cheap motherboards.

Core 2 Duo based Xeons are kinda meh compared to Opteron X2s and even Phenoms for server work so whatever fanboi crap you have against AMD you should know your chips first.

read the entire thread (if you dare). the 9500 works fine, the 9550 does not, in 2 different boards, 2 completely different manufacturers, 2 completely different chipsets, same results. cheap components have nothing to do with it. this is my personal test server for work, they won't let me get really nice stuff for it

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: taltamir
I gotta go with Viditor. The phenoms are crap for many reasons: Cost per watt, Cost, Max Performance, Inability to compete with much cheaper X2, and so on. But a TLB fixed B3 should not be doing that, and you ARE using a crap mobo. Just because the mobo is not BROKEN and works with an X2 does not mean it is capable with X4, as you personally demonstrated.

Um. No the Phenom's are very good at server stuff. I agree with Vidator because the OP is doing an improper test bed with very, very cheap motherboards.

Core 2 Duo based Xeons are kinda meh compared to Opteron X2s and even Phenoms for server work so whatever fanboi crap you have against AMD you should know your chips first.

you counter my argument that an X2 is better then phenom by calling me an intel fanboi and telling me that the X2 is better then the xeon?
I have nothing against AMD... from 2004-2007 I said "the only reason to buy an intel is ignorance of the competition". It was simply because AMD was better. Now the opposite is true. The phenom is a peice of crap for any type of gaming or home usage. It is simply no useful at all and far too expensive.

Originally posted by: nanaki333
read the entire thread (if you dare). the 9500 works fine, the 9550 does not, in 2 different boards, 2 completely different manufacturers, 2 completely different chipsets, same results. cheap components have nothing to do with it. this is my personal test server for work, they won't let me get really nice stuff for it

Sorry, I missed that part. if you used completely different chipset and mobos then it is quite possible that something else is amiss. Even if eventually you could come to a combination that works, your observation that it is much more unstable, and harder to get a working system with, is duly noted.

 

[formulav8]

you counter my argument that an X2 is better then phenom by calling me an intel fanboi and telling me that the X2 is better then the xeon?
I have nothing against AMD... from 2004-2007 I said "the only reason to buy an intel is ignorance of the competition". It was simply because AMD was better. Now the opposite is true. The phenom is a peice of crap for any type of gaming or home usage. It is simply no useful at all and far too expensive.

______________________


No offense really meant but you sound like your 12 years old or something.


Anyways, show me how the Phenom is a piece of crap? Especially in gaming? At most decent gaming resolutions the Phenom pushes the Video to its limit just like the Core2 cpus do. I've yet to see a game that the Phenom was producing less than 30fps unless it was video card limited? How is that junk in gaming? Can they be slower than Core2's in non-gpu limited areas? Of course; but there is No game that the Core2 can do that the Phenom cannot do.


And its junk for home use? It won't download as fast as a Core2 cpu does? It won't play solitaire as fast as the Core cpu does? Is there some application that the cpu can't run because its to slow? It doesn't meet Microsoft Office minimum requirements or takes to long to open a document? Really the Phenom cpu is overkill for almost all of the home users. Maybe the top 5% of Home users would benefit from the Quad Core Phenom. Regular people which makes up most of the computer users could do everything they want with the cpu and not think twice about it. You definitely sound like your talking out of ignorance? Or purposely being a fanny and see Intel as God?


You act like the CPU is slow. It is SLOWER compared to the Core2 but it is by no means 'slow'.


This is of course just my opinion like your post was.


Jason

 

[kotrtim]

Intel can do 4, while AMD can only do 3 instructions per clock maximum, i think that is what makes AMD slower. AMD spends lots of resources on memory bandwidth thing than the core it seems. Phenom is taken from the server CPU design. When there is no intention of overclocking, phenom is comparable in terms of price & multicore performance to intel's solution. Plus 9X00 shouldn't be a problem when TLB patch is enabled, or else they won't sell it as OEM chips (Phenom 9100).

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: kotrtim
Intel can do 4, while AMD can only do 3 instructions per clock maximum, i think that is what makes AMD slower. AMD spends lots of resources on memory bandwidth thing than the core it seems. Phenom is taken from the server CPU design. When there is no intention of overclocking, phenom is comparable in terms of price & multicore performance to intel's solution. Plus 9X00 shouldn't be a problem when TLB patch is enabled, or else they won't sell it as OEM chips (Phenom 9100).

That's not quite right...those are different types of "instructions".
Intel retires 4 microps, and AMD retires 3 full instructions. Actually, AMD retires quite a bit more data per clock...
Also, all of the new 9x50 are B3 which means they don't need the patch at all...

 

[SlowSpyder]

you counter my argument that an X2 is better then phenom by calling me an intel fanboi and telling me that the X2 is better then the xeon?
I have nothing against AMD... from 2004-2007 I said "the only reason to buy an intel is ignorance of the competition". It was simply because AMD was better. Now the opposite is true. The phenom is a peice of crap for any type of gaming or home usage. It is simply no useful at all and far too expensive.

Damn, don't tell my Phenom that it's 'a pice of crap for any type of gaming or home usage." Seeing as that's all I use it for every day. It's funny how people look at benchmarks and see that at 800x600 medium quality settings a Phenom may run a game at only 70fps and the C2D's may run that same game at 90fps so that means you need a C2D to game... even though the vast majority of gamers are so far video card limited as most people don't play at those resolutions. And for 'home usage' do you really think that the average person can tell a difference running Office, IE, Winzip, etc? I'm going to go back to playing Gothic 3 @ 1680x1050/high... I hope my Phenom can handle it. :/

 

[bryanW1995]

amd has had many self-inflicted wounds over the past couple of years, mobo compatibility is on the latest. Is the OP's problem possibly mobo-related? sure. Would any of us be absolutely pissed off if this happened to us on 2 diferent quads, wihether they were amd or intel? absolutely.

Let's face it, a $65 intel mobo plus a $200 cpu will annihilate anything that amd can throw at it these days, even with no overclocking at all. If you decide to oc then you're looking at 30-40% faster for intel. Plus, you don't have to worry about poor compatibility issues with a ds3L or ip35e and q6600.

 

[nanaki333]

well, i rma'd the chip friday evening and gonna get my stepbrother to ship it out for me. the good news is, it was easy to get amd to take it after i told them everything i did. they were convinced it was the chip.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: nanaki333
well, i rma'd the chip friday evening and gonna get my stepbrother to ship it out for me. the good news is, it was easy to get amd to take it after i told them everything i did. they were convinced it was the chip.

I would say that they were actually more convinced they just didn't want to argue about it...