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PII x4 945 or X6 1055T or i5 750 ?? What system to upgrade to?

G

gsethi

Diamond Member
Current specs:
C2D E6400 @ 3.20GHz
GA P35-DS3L motherboard
nvidia 8800GT video card
74gb Raptor hard drive - OS drive
Win VISTA ultimate

Already ordered(arriving soon):
ATI 5850 video card
4gb DDR3 RAM
Have Win 7 DVD lying around - will be installing after reformat

Imp Decision (with pricing as follows - from Frys):
Phenom II x4 945 + MSI 790X-G45 ATX motherboard ($130 + tax)
Intel I5 750 + MSI P55m-GD41 mATX motherboard ($185 + tax)
Phenom X6 1055T + GA-890GPA-UD3H ATX motherboard ($250 + tax)

More Decisions Thinking of ordering (should i order or stick with my raptor):
Intel x25-m g2 80GB SSD ($200)
Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSF ($25)

Which CPU/motherboard combo should i go with (with my ATI 5850 card)? I am thinking of going with PII and putting the savings towards Intel SSD (what you guys say) ? But the urge to get X6 1055T is really there (especially with that 890GX motherboard). or should i just stick with I5 750 (and a cheap motherboard?)

Games played (1920x1200 resolution on 24" LCD)
COD:MW, COD:MW2
AA3
BC2
Occasional video rendering (got 1080p camcorder)

PS: I dont upgrade much anymore. I am upgrading my system after about 3.5 years now. Looking to keep current setup for couple of years (unless some really good game changer gets released). Am open to possibility of just upgrading CPU in a year or so.
 
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If you're only upgrading about every 3 years, then get the best you can now.

The Thuban deal is good if you're rendering stuff, and it's pretty good at gaming too. If you decide to go for the SSD, do you already have a larger harddrive for other stuff? And since AMD will most likely stick with AM3, you could just get a new CPU later when BD comes.
 
SYes, ordered Seagate 1.5 TB drive for storage. Will use my existing 320GB for backups of important data
 
SSDs are awesome, but still very pricey. People seem to love the performance out of the Samsung F3 HDDs. The 500GB drive is $50 on sale right now, you can check that out to save some $ too.
 
You can't go wrong with the X6. That I5 will be a better game cpu, but as more games and apps become multi threaded, the X6 will push ahead. And a lot of people think that more multi threaded software is a ways off, but I think its closer than folks think.
 
Looks like i5 750 is out.

The consensus seems to be to go with X6. However, should i save ~$130 and go with the cheaper Phenom X4 945 ?? (and put that $130 towards SSD or possible CPU upgrade next year??).

What is the difference between X4 945 and X6 1055T ??
 
IMO we need some more time to evaluate the X6. It does seem favorable compared to i7-750, but the samples so far have been mostly review units. If 4.0 GHz turns out to be a norm for most X6's, then yeah it gets the nod. One thing I'm not liking with these X6's is that nobody seems to know what temperature they're running at. :colbert:
 
OBLAMA2009 said:
get the I7 860 OR 930. P2 is inferior and slower and i5 is clocked too low
Click to expand...

except their cost may fall outside op's budget. you gonna spend more than $150-$200 for roughly 10% overall performance increase. if it was me, id rather spend that on say ssd or something you'll notice a much greater performance gain.

lopri said:
IMO we need some more time to evaluate the X6. It does seem favorable compared to i7-750, but the samples so far have been mostly review units. If 4.0 GHz turns out to be a norm for most X6's, then yeah it gets the nod. One thing I'm not liking with these X6's is that nobody seems to know what temperature they're running at. :colbert:
Click to expand...

it seems that 4.0ghz is rather common for P2 if you have a decent air cooler (not that I'll ever need 4ghz), 4ghz is also common for i5 750 but you'll need a decent air cooler for that as well.
Temperature wise, amd's limit is 62C and iirc there are some posts saying stock cooler will go between 42C idle to 55C idle with ambient 37C. With a decent air cooler, temperature shouldn't exceed 45C even with overclocking.
i5 seems to run way hotter like many intel cpus, temp at 2.88ghz is 62C after priming for 10min (stock cooler, ambient 25C).

I would recommend x6 because you'll get a more future proof cpu and a good motherboard to go with, but if you decide to save some money and go for the i5 there is nothing wrong with that since i5 is a very good cpu as well.
 
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No body thinks that saving (50% - ~$130) and going with x4 945 is better ? LOL..or is the x4 945 that bad ?

I am thinking of going with 1055T or 945 (to save $130). What do you guys say ? Is there going to be a big performance difference between 945 and 1055t to justify $130 cost difference ?
 
Im also wondering the same thing, well kind of the same thing.

I already pulled the trigger and ordered a 1055t the first time the deal came around from tiger direct, however at the moment i already have a

AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103652

with the fourth core unlocked and overclocked to 3.4ghz with no voltage increase.


I dont really do anything to stress the 4 cores i have now, am i better of just selling the x6 when it gets here, or will the performance gain be worth it to slap the x6 in.
 
Depends on how high you're going to overclock the 1055T. Many people forget to even overclock the NB. If you want to see what overclocking the NB does, try it with your 720. Both cpu and NB can't clock as high with C2 revision processors.

It's your money; only you know if stuff is going to be worth it or not. Just go for the 945 and SSD combo then. You should be very happy with that.
 
lopri said:
IMO we need some more time to evaluate the X6. It does seem favorable compared to i7-750, but the samples so far have been mostly review units. If 4.0 GHz turns out to be a norm for most X6's, then yeah it gets the nod. One thing I'm not liking with these X6's is that nobody seems to know what temperature they're running at. :colbert:
Click to expand...

That's either a good reason to wait or to be conservative in your overclock until updates dcome out to fix the problem... I'd still go for the X6 myself.
 
I'd say save some money over Intel and go with a X6 and 890GX and also invest in a decent air cooler so you can push that X6 to 4GHz. Most of us in this forum are quite impressed hyped with the arrival of the X6. If it were more expensive we wouldn't but atm it's an insanely good price for what you get.
 
gsethi said:
Is there going to be a big performance difference between 945 and 1055t to justify $130 cost difference ?
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Depends on what you do use it for and what pricetag you do attach to performance.

Properly multi-threaded, 1055T has 50% more cores, but multiplier is 14. Single-threaded, 1055T Turbo's increases multiplier to 16.5, while 945's remains at 15.
 
classy said:
You can't go wrong with the X6. That I5 will be a better game cpu, but as more games and apps become multi threaded, the X6 will push ahead. And a lot of people think that more multi threaded software is a ways off, but I think its closer than folks think.
Click to expand...

We hardly use quad core for games now and that took more than 3 years from dual core optimization. Only a handful of games today use 4 threads. Even then I7 has hyperthreading for 8 threads.

From the countless benches I've seen i7 has the advantage now and later x6 might close the gap.
 
I will give you another option for you if you have a Fry's near you:

http://shopping.dallasnews.com/ROP/Ads.aspx?advid=2519&adid=9256425&subid=29407654&type=

or

http://shopping.dallasnews.com/ROP/Ads.aspx?advid=2519&adid=9268280&subid=29443723&type=

You will see the biggest benefit by adding the SSD and the HD5850 over everything else. You may even be able to unlock the fourth core, making it even sweeter. What you are planning on doing, gaming and some video conversion, this would be great. Put the savings into a better GPU or larger SSD or even dual SSD's for RAID 0.
 
AzN said:
We hardly use quad core for games now and that took more than 3 years from dual core optimization. Only a handful of games today use 4 threads. Even then I7 has hyperthreading for 8 threads.

From the countless benches I've seen i7 has the advantage now and later x6 might close the gap.
Click to expand...

I am with this guy. There is all the talks of multi threading being the future norm, but that's been going on for some time. Still not seeing a convincing proof yet.

On the flip side, many of the reviewers and regular folks in these forums report the quads are noticeably smoother than duals, which isn't shown in the fps numbers. Wonder if hexas are going to have a similar effect? I would like to see a detailed and strictly gaming oriented 1055T review..
 
still contemplating on which combo to go with. Yes, I do have Frys nearby. I have ordered all the parts as follows:

4GB (2x 2gb) Corsair XMS3 DDR3
ATI 5850
Samsung F3 500GB (OS drive) + Seagate 1.5TB Storage drive (Decided not to go with SSD for now)
Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSF

Decision left to be made is CPU/Mobo combo (have Frys/Microcenter nearby).
Still confused between x4 940($130) and 1055T($250) combo. The x3 440 sounds interesting also ($80 - unlock the 4th core and then its the same as 940)
 
I would absolutely have recommended saving money on the platform if it meant you could get the SSD. But looks like I'm too late! After having experience SSD's on a few different systems myself... if it had to be a trade off between CPU and SSD....I'd go with the SSD every time and trade down to a lower CPU.

Of course if it's going to be used for gaming regularly...the video card then becomes the first priority even over SSD. But you have that covered already.
 
As you would do well with either the i5 750 or the AMD x6 1005t, it's hard not to recommend the six-core chip at the $200 price point (and saving you dollars is what this is all about, after all). The 1055t goes toe to toe with the 750 and may pass it as more applications become multi-threaded.

AM3 is a nice upgrade path as well, as you likely won't have to switch your motherboard out for quite some time. AMD boards obviously only support crossfire technology, but since you have a 5850, that doesn't matter. You could certainlu upgrade your CPU in a year with an AM3 board. Not sure about intel (see below).

Finally, a lot of AMD boards have accessible onboard video, which has been a lifesaver for me (graphics card once shit the bed at 2:30 am when I had a summary judgment brief due the next morning; I would have been boned without my onboard video).

The 750 is probably a little better as a CPU (at stock). Intel has plans to kill the 1156 socket, however, and the P55 chipset is kinda nerfed (though more is made of this in theory than you can actually see in practice). But I think the extra two cores while overclocked would be hard to pass up...
 
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