Should I get the Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz?

[Magic Carpet]

The only problem with Thuban is excessive power consumption when overclocked.

 

[sm625]

It wont be as fast as an i5 but it will be close.

It is not easy to justify spending about 30-50% more to get the i5, but I'm sure people will keep trying!

 

[Magic Carpet]

There are so many perspectives one can look at from... to justify a point. After all, this is just a tool. As long as it does your job it's a fine tool.

At the end of the day the weakest link could be you, not the 20-30% performance gap between the tools. Myself for example, 80% of what I do is my brain work, 20% does the computer. Changing to a faster rig won't be a game changer for me, since I'm the slowest link in my equation.

I need to upgrade myself but it's easier said than done. Point is... look at the bigger picture ;-p

 

[zlejedi]

It wont be as fast as an i5 but it will be close.

It is not easy to justify spending about 30-50% more to get the i5, but I'm sure people will keep trying!

It's very easy to justify spending more. The more you spend the further ahead you will be looking at upgrading ahead.

I once bough 4850 for like 120 euro while gtx 260 was going for 180. I was happy since such a cheap card was giving me good enough performance but it lasted around 12 months before it started to drop in 20-30 fps at 1920x1200 in newer games. So i sold it for 80 euro and got myself 260 GTX for 140 or 150 (don't remember exactly).
Net result I spent the same but I could have gotten much better performance from the start.

Same with CPU i bough 1055T when they were released ( I was distributed computing obsessed at that time) which i recently sold to get 2500K which gives me very noticable gains in minimal fpses. If i spent 50 euro more I'd be runnning i7 xeon 3440 and wouldn't even think about upgrading till IB/Haswell. Or I could have waited with Q6600 I had at that time till SB release. Anyway X6 was wasted cash.

Ask i7 920/930 owners if they regret not getting 100-150 euro cheaper X6 setups

 

[tweakboy]

Uh..not a lot lol. I'm no graphics artist, nor a computer programmer. I'm a grad student so I mostly use my computer for writing papers, browsing the internet (god I sound like a idiot), and on occasions some games.

I guess I'm just looking for an excuse to spend money on a computer upgrade since it has been about 3 and a half years. I just don't know if its justifiably to drop $300 on a i5 2500k with mobo rather than a this phenom/mobo for $158.

DO IT! jump on this deal. 6 core Phenom, overclock that mofu will go so nice with the 6870 card. It will be sooooo much faster then your current CPU. You will never use the full 100 percent full load usage all 6 cores... Games will take up like 60 percent CPU usage,, you have 40 percent free to write papers and play games at same time. You will be set with what you do for many many joyous years with this CPU and graphic card.

Do it, then enjoy it, then thank us / me!

 

[hondaf17]

I have a 1055T and I really like it. I have it running at 3.8GHz.

How easy was it to overclock? This isn't the black edition so it's not as simple as increasing the multiplier, is it? Curious.

TYIA,

 

[tweakboy]

Its as easy at upping the voltage and increasing bus ... Let thilanylyan tell u what to do. gl

 

[fourdegrees11]

The only problem with Thuban is excessive power consumption when overclocked.

My X6 is probably using more power then my graphics card, but my cheap 620w rosewill PSU is still kicking strong, and the 28nm gpus will be even more power friendly so I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The problem lies with the extra heat dumped inside your case, come a hot summer day, you will know what I mean. This could be potentially a problem for some. Let alone all the fan noise you will be dealing with. All the dust building up so rapidly. Some might find that enjoyable though. No doubt about that ;-p

 

[sm625]

Another simple rule of thumb: If one device uses 100 watts more than the other, then it is going to cost 1 penny per hour more to run it.

 

[thilanliyan]

How easy was it to overclock? This isn't the black edition so it's not as simple as increasing the multiplier, is it? Curious.

TYIA,

It was fairly simple. The hardest thing was the memory because I am running 4 sticks of DDR2-800 ram. I had to drop the multiplier to get the memory stable and they are running at less than 800MHz right now.

I set a CPU voltage, 1.4v, and then just upped the HTT until I encountered instability. NB/HTT voltages were upped 1 notch from stock I think. Not much drama.

Here is a database of Thuban OCs. I can actually get to 4GHz, but need 1.5+v to get there and don't want that amount of power consumption. The best OCs were the 1090Ts naturally.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2071268&highlight=thuban+overclock

 

[fourdegrees11]

The problem lies with the extra heat dumped inside your case, come a hot summer day, you will know what I mean. This could be potentially a problem for some. Let alone all the fan noise you will be dealing with. All the dust building up so rapidly. Some might find that enjoyable though. No doubt about that ;-p

Well, I'm getting 46.5C under load, and all that heat is being dumped directly out my exhaust. Video cards are a much bigger culprit of heating up a case. Again I dont see what the problem is, other people might not have thought out their cpu cooling as well though.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The 125w 1055T overclocks as high. It just needs more fiddling to do. If you get a locked Thuban and intend to overclock past 3.5 Ghz, I would strongly recommend to get a quality set of high mhz ram. Motherboard also plays a part in that.

Intel (z68) is an overall better / more future-proof platform but costs more. Since your building from scratch, I'd put that into consideration as well.

Some people like good deals, others quality products.

Ultimately, your choice ought to be based on your needs and your budget. And nobody else here knows that better than you.

 

[BD231]

It was fairly simple. The hardest thing was the memory because I am running 4 sticks of DDR2-800 ram. I had to drop the multiplier to get the memory stable and they are running at less than 800MHz right now.

I set a CPU voltage, 1.4v, and then just upped the HTT until I encountered instability. NB/HTT voltages were upped 1 notch from stock I think. Not much drama.

Here is a database of Thuban OCs. I can actually get to 4GHz, but need 1.5+v to get there and don't want that amount of power consumption. The best OCs were the 1090Ts naturally.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2071268&highlight=thuban+overclock

Have you tried for lower volts? At 3.8ghz you should be ok at 1.35v.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Well, I'm getting 46.5C under load, and all that heat is being dumped directly out my exhaust. Video cards are a much bigger culprit of heating up a case. Again I dont see what the problem is, other people might not have thought out their cpu cooling as well though.

Like I said, some people might enjoy that. Glad, you are

 

[nitrous9200]

I got the 1090t at MC because of the unlocked multiplier (also went for the Biostar board because I don't personally care for nvidia chipsets and it's good). After trying to OC a regular X4, being able to just up the multiplier and dial in some more voltage is a lot easier.

The processor itself is pretty good and I'm happy with it. At idle or low usage, the power consumption/heat is quite good, but it gets a bit warm under load & power usage is higher than I'd like. The stock heatsink has heatpipes and does a decent job but gets loud under load.

So that's what I would do, but you might as well save the $20 or so if you don't mind OC'ing the "regular" way. I've been running a lot of video encoding lately and for multithreaded apps, the performance increase over my quad core phenom was staggering and it should be even greater compared to your C2D.

 

[llee8820]

Thanks for the advice guys. I think I'm going to make the jump and purchase the combo. I just cant justify spending double on a sandy bridge for the workload I use. Plus I'm a poor grad student so this deal is too good to pass up. If I had the money for sure I'd get the i5 2500k, but I think I'm going to be happy with this purchase.

 

[Magic Carpet]

good luck with that build, see if you can add an aftermarket cooler to that combo or that box might just grow wings ;-p

 

[thilanliyan]

Have you tried for lower volts? At 3.8ghz you should be ok at 1.35v.

If you look at the OCing databse, the 1055Ts typically needed more volts to reach the same speed as the 1090Ts. I think mine fails stability testing at 1.375v @ 3.8GHz. I chalked it up to being one of the early batches but I may give it another go if I have some time. I think the newer 1055Ts OC better than the earlier ones.

 

[nyker96]

I think it's great deal at 155 w/ mb, it should be quite fast, if you go intel you should get 2500k+mb but that's at least 300+ probably won't get ya twice the performance even know it costs 2x.

 

[gmaster456]

Its a great CPU. You can't go wrong with it. Especially for your needs. You'll be set for a while.

 

[Dadofamunky]

That's a great deal and a no-brainer.

 

[jpeyton]

Uh..not a lot lol. I'm no graphics artist, nor a computer programmer. I'm a grad student so I mostly use my computer for writing papers, browsing the internet (god I sound like a idiot), and on occasions some games.

You would be best served by an inexpensive, low-power laptop (think AMD E-350 or low-end Sandy-Bridge Pentium) paired with a large external display (24" or better) and a good wireless keyboard/mouse combo. The only upgrade to the laptop I would make would be a reliable SSD and at least 4GB memory (most come with 4GB standard anyways).

The low power laptop will pull about 10W-15W from the wall during light usage; even less if you have the internal display off and connect it to a larger external display. If you have an SSD installed, the system will be incredibly quiet and snappy.

 

[llee8820]

You would be best served by an inexpensive, low-power laptop (think AMD E-350 or low-end Sandy-Bridge Pentium) paired with a large external display (24" or better) and a good wireless keyboard/mouse combo. The only upgrade to the laptop I would make would be a reliable SSD and at least 4GB memory (most come with 4GB standard anyways).

The low power laptop will pull about 10W-15W from the wall during light usage; even less if you have the internal display off and connect it to a larger external display. If you have an SSD installed, the system will be incredibly quiet and snappy.

I already have a laptop, and a tablet lol. I love messing with computers or else I wouldn't be on these forums. I just made the purchase with instead a Asus M5A87 Socket AM3+ 870 ATX AMD Motherboard. I exchanged it for the MSI I purchased, so now I don't have to worry about my mobo catching on fire

 

[Nemesis 1]

Free choice is a thing given to each of us . Its bad enough that men try to suppress that which was given freely. But why do you remove that gift from yourself? If this is what YOU want it matters not what anyone here thinks . Set yourself free and follow your hearts desire.