So this X6 thing...

[shiznizza]

After a few years of avoiding upgrading my computer for different reasons, I'm here to upgrade my poor, little computer. She's 8 years old and weezing like an asthmatic marathon runner out of shape. A pentium 4 running an AGP GPU and barely could get it to 1.5 GB of memory and XP takes more time to boot than it really should for my faux-ADD. It's time...

So, with anticipation I was waiting for the Thubans to come out. Generally, all I get to do on my computer is some basic office productivity, mostly Internet surfing and occasionally some gaming. Not worried about it playing Crysis, but as long as it can run my MMO of choice (City of Heroes) I would be happy for awhile.

So basically, is the x6 line worthwhile enough, or should I just stick with looking at an i5-750 or i7-920/930 if I find a deal. The mobo pricing also gets to be a stickler as far as the x58 boards go. Any and all advice is appreciated ahead of time. Thanks for your time to a forum newbie.

 

[ZipSpeed]

No need for X58. If you're looking to save some money, a board with a 785G chipset and 1055T is an excellent combo. i5 750 is the better CPU for sure but pairing the CPU with a decent motherboard may end up costing a bit more.

I'm in a similar predicament. Need to build a computer for work but to get an Intel mobo with similar features and quality to a AMD board will cost an additional $50. Intel CPU tad bit more pricier too. I'm leaning towards the AMD machine to save some money.

 

[yh125d]

Good AM3 and P55 motherboards are about a wash in price...


Either way you go you'll be happy. A modern $60 dual core rig would probably blow your mind speed wise considering what you're coming from.

 

[james 1]

i would go with the x6, come on dude that processor screams power

 

[LoneNinja]

You seem to do nothing that requires much cpu power or anything that is really threaded. Phenom II X6's main strength is in multithreaded software, it's slower in single threaded tasks than I5/I7. Personally I think you would be better off with an I5 750 than a Phenom II X6, but in all honesty you probably won't notice a difference between those and a cheap Athlon II X3.

 

[Makaveli]

^ Agree with this based on your work load!

 

[Idontcare]

Good AM3 and P55 motherboards are about a wash in price...


Either way you go you'll be happy. A modern $60 dual core rig would probably blow your mind speed wise considering what you're coming from.

From a "future upgrade potential" viewpoint are the AM3 mobos (the 890s) expected to be Bulldozer upgradeable or does the upgrade path die with 45nm?

(upgrade path for Intel platforms appear decidedly limited from what I have read lately)

When I'm buying $1k cpus I really don't care if the cpu necessitates me dropping another $300 on a new mobo, but when I'm buying $150-$300 cpus I really would rather not have the cpu purchase require me to spend an additional $150-$250 on a new mobo.

If I jump into LGA1156 or LGA1366 today I have a pretty good idea where my investment leaves me in a years time when SandyBridge debuts. What's the story with jumping into an AM3 platform today?

 

[Soleron]

From a "future upgrade potential" viewpoint are the AM3 mobos (the 890s) expected to be Bulldozer upgradeable or does the upgrade path die with 45nm?

Initial Bulldozer products are confirmed to be Socket AM3.

http://techreport.com/r.x/2009_11_11_AMD_sheds_light_on_Bulldozer_Bobcat_desktop_plans/roadmap.png

AMD has been quite good about that meaning motherboard compatibility too, ever since AM2, but it's not certain.

You are right, Sandy Bridge will not fit in the same socket.

 

[Idontcare]

Initial Bulldozer products are confirmed to be Socket AM3.

http://icrontic.com/uploads/2009/11/amd_analyst_day_2009_desktop_roadmap.png

AMD has been quite good about that meaning motherboard compatibility too, ever since AM2, but it's not certain.

You are right, Sandy Bridge will not fit in the same socket.

:thumbsup: awesome, thanks for the link to the AMD roadmap too.

 

[yh125d]

From a "future upgrade potential" viewpoint are the AM3 mobos (the 890s) expected to be Bulldozer upgradeable or does the upgrade path die with 45nm?

(upgrade path for Intel platforms appear decidedly limited from what I have read lately)

When I'm buying $1k cpus I really don't care if the cpu necessitates me dropping another $300 on a new mobo, but when I'm buying $150-$300 cpus I really would rather not have the cpu purchase require me to spend an additional $150-$250 on a new mobo.

If I jump into LGA1156 or LGA1366 today I have a pretty good idea where my investment leaves me in a years time when SandyBridge debuts. What's the story with jumping into an AM3 platform today?

OMG IDC is back!!


And sole answered the question. The bulk of 890 AM3 boards should be compatible with the first round of BD, though it's probably safe to say BD won't be compatible with older 7xx boards or DDR2

 

[Ben90]

OMG IDC is back!!

lol yh125d, I just noticed your signature. We should start the IDC fan club

 

[VirtualLarry]

Phenom 1090T is what all the cool kids are wearing these days.

 

[veri745]

I'd get a PhII 955 BE (C3) and a 890FX mobo and hold out 'til bulldozer

 

[MJinZ]

I came here for a discussion about the BMW X6 and got all excited... thought it was the Garage for a second.

 

[BD231]

IDC in the house, woop woop!

x6 is indeed overkill but at $200 bucks it's not like you're breaking the bank, and in the off chance you decide to use software that needs more cores in the future they'll be there.

Get the x6 or cut the price in half and get a Phenom II x3, those are some pretty decent choice's and they'll both last you. Going from a P4 to either of these CPU's is indeed going to blow your mind.

 

[ElFenix]

if you've got a fry's near you i'd hold out for a quad core amd with am3 mobo for under $100. add in $100 ddr3, a new power supply for under $50, new hard drive for $90, and maybe an SSD if you can find one for under $150 that doesn't blow, and you'll be so much better off than what you've currently got. toss in a 5750 for $130 and you'll be impressed. don't forget the windows tax.

 

[james 1]

good to see you back IDC, you have been missed

 

[Idontcare]

heh, :$ hey guys how's it been going? Yeah been busy for a while in "real life", went from lots of free time on my hands to basically no free time. Haven't been lurking either, just completely out of the loop for a few months.

Anywho this X6 chip has me geeked because the price is quite nice and the clockspeeds/wattage is just amazing process engineering combined with amazing design engineering. Not that Intel doesn't have that going for them too but they didn't get there on the budget AMD has and I got to give props (and open my wallet) for such an engineering accomplishment.

I'm not trying to be altruistic though, my main desktop rig is a stock-clock Q6600 and after having spent years with a vaporphase LS banging away next to my ears and then screaming loud fans on my Tuniq when I stepped down to air-cooled stuff I really have come to value "peace and quiet" with "fast-enough" computing power for 98% of my workday.

But there is that other 2%...when I queue up a job that saturates 4 cores and takes hours because of those darn slow stock clocks...where I wish I had higher clockspeeds (without the higher thermals which then require noisy fanspeed) as well as more cores.

So I'm thinking this X6 is perfect. I can leave it stock clocks, nice and quiet, and let that turbo-clocking make my compiles and stuff a little zippier and when I really need to dump a project onto the cores I can pop open that AMD overclock tool and overclock thru windows (and boost up the HSF rpms) without rebooting my rig (I think I have that right, I can do that, right?) and when the job is done I just undo the temporary overclock and slow down my HSF and keep on trucking without the reboot.

(I hate rebooting my rig, damn areca raid controller + other stuff makes the reboot cycle take about 5 min, ugh)

Looks like you guys got along just fine these past few months, any exciting ritual sacrifices made while I was out?

 

[richierich1212]

IDC has finally reappeared.

 

[shiznizza]

GYAH! Fry's... ahhh, seems like not too long ago I lived only a 20 minute drive away... my own Elysian Fields on Saturdays off work... then I moved to a place where the nearest one, or even a Microcenter, is 5 hours away if I speed heavily... depressing...

I have no doubt the performance jump from a P4 to any of these would make me gaga... heck, the Athlon II I use at work makes me cringe when I use my system at home anymore...

The PIIx4 955 was what I was looking at before. Then I got excited to see what the x6 could do with the 890 mobos... not sure if I should still be or not.

 

[yh125d]

heh, :$ hey guys how's it been going? Yeah been busy for a while in "real life", went from lots of free time on my hands to basically no free time. Haven't been lurking either, just completely out of the loop for a few months.

Anywho this X6 chip has me geeked because the price is quite nice and the clockspeeds/wattage is just amazing process engineering combined with amazing design engineering. Not that Intel doesn't have that going for them too but they didn't get there on the budget AMD has and I got to give props (and open my wallet) for such an engineering accomplishment.

I'm not trying to be altruistic though, my main desktop rig is a stock-clock Q6600 and after having spent years with a vaporphase LS banging away next to my ears and then screaming loud fans on my Tuniq when I stepped down to air-cooled stuff I really have come to value "peace and quiet" with "fast-enough" computing power for 98% of my workday.

But there is that other 2%...when I queue up a job that saturates 4 cores and takes hours because of those darn slow stock clocks...where I wish I had higher clockspeeds (without the higher thermals which then require noisy fanspeed) as well as more cores.

So I'm thinking this X6 is perfect. I can leave it stock clocks, nice and quiet, and let that turbo-clocking make my compiles and stuff a little zippier and when I really need to dump a project onto the cores I can pop open that AMD overclock tool and overclock thru windows (and boost up the HSF rpms) without rebooting my rig (I think I have that right, I can do that, right?) and when the job is done I just undo the temporary overclock and slow down my HSF and keep on trucking without the reboot.

(I hate rebooting my rig, damn areca raid controller + other stuff makes the reboot cycle take about 5 min, ugh)

Looks like you guys got along just fine these past few months, any exciting ritual sacrifices made while I was out?

Yep, amazing how much they've gotten out of 45nm. All the way from my e7200 to this... And at only 125w TDP too, the early 965BEs were 140w!




As far as what you missed, mostly a lot of bickering about charlie at SA, crying over fermi, and nemesis_1 being eerily quiet...

We've had to go without your extensive knowledge of process tech! TSMC and GF have both shitcanned 32nm completely in favor of going straight to 28nm, and then TSMC pulled a switcharoo on the type of 28nm they're gonna do, or something

 

[sandorski]

The way I see it, if someone doesn't need the performance of an X6, they probably also don't need the power of an I5 or I7. So it all comes down to Price. Of course you never know if/when your Needs change and that extra performance will be handy.

 

[Idontcare]

Yep, amazing how much they've gotten out of 45nm. All the way from my e7200 to this... And at only 125w TDP too, the early 965BEs were 140w!




As far as what you missed, mostly a lot of bickering about charlie at SA, crying over fermi, and nemesis_1 being eerily quiet...

We've had to go without your extensive knowledge of process tech! TSMC and GF have both shitcanned 32nm completely in favor of going straight to 28nm, and then TSMC pulled a switcharoo on the type of 28nm they're gonna do, or something

lol, the more things change the more they stay the same

funny how the marketing labels get moved around (skipping 32, going straight to 28, etc) but the guys who are actually working on the stuff are still working on the same old stuff. For example internally at TSMC the 40nm "node" is still called/referred to as the 45nm node. All the projects retained their original label, same exact people/engineers/design specs/etc. Only the label changed in the marketing side of their business model. Same with this whole "we skipped/canned 32nm". Nah, the same old 32nm is still there in the development cycle, the same people are working on it, they still internally call it the 32nm "node" but yeah their marketing team has replaced "32nm" with "28nm" in all their presentations and adverts.

Its 45nm -> 40nm all over again, what do you do when your 2010 Toyota Sienna is so far behind schedule that it won't make it to market until 2011? Do you really bring it to the floor-room in 2011 and market it as a 2010 Toyota Sienna? Or do you actually scrap the entire 2010 model design despite having invested millions in developing it up to that point? Nah, you keep developing that behind schedule 2010 model but you slap a fresh new "2011" model name on it and push it out the door. Same thing TSMC did with 45nm when it ended up being a year late, same thing they are doing with 32nm and 22nm. And why not? Its just harmless marketing and regardless the reality inside the fab we consumers don't have a lot of say in the matter.

(ugh, useless rant for what I don't know, just wanted to give a shout out for team Thuban really)

BTW, the Black Pearl, best damn comp hardware purchase I ever made. Ever.

thx for talking me into buying it :thumbsup:

- Phil

 

[yh125d]

BTW, the Black Pearl, best damn comp hardware purchase I ever made. Ever.

thx for talking me into buying it :thumbsup:

- Phil

Me too. There's a good reason I talked at least 6 people into buying one

 

[BD231]

I've never understood why people think it's smart to put high voltage devices into an almost air tight compartment then use annoying plastic fans to keep it all cool. Retarded logic IMO. In fact, I don't have a single case fan in my x3 rig overclocked to 3.73ghz and I idle at 18 to 20c, load at 46 to 48 with a 120mm fan running at a constant 1200rpm (I think, might be lower) on the cpu. Sitting next to it is a pleasure, as the only two fans running are the cpu fan and the fan on my video card, not even noticeable if music is on.

It's all about dissapation, and having an enitre room full of air to work with as opposed to a small air compressed compartment makes all the difference.

Come to think of it, I don't have a single case fan in *ANY* of my rigs anymore; and they're all overclocked to their max potential. I use to volt mod my fans until I got rid of them completely. Now I just find the biggest copper heatsink I can get and marvel at the low noise/temps.

All you need to do is cut a huge hole in your case door and use some common household screen door material to keep the insides safe. That or just remove the door/case fans completely and construct a door out of that same material.

The more exposed your hardware is, the less cooling you'll need. I run some pretty heavy overclocks and noise is never an issue using these tactics.