Whom is still rocking an Athlon / Phenom II (even X6), or a Core2Duo/Quad? X58 users too.

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mopardude87

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2018
3,348
1,575
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How do the capacitors look? Had similar issues with my motherboards and it was a few bulging caps. Easy fix if you can solder.

Haven't taken a good look at them but i do lack a soldering gun and i have very little experience with soldering.I did soldering mostly on sterling silver custom jewelry and this was years ago.As much as i love the nostalgia of the C2D i'm not gonna bother with it any more.I got a FX 8350 with 8gb of ram that needs a motherboard and if a occasion comes up where i need to use something its prob gonna be the 8350 before i hassle any further with the C2D.Maybe if i land some free or next to it desktop that is a 775 perhaps i could slap the E8500 in there but that is about it.
 

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
3,835
1,514
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What is still performing relatevely OK are the older Phenom 2 X4, i tested a 840 last week with 8GB DDR2 and 780 Chipset and i was impressed, and the board was a Asus M3A78-EM, the I/O on the back it is impressive, it even has a Displayport.

I also tested a Phenom X3 8450e with a Biostar GT8100 and it does OK with a SSD on Windows 10. The key is having a relatively modern IGP, i saw C2D/C2Q with G31 performing awful on W10.
 
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Johnny Ringo

Member
Dec 6, 2012
52
25
91
Has anyone installed Windows 10 on an AM2+ motherboard and gotten ACHI drivers to work for a SSD?

I have a Biostar TA 790 GXE (128 MB Radeon video card onboard).
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
What is still performing relatevely OK are the older Phenom 2 X4, i tested a 840 last week with 8GB DDR2 and 780 Chipset and i was impressed, and the board was a Asus M3A78-EM, the I/O on the back it is impressive, it even has a Displayport.

I also tested a Phenom X3 8450e with a Biostar GT8100 and it does OK with a SSD on Windows 10. The key is having a relatively modern IGP, i saw C2D/C2Q with G31 performing awful on W10.
Yea, I think the only reason my E5450 is bearable is A, it's clocked to 3.9Ghz, B, I run a 7770 and C, I use a SSD as my boot/main drive. Still running Win 7 Pro though, I use 10 at work on occasion and I don't really care for the layout.
 

Titonus

Junior Member
Feb 26, 2015
6
0
66
Has anyone installed Windows 10 on an AM2+ motherboard and gotten ACHI drivers to work for a SSD?

I have a Biostar TA 790 GXE (128 MB Radeon video card onboard).

I think I installed ACHI drivers with AM2+ mobo (chinese), AMD 785G chipset.

Phenom II X4 945@3 Ghz, 8 GB RAM, Geforce GTX 1050 Ti and SSD as main HDD, playing most of latest games at medium level (1080p). Enough power today.
 

Johnny Ringo

Member
Dec 6, 2012
52
25
91
I think I installed ACHI drivers with AM2+ mobo (chinese), AMD 785G chipset.

Phenom II X4 945@3 Ghz, 8 GB RAM, Geforce GTX 1050 Ti and SSD as main HDD, playing most of latest games at medium level (1080p). Enough power today.

Thanks! I will try a format/reinstall to see if I can get the AHCI interface to install.

I feel the same way about my old Phenom 720 (unlocked to 4 cores, and 3.2 Ghz), and 8 GB of RAM. It still plows thru everything with ease that I do (no gaming). I just want to be up to date with Windows updates with the impending end of support for Windows 7.
 

Oddtechfan

Junior Member
Mar 26, 2019
3
0
6
I am using as sort of a back-up/side pc my old gaming rig based on a phenom II 955 Black Edition. It doesn't see everyday use currently but does usually get used 2 or 3 times a week for some older programs on there that don't play well with windows 10.
 

DeathSniper

Member
Oct 19, 2004
96
0
66
My wifey is still using my old Q9450@3.2Ghz w/ 8GB RAM and it's definitely getting long in the tooth lol. I have a i7-4770k @ 4.3Ghz so when I use it even for mundane things...yeah, I try not to touch it lol.

Should be getting her a brand spanking new upgrade for her in the next two weeks :D
 

someone16

Senior member
Dec 18, 2003
522
9
81
It's amazing how usable these chips still are after 10 years. Still using a Phenom II for everyday tasks and it doesn't feel slow at all, even with a mechanical HDD. I think the main thing is making sure the rig is 8gb+ ram, as browsers like Chrome/Firefox eat memory and it would bog down if you are still running 4gb.
 

rvborgh

Member
Apr 16, 2014
195
94
101
Actually latency is not too bad... between 64 and 70 ns for the threads running on the same die, and slightly higher if the threads are sharing data in main memory but are on different dies in the same socket. Yes its best if you not go off socket if you can... but even if you do its not so bad. Also the code running on that single core gets all of the L3 to itself.

i used to use Process Lasso to pin game threads to cores, but now i use Windows Server WSRM to set the apps to run on specific high speed cores. It works just as well as Lasso from what i can tell.

i really really wish i could overclock the CPU/NB on these Opteron 61xx... but alas i am unable to boot with the CPU/NB overvolted... to give the IMCs stability at higher than 1800 MHz. It would be amazing to run this quad setup with CPU/NB running at 2600 MHz if it were possible.

A Phenom II X8 with very high latency between each core :|
 

In2Photos

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2007
1,603
1,637
136
I still have an Athlon 3000+(socket 939) with 2GB of DDR400 running 24/7 as my unRAID server. My x58 rig with an i7-920 and 6GB of RAM is still going strong too. 13 and 10 years old, respectively.
 

colonel

Golden Member
Apr 22, 2001
1,777
18
81
I still have a Athlon Manchester with nvidia Lan Party mobo overclocked, socket 939, DDR400. My wife still has a Socket 939 with the ECS mobo with AGP and SLI on the same motherboard. Good old times!!. I also have a wall on my house with all the mobos I used, Soltek , Abit, Asus AV7 with the Via chipset, Duron, Slot1 cpus.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,230
9,990
126
I still have a Athlon Manchester with nvidia Lan Party mobo overclocked, socket 939, DDR400. My wife still has a Socket 939 with the ECS mobo with AGP and SLI on the same motherboard. Good old times!!. I also have a wall on my house with all the mobos I used, Soltek , Abit, Asus AV7 with the Via chipset, Duron, Slot1 cpus.
Wow... niiice. Wall-hangings. :)
 

mopardude87

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2018
3,348
1,575
96
Wow... niiice. Wall-hangings. :)

I like the idea of maybe hanging up some old treasures too. Maybe get a nice case and drop in a EVGA 512MB 8800GTS, a E6750 and a Q6600 G0. Those 3 upgrades at the time were incredible and many good times. Coming off a pentium 4 2.4ghz and a 7800gs agp it was beyond amazing. I remember all the ads for the C2D in the papers as i helped a friend work a newspaper route where we folded then delivered them and i was like yeah i am going to have one of those C2D very soon when i save up for it. Oh man when i finally bought first a E4300 i was like wow then i quickly did a exchange for a E6750 when it debuted while paying the difference of course and i was beyond joyed.

This i7 8700 i use now pretty much gave the impressions that the C2D first did. Ironically both times i was playing BF first being BF2 then BF1 and both the C2D and this i7 8700 made games go from unplayable to straight up smooth. Sadly gpus have kind of slowed down a bit while prices increases but the gtx280 i guess was the last gpu that blew my pants off. Being able to max 1920x1080 with 8x aa in BF2 while pulling 100fps was quite amazing.Nothing really has wowed me since in the gpu department.

I miss those days of massive improvements per generation. These small marginal upgrades really have stalled the hobby for me. Sitting on a 4 core i5 chip since 2011 till last year was pretty much stale. Very glad i was able to jump into a new platform and be like wow finally something that truly warrantied a upgrade. Now if more games can punish the i7 8700 that would be nice. I went from a maxed out i5 4460 in Amiens 64 player map in BF1 to a bored out i7 8700 lol.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
126
I've still got a system with a Phenom II x2 555 BE unlocked to a x4 955 and o'c to some minor amount. It's been going the longest amount of time of any system I've owned, maybe a near tie with a 500MHz Celeron fileserver I had way back in the day.

It does everything I need that system to do so I don't plan on upgrading it any year soon, though it did get SSDs a few years back when they were retired/downgraded out of a different system.
 

colonel

Golden Member
Apr 22, 2001
1,777
18
81
I've still got a system with a Phenom II x2 555 BE unlocked to a x4 955 and o'c to some minor amount. It's been going the longest amount of time of any system I've owned, maybe a near tie with a 500MHz Celeron fileserver I had way back in the day.

It does everything I need that system to do so I don't plan on upgrading it any year soon, though it did get SSDs a few years back when they were retired/downgraded out of a different system.
Yea the Old good times, I remember when I unlocked the Slot 1 Athlon and flash the bios with DOS for a couple ATI Radeons, couple of these motherboards (Soltek with nvidia chipset) I got hanging from the wall , got the capacitors blowed from the hard gaming I used to, UT99, BF Vietnam
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
I like the idea of maybe hanging up some old treasures too. Maybe get a nice case and drop in a EVGA 512MB 8800GTS, a E6750 and a Q6600 G0. Those 3 upgrades at the time were incredible and many good times. Coming off a pentium 4 2.4ghz and a 7800gs agp it was beyond amazing. I remember all the ads for the C2D in the papers as i helped a friend work a newspaper route where we folded then delivered them and i was like yeah i am going to have one of those C2D very soon when i save up for it. Oh man when i finally bought first a E4300 i was like wow then i quickly did a exchange for a E6750 when it debuted while paying the difference of course and i was beyond joyed.

This i7 8700 i use now pretty much gave the impressions that the C2D first did. Ironically both times i was playing BF first being BF2 then BF1 and both the C2D and this i7 8700 made games go from unplayable to straight up smooth. Sadly gpus have kind of slowed down a bit while prices increases but the gtx280 i guess was the last gpu that blew my pants off. Being able to max 1920x1080 with 8x aa in BF2 while pulling 100fps was quite amazing.Nothing really has wowed me since in the gpu department.

I miss those days of massive improvements per generation. These small marginal upgrades really have stalled the hobby for me. Sitting on a 4 core i5 chip since 2011 till last year was pretty much stale. Very glad i was able to jump into a new platform and be like wow finally something that truly warrantied a upgrade. Now if more games can punish the i7 8700 that would be nice. I went from a maxed out i5 4460 in Amiens 64 player map in BF1 to a bored out i7 8700 lol.
Shoot, since we're being nostalgic I remember the Celeron 300A we were all able to OC to get close to the $400 Pentium 2, for less than $100 this was a stellar deal and probably the most important overclock in CPU history..
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
126
^ There were so many that it's hard to call the winner, but yeah the further back you go, the more the struggle was for a CPU to make the GUI as fast as we could push it, the more dazzling the result was.

In general the trend was a new process size, you bought the low end of that series and cranked the FSB. Celeron upped to 100MHz FSB, or even Tualatin Celeron to 133MHz FSB was a P4 contender at a fraction of the cost and didn't make systems into an EZ-Bake oven (rare example of o'c for lower power), etc, etc.

I feel like Core2Duo was the shift there, that by that point everyone had a reasonable amount of computing power to do most common things and it was then the gamers, the compute-intensive industry apps, cad, etc, that keep pushing past what the average person needed... except for !@#$ google/etc pushing compute intensive ads on people where you needed performance just to overcome the bloat on a webpage you Just Wanted To Read.

Then along came widescreen video format, and it all went to hell. I digress, while looking at a 4K monitor where 80% of the pixels are wasted on this webpage full of empty space because F-YOU BLOCKED ADVERTISERS, lol.

If you block ads, the web is now 80% wasted monitor... not that the alternative is worse.
 

mopardude87

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2018
3,348
1,575
96
Shoot, since we're being nostalgic I remember the Celeron 300A we were all able to OC to get close to the $400 Pentium 2, for less than $100 this was a stellar deal and probably the most important overclock in CPU history..

Was a a bit before my time but if i recall i have heard you could pull off like a 100% overclock on those? At least my Q6600 was a chip that really was extremely easy to get to 3Ghz. Don't even think a i7 8700k can do a 25% overclock that easy if at all without costs just jumping through the roof.Between a beefier motherboard, water cooling set up i can almost say for the price i did fairly well with a i7 8700 non k sitting at 4.3ghz all cores . Unless games punish 12 threads next generation, i doubt this baby is going anywhere any time soon. Every quad core since for the time has seriously held up to what i did with it without overclocking.

Intel may have hurt themselves a bit also this time around making both the k and non k series 8700 both boost to the same exact 6 core boost speed of 4.3ghz so in the end you end up simply paying a oc tax nothing more. I remember drooling at the idea of a i7 4790k with its insane boost clocks replacing my i5 4460 for BF1 till i realized my feature packed H81 mobo and its 2 ram slots and its occupied 8gb may be more hassle to deal with then i wanted. Not sure a board without sata 6/usb 3.0 and a pci-e slot that was locked at 2.0 really warrantied a i7 4790k. I just thought alright its as fast as a i7 i could get without ocing. :) I do laugh at the fact the second a game crushed the i5 it also choked on the 8gb.That has been the biggest eye opener for me since the P4/2gb and BF2 to C2D upgrade.

Won't lie when i felt so glad i had a REAL reason to finally jump off a 4 core.Hard to believe i had 11 years on them. The E6750 barely had a shelf life cause as soon as i upgraded the 8800gts to the gtx280, the Q6600 came with for UT3 lol. At least back then when a gpu came out it was a HUGE upgrade . If a gpu twice as fast as a 2080ti came out today,maybe a very good chance for everyone not on 4k we will run into bottlenecks.Maybe not bottlenecks like oh we are only hitting 40fps but more like well its prob time to jump to 4k kind of bottleneck. I miss those days but i guess shrinking down the nano isn't as easy as before though too.
 

colonel

Golden Member
Apr 22, 2001
1,777
18
81
^ There were so many that it's hard to call the winner, but yeah the further back you go, the more the struggle was for a CPU to make the GUI as fast as we could push it, the more dazzling the result was.

In general the trend was a new process size, you bought the low end of that series and cranked the FSB. Celeron upped to 100MHz FSB, or even Tualatin Celeron to 133MHz FSB was a P4 contender at a fraction of the cost and didn't make systems into an EZ-Bake oven (rare example of o'c for lower power), etc, etc.

I feel like Core2Duo was the shift there, that by that point everyone had a reasonable amount of computing power to do most common things and it was then the gamers, the compute-intensive industry apps, cad, etc, that keep pushing past what the average person needed... except for !@#$ google/etc pushing compute intensive ads on people where you needed performance just to overcome the bloat on a webpage you Just Wanted To Read.

Then along came widescreen video format, and it all went to hell. I digress, while looking at a 4K monitor where 80% of the pixels are wasted on this webpage full of empty space because F-YOU BLOCKED ADVERTISERS, lol.

If you block ads, the web is now 80% wasted monitor... not that the alternative is worse.
I switched to Linux and dump the Windows empire from my laptop cause of ADs. long time ago.
 

colonel

Golden Member
Apr 22, 2001
1,777
18
81
Shoot, since we're being nostalgic I remember the Celeron 300A we were all able to OC to get close to the $400 Pentium 2, for less than $100 this was a stellar deal and probably the most important overclock in CPU history..
I flashed the Bios of the ATI 9550gs AGP, the VC oc like crazy passing the speed of the ATI 9550XT, my gaming was awesome.
 
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amd6502

Senior member
Apr 21, 2017
971
360
136
I'm seeing on ebay Athlon 760k's for under $28. Seems like a pretty sweet option for a dumbster build if you can get a cheap fm2+ or fm2 board and recycled ram. The performance is pretty close to 860k; just a slight MT hit due to the the front end getting doubled up in Steamroller. (32nm also clocked a bit higher than the 28nm APUs.) Also, added bonus: absent a "security" coprocessor.