wow, those rana chips pack some serious bang for buck

[konakona]

A friend of mine recently built a cheap computer as a secondary machine. Since he wasn't in the mood to spend a whole lot of money on it, we were planning on getting in on one of the i3 combo deals at fry's. Too bad they were out it if, so we had to go with another combo including a 785 mobo and a x3 435 (rana).

Just got to put win 7 on it last nite and started playing around with OC'ing. With a modest boost of 0.1v, the chip was able to do 3625 on core (250x14.5) and 2500 on the cpu-nb, OCCT stable all night long and all. That was with a cheap Hyper 212 pro from microcenter with no additional cooling.

The best part yet is not only the fourth core unlocked, so did the 6MB L3 cache! I am aware unlockable L3 on rana cores is not a common thing that nobody should really count on, but still.

So in the end what he spent on cpu/mobo/cooling ends up being:
$66 on cpu/mobo ar + $22 OTD on cooling
Quite possibly it worked out better than getting an i3. Since the machine will stay at school, power consumption isn't something we are worried about.

Compared to my 965BE @3.8/2.8 with a 790gx mobo which cost me nearly $200 not too long ago.. Sure my cpu is BE and the mobo offers way more flexibility in terms of voltage selection, CF (which I would never use anyway) and whatnot.. But OC'ing that rana was no more complex than my BE chip, took me a few hours at most.

Now I am kinda jealous

 

[LoneNinja]

I haven't worked with Rana before, but I do have Propus(Athlon II X4), my L3 won't unlock but it still offers amazing performance near that of my Phenom II. I've got the 630, got it with a 785G board off newegg back in december for about $145.

 

[nyker96]

well that's why people buy amd nowdays for that unlockable core and great price.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I haven't worked with Rana before, but I do have Propus(Athlon II X4), my L3 won't unlock but it still offers amazing performance near that of my Phenom II. I've got the 630, got it with a 785G board off newegg back in december for about $145.

I didn't knew there are Denebs sold as Athlon II X4s...These chopped Denebs should have disappeared by now.

 

[hans007]

I didn't knew there are Denebs sold as Athlon II X4s...These chopped Denebs should have disappeared by now.

there aren't that many denebs as athlon iis but there are some, and it seems like a lot of them are actually made into x3s and not x4s.


i got the same combo at frys a while back (i'm assuming he got the biostar board) and mine didnt unlock but it was also a deneb.

 

[LoneNinja]

I got mine at the end of 09, there was still talk of them unlocking L3 cache at the time. The 630 was still $120 and the 635 hadn't released yet. I didn't buy it in hopes that it would unlock, I bought it because it was a cheap quad core and gave it a shot just because I could.