AMD Phenom II X2 550 vs. AMD Phenom II X3 720

[Assassin48]

just go with the 955 in an am2+ board then when you want to upgrade get the board and ddr3

thats a plan!

 

[newtekie1]

I'd say screw it and get one of the X4 810's. Not much more money for an entire extra core (or two). Not to mention they run cooler and with less power than the 9 series X4's!

However, I voted for the X3 -- just bought one of these as a present, and it's a damn good chip for a cheap, cheap price.

I would agree, go with the 810, don't know why you need a black edition.

 

[ShadowFold]

I would agree, go with the 810, don't know why you need a black edition.

They have less cache and only come in at 2.6ghz(low multi too).. That's no fun! 720BE would be a lot better for gaming. He probably wants high clocks, the 810 would be hard to get to 3ghz+, I haven't seen a 720 that doesn't do at least 3.6ghz.

 

[RevengE]

The 720BE I got does 3.7Ghz if I remember correctly.

 

[enaher]

Under 200 id get the 940, if you want ddr3 get the 720

 

[TheMailMan78]

I would agree, go with the 810, don't know why you need a black edition.

Ill never buy another CPU that isnt a BE man. This locked multiplayer crap sucks. I have to up my FSB to get anywhere.

 

[mdm-adph]

Ill never buy another CPU that isnt a BE man. This locked multiplayer crap sucks. I have to up my FSB to get anywhere.

I don't see why that's such a bad thing -- if your MSI board is anything like mine, you should be able to at least run 260-270MHz FSB stable. That's more that enough to get a real high clock with a non-BE chip. I'm guessing around 3.3 or 3.4 GHz with a X4 810, which is about all you're going to get unless you start going with a hefty cooling setup or something.

 

[Darren]

TheMailMan78, it depends on your budget. I voted the Phenom II X2 550 but equally the Phenom II X3 720 could be the right choice. Performance wise they are about the same speed, however you currently have the X3 8650 so it seems like a backwards step going from a tri-core to a dual core even if the dual core may be faster. The most logical step would be to go for a faster tri-core or quad core.

someone else brought that review to my attention, and so i compared it to other reviews and saw opposite results...

I took another look at the Neo Seeker's review, and I'm indecisive, both the Phenom II X2 550 and E8400 perform about the same, one could not conclusively say one is better than the other, it is more or less 50/50 across the board.

I think I may have to wait for more reviews to be released.

 

[scope54]

this is one where it was different: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=721
they used an E8500

another place that links a bunch of reviews:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/01/amd-debuts-athlon-ii-x2-250-and-phenom-ii-x2-550-black-edition-c/

 

[1Kurgan1]

Once again get the 720, most games do only use 3 cores, but almost all of them will use around 20% of the 3rd or 4th cores, that slightly larger OC will be combated by the 720's slight usage of that 3rd core. Not to mention, gives you a bit more room with anything you want to run on top of the game, like WMP, or something else.

 

[peach1971]

Today I replaced my Athlon X2 4850e with that Phenom II X2 550.

Attached are screenshots of Everest (5.02.1756 Beta) CPU benchmarks.
Now I´m gonna play a bit around with it...

Laters


View attachment Phenom.X2.550.Everest.CPU.Bench.zip


(all @ stock speeds, CnQ enabled, Gigabyte MA-78G-DS3H, 2x1GB GEIL Ultra Dimm 800 4-4-4-12)

Memory Read 6688 MB/s
Memory Write 6357 MB/s
Memory Copy 7861 MB/s
Memory Latency 54.5 ns

CPU Queen 11448
CPU PhotoWorxx 13698
CPU ZLib 41184
CPU AES 11043
FPU Julia 4160
FPU Mandel 2684
FPU SinJulia 1353

CPU closeup: http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1719/image1vio.jpg

BIOS (F7D 2009/04/14): http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6158/copyofdsc08680.jpg

CPU-Z validation: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=583884

 

[peach1971]

Now Multiplier is set from 15.5x to 18x
CPU clock speed: 3114 to 3616 MHz (+13.9%)

(default Multi 15x: 22.266s)

Memory Read 6688 > 6842 (+2.3%)
Memory Write 6357 > 6583 (+3.6%)
Memory Copy 7861 > 7868 (+0.1%)
Memory Latency 54.5 > 59.6 (-9.4%)

CPU Queen 11448 > 13361 (+16.7%)
CPU PhotoWorxx 13698 > 14565 (+6.3%)
CPU ZLib 41184 > 47845 (+16.2%)
CPU AES 11043 > 12791 (+15.8%)
FPU Julia 4160 > 4868 (+17.0%)
FPU Mandel 2684 > 3143 (+17.1%)
FPU SinJulia 1353 > 1577 (+16.6%)


And I also like the temps, now running about two hours on >3.6GHz:

BTW: I´ve paid only 87.28 EUR for that pile of 780/2=390 transistors.
Seems to be "worth a click"

 

[MilkyWay]

get the x3 720BE its going to clock to 3.6ghz because most do and you can clock using the multi

its got the third core good for background tasks and running the OS ect

so its like your x3 just now only a little bit more efficient clock for clock and guaranteed a decent OC

hell it may go 3.8 and be good for a 24.hrs clock but it seems most do 3.6ghz on 1.4v or 1.375v sometimes

 

[1Kurgan1]

get the x3 720BE its going to clock to 3.6ghz because most do and you can clock using the multi

its got the third core good for background tasks and running the OS ect

so its like your x3 just now only a little bit more efficient clock for clock and guaranteed a decent OC

hell it may go 3.8 and be good for a 24.hrs clock but it seems most do 3.6ghz on 1.4v or 1.375v sometimes

Yeah, I doon't think I have seen a 720 yet that can't do 3.6, 3.8 seems to be pushing it, I would bet almost all of them can run 3.7 fine.

 

[UltimaMachinaX]

Get the 720 and unlock the 4th core or get the 955 BE and oc it like i did

 

[ShadowFold]

Get the 720 and unlock the 4th core or get the 955 BE and oc it like i did

That doesn't work on the DKA790GX, or a lot of boards for that matter.

 

[UltimaMachinaX]

oh, THe ASUS board that can unlock the fourth core through ACC or whatever should be the combo he gets coupled with the 720 i think, thats what i would have done if i wasn't so mesmerized by the 790fx-gd70/PII 955 BE combo thats in my system

 

[TheMailMan78]

oh, THe ASUS board that can unlock the fourth core through ACC or whatever should be the combo he gets coupled with the 720 i think, thats what i would have done if i wasn't so mesmerized by the 790fx-gd70/PII 955 BE combo thats in my system

Nice system. You need a new GPU however.

 

[Paintface]

720 BE

games actually seem to benefit from the third core alot compared to the dual core after reading many benchmarks.

4th core makes barely a difference.

 

[1Kurgan1]

720 BE

games actually seem to benefit from the third core alot compared to the dual core after reading many benchmarks.

4th core makes barely a difference.

Thats probably because the 3rd core runs background processes perfectly, but a 4th core just isn't really needed for it.

But Mailman I'm wondering why put the 955 in the poll. If you do have the money for that pick it up, but if you don't no real point in putting it in there are most of the people are going to vote for that as it is more powerful (like what has happened). Also did you make a choice yet?

 

[TheMailMan78]

Thats probably because the 3rd core runs background processes perfectly, but a 4th core just isn't really needed for it.

But Mailman I'm wondering why put the 955 in the poll. If you do have the money for that pick it up, but if you don't no real point in putting it in there are most of the people are going to vote for that as it is more powerful (like what has happened). Also did you make a choice yet?

I like to think of myself a smart buyer. I don't buy the "best" but the best for me. Money isn't an issue.

 

[r9]

"Smart buyer" and "money are not the issue" don`t go well together. Who cares if 955 is overkill go for it. What today is overkill in a day could be bottleneck in the beautiful world of PCs.

 

[Paintface]

I like to think of myself a smart buyer. I don't buy the "best" but the best for me. Money isn't an issue.

that case 720BE is the right choice, up voltage by 0.1 , raise multiplier to get the CPU to 3.6 ghz and youll never regret buying the beast deal on the market

 

[1Kurgan1]

I like to think of myself a smart buyer. I don't buy the "best" but the best for me. Money isn't an issue.

"Smart buyer" and "money are not the issue" don`t go well together. Who cares if 955 is overkill go for it. What today is overkill in a day could be bottleneck in the beautiful world of PCs.

Got to agree with r9 here, really one or the other. If you want to be a smart shopper the 720 is an awesome proc, I can attest to this, it will crush anything you toss at it and it clocks just as well as the other PII's.

But if money isn't an issue the 955 is going to be faster because the 4th core, who knows if you will be able to get more out of it though, seems all PII's regardless of start clocks have a wall around 3.8ghz, so in reality it just might not be any faster for gaming.

 

[UltimaMachinaX]

apparently the 720s are the came arcitecture as 955 with one core disabled however only some of the chips had this architecture. SO youll either get one that can be unlocked on the fourth core or one that had a bad fourth core and they just sold them as 720s after disabling the core. And I do want to upgrade my GPU needs crossfire at least, but i can run QUAd crossfire on my MB. I'd much rather have 4x 89$ hit on my bank for my hd 3870s than 4x $235.00 for 4890s. Prob wont see too much of a performance difference btw the two setups once they're quad sli anyways.