Phenom II - 965 @ 3.8Ghz - Worth an upgrade ?

[OneMoar]

FX Chips are a waste of money they cost you more in the long run the power consumption is higher and it gets positively stratospheric when you start pushing them beyond 4.5
going from a phenom II to a FX 8300 will not net any real performance gains outside of encoding video
a z97 anniversary and a i5 4570 will run him ~300.00 shipped and in 4 Thread limited tasks will walk all over any overclocked FXChip and use haft the power doing it
hes at the point in the life span of his system where trying to milk any more from it is a fruitless effort


and if the power supply really is pushing 6 years old you are basically looking at a new system because I certainly would't trust it to run a high end FX chip they draw way to much power

 

[vega22]

FX Chips are a waste of money they cost you more in the long run the power consumption is higher and it gets positively stratospheric when you start pushing them beyond 4.5
going from a phenom II to a FX 8300 will not net any real performance gains outside of encoding video
a z97 anniversary and a i5 4570 will run him ~300.00 shipped and in 4 Thread limited tasks will walk all over any overclocked FXChip and use haft the power doing it
hes at the point in the life span of his system where trying to milk any more from it is a fruitless effort


and if the power supply really is pushing 6 years old you are basically looking at a new system because I certainly would't trust it to run a high end FX chip they draw way to much power

where to start with that?

erm, what is "a z97 anniversary"

do you mean the intel cpu they did to celebrate the pentium brand?

only that aint a mobo and they did not do a z97 version....

"in 4 Thread limited tasks"

so you think if software can use 4 threads it can not do that twice and use 8?

single threaded stuff intel is faster but once you get to mutlithreaded stuff that table starts to turn. so much so that when software does that cheap £100 fx8 is almost on par with the £250 i7s....

"the life span of his system where trying to milk any more from it is a fruitless effort"

so having the latest amd chipset is already eol?

did i miss that headline on tpu?

amd secretly sneak the new chipset out while i was taking a p did they?

"yada yada, psu yada, yada"

really clutching at straws now aint you dude...shall we ignore the fact that intel chips can suck 200/250w of power too when overclocked?

sorry dude but from what i can tell here you are trying to feel some justification about your last upgrade by talking this guy into doing the same move. when it seems like that aint really an option in this case.

only real valid point raised is about the psu, but it is more one to keep an eye on imo than something you need to rush out and replace. start getting very random, unconnected bsod then i would say the psu 1st. until then i would not lose sleep. i mean hell its a tt but they dont really make psu, just sticker them up :lol:

 

[OneMoar]

where to start with that?

erm, what is "a z97 anniversary"

do you mean the intel cpu they did to celebrate the pentium brand?

only that aint a mobo and they did not do a z97 version....

"in 4 Thread limited tasks"

so you think if software can use 4 threads it can not do that twice and use 8?

single threaded stuff intel is faster but once you get to mutlithreaded stuff that table starts to turn. so much so that when software does that cheap £100 fx8 is almost on par with the £250 i7s....

"the life span of his system where trying to milk any more from it is a fruitless effort"

so having the latest amd chipset is already eol?

did i miss that headline on tpu?

amd secretly sneak the new chipset out while i was taking a p did they?

"yada yada, psu yada, yada"

really clutching at straws now aint you dude...shall we ignore the fact that intel chips can suck 200/250w of power too when overclocked?

sorry dude but from what i can tell here you are trying to feel some justification about your last upgrade by talking this guy into doing the same move. when it seems like that aint really an option in this case.

only real valid point raised is about the psu, but it is more one to keep an eye on imo than something you need to rush out and replace. start getting very random, unconnected bsod then i would say the psu 1st. until then i would not lose sleep. i mean hell its a tt but they dont really make psu, just sticker them up :lol:

The wrong is strong with this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116896
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157528
A fx on par with a i7 don't make me laugh not sure what bizzaro universe you are front the FX 8350 is nearly 25% slower then the lower clocked i7 .. here is a benchmark for reference
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=836
a intel chip draw >200W when overclocked maby on a LGA 2011 board not on LGA 1150 certainly not a i5 the entire system might draw >250 but the cpu its self noway
the 990FX chipset is indeed EOL there will not be another cpu for it AMD has stated this people here on TPU have stated it
I been down the road of milking a older 990fx system it snowballs really quickly

 

[XSI]

^this post I'm not always on the same page and have different opinion often as @OneMoar, but this time, its spot on and personally totally agree with it!
and @marsey99 yes intel had Anniversary Edition Pentium and some manufactures chose to launch specific Anniversary Edition MB. Asrock, Asus and MSI maybe some other too.

to the OP, if you feel you need update, if your system runs too slow for you, if you planning to do more tasks, at the end if you WANT TO, than upgrade is always and option.
if you just have upgrade idea, maybe you can live 1-2 years with your system.
I'm on 8400@ 3-3,5 dual core but for most my tasks this cpu is enough. for games I would better put overkill gpu and have cpu bottleneck it it would be more worth it for me.
It's always up to you.

 

[m&m's]

I notice a difference in Crossfire/SATA configurations... But I will never use that anyway. Any other benefits of the FX in terms of support for FX-8XXX ?

990X and 990FX chipsets use the same southbridge "SB950" so the SATA configuration is the same for both. 990FX supports Quad CrossFire/SLI while 990X supports 2-Way CrossFire/SLI.

FX Chips are a waste of money they cost you more in the long run the power consumption is higher and it gets positively stratospheric when you start pushing them beyond 4.5

Lets do some maths.

FX-9590 stock @ 4.7GHz (essentially an overclocked FX-8xxx) = total system power consumption of 324W
i5-4690k @ 4.4GHz = 200W
Current price of electricity -> 0.08$/kWh
Price of a FX-8320: 150$
Price of a i5-4690k: 250$ + 100$ for a motherboard = 350$.
Difference of 200$.

324W * 24 hours / 1000 = 7.776kWh * 365 days = 2838.24kWh * 0.08$ = 227.06$ a year
200W * 24 hours / 1000 = 4.8kWh * 365 days = 1752kWh * 0.08$ = 140.16$ a year
227.06$ - 140.16$ = 86,9$
200$ / 86.9$ = 2.3 years before he starts to save money if the CPU runs @100% 24/7 which is more than unlikely.

On idle the difference is now of 16 watts between the two...

Realistically, if I didn't do any mistakes, we can conclude that it will take over 10 years before he starts to save money.

Is an Intel system faster? Yes.
Will he save money on the very long run? Yes.
Does he need an upgrade from his Phenom II? Doesn't seems like he really need it.
If he has the money and want to upgrade to a i5, should he go for it? Yes, or he could wait for the next mainstream CPUs from Intel and maybe AMD.
What is the best upgrade for him? Seems like a bigger SSD is the thing to do.

 

[Fif23]

And they say Math class is useless............. !

the RAM and motherboard are new... just got them not long ago so I'd hate to throw it away I never really checked out benchmarks, I always had a soft spot for AMD even if they were inferior
The famous Athlon 2500+ Mobile chip I had as a kid bought me

I really think I'll put all that in mind, but still get a big SSD so I can install more than 1 game on it in addition to Windows.
Also I've been looking at that for a year ...
http://www.corsair.com/de-de/carbide-series-air-540-arctic-white-high-airflow-atx-cube-case

Now that would just look awesome in my living room... Never seen such a case !

 

[m&m's]

That sure is a good looking case!

For an SSD take a look at Crucial MX100, they're cheap, fast and reliable.

 

[TRWOV]

This is just getting out of hand. Getting back to the original post:

I never experienced any special lag, but I don't know... I'm not doing much in the way of heavy gaming, or any rendering of some sort. I also don't usually notice the CPU Load at 100% ...

Right there lies your answer.

 

[Dent1]

its quiet literally twice as fast @ pretty much everything I picked up 15FPS going from a 4Ghz phenom II to a stock 4670k
a phenom II is in no way adequate for any kind of serious Photoshop/art production work
light work yes but it still a 5 year old CPU

Not really a sensible move. You spent at least £300 on a new CPU and board for only 15 FPS??

The OP could spend 50% less on a GPU alone and gain double his usual frame rate.

My primary Windows uses are Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Movies, Premiere, Tixati, and various Astronomy tools.

Primary 3D uses are: Counter Strike, GO- Diablo III, and any new Quest Adventure.
I never experienced any special lag, but I don't know... I'm not doing much in the way of heavy gaming, or any rendering of some sort. I also don't usually notice the CPU Load at 100% ...

I'm actually disappointed that we are swaying him to upgrade when he is clearly happy with the performance. He experiences no lag, doesn't do anything intensive and isn't experiencing any CPU load. He seems quite content with the performance. There should be some ethical responsibility on the forum to advise him that no upgrade is needed.

Fif23, if you were to upgrade (not needed). The cheapest option that would yield the most performance would be to drop in an AMD FX-8320 and R280x or R290x.

 

[TRWOV]

FX Chips are a waste of money they cost you more in the long run the power consumption is higher and it gets positively stratospheric when you start pushing them beyond 4.5
going from a phenom II to a FX 8300 will not net any real performance gains outside of encoding video
a z97 anniversary and a i5 4570 will run him ~300.00 shipped and in 4 Thread limited tasks will walk all over any overclocked FXChip and use haft the power doing it
hes at the point in the life span of his system where trying to milk any more from it is a fruitless effort


and if the power supply really is pushing 6 years old you are basically looking at a new system because I certainly would't trust it to run a high end FX chip they draw way to much power

I previously had a Z77X-UP7 along with a 3770K for my main rig. Had been crunching with FX8350s for quite a long time but after MCM rolled out and OET more recently my ppd languished a lot as it went from 8K to 3.5K (I suppose MCM and OET are heavy on floating point and we know that the FXs don't perform as well in those).

So what did I do? I put apart the Intel rig, got an ITX board and made a dedicated cruncher out of it (gives 5K, still not as much as the FX used to get but way better than it does now) and re-purposed the 8350 as my main rig (<-- specs on the left). What was the power difference between both builds? 56w on average load (3dm11 combined test) at the wall according to my power meter (309w vs 365w), so takin into account 82% efficiency (80+ bronze PSU) the FX rig takes just 45w more (again, on average GPU/CPU load) than the intel does and the performance is comparable. I took a hit of 200 points in Firestrike and about 500 on 3dm11 but that's it.

As you said, the FXs take unholy amounts of power to get beyond 4.5Ghz, that's why I left mine at 4.4 and I suppose that running stock I would have got a wider difference in benchmarks between my 3770K rig and the 8350 one but then I would have run with less power too.

I see someone already did the math but yeah, it'll take years of 24/7 use at 100% load for that difference to make a dent on your power bill.

 

[Fif23]

Dent1 ! I just bought a used Sapphire 7950 3GB .. To my understanding it is similar to the X280 ?

 

[Dent1]

Dent1 ! I just bought a used Sapphire 7950 3GB .. To my understanding it is similar to the X280 ?

The 7950 is the same speed as the R9 270x. The R9 280x is a fair bit faster. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/R9_280X_OC/26.html

I was under the assumption you had it for a while and wanted a change. The 7950 3GB is a very good card. I personally wouldn't upgrade it there is nothing it can't handle.

In all honesty, just drop in the 8 core, £115 will net you a lot of performance.

http://www.ebuyer.com/409186-amd-fx...mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-fd8320frhkbox
http://www.ebuyer.com/409184-amd-fx...mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-fd8350frhkbox

You'll be spending at least £300 for an Intel board and processor for a few frame rate extra. Performace: cost ratio doesn't add up.

 

[TRWOV]

Not quite,

265 ~ 7850
270 ~ 7870 underclocked
270x ~ 7870
280 ~ 7950
280x ~ 7970 Ghz edition

 

[Fif23]

Nice ! 8 Core looks sweet !
There are probably a lot of disappointed AMD guys with used FX's for half that... I'll take advantage and get myself a bargain to put under the D14 I've seen them float for around 80 dollars.

EDIT: not anymore At least 150 dollars now.

(Exact card i bought http://www.sapphiretech.com/present...ex.aspx?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&pid=1450&&lid=1 )

quick question... FX6300 also an option if I find one thats like 50-80$ cheaper than 8320 ?

 

[newtekie1]

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/362?vs=697

That is probably the closest to the OP's setup comparison I could find.

If I was the OP, I'd grab a FX-8320E, which goes for ~$140 on newegg right now. It will easily overclock to 4.2GHz+ without sucking down a bunch of power. Single threaded performance will be about the same, but actually should be slightly better with the FX-8320E. But look at the things that use multi-threading! Photoshop(OP mentions this specifically) is almost twice as fast, and Premier(again mentions by the OP) should be way faster too. And games get a 5-20FPS boost. Of course at 1080p games will likely be limited by the GPU, so even going Intel won't be much help here.

Now, time for a little anecdotal information from me. I currently run a 4790K@4.6GHz, a 4690K@4.4GHz, and a 8320@4.4GHz. Before moving to the 8320 I had a 960T@3.8GHz or I could unlock it to an x6@3.6GHz. Upgrading from the 960T to the 8320 did not make any real difference in the basic tasks of the computer(browsing the internet and crap like that). However, it did make a very noticeable difference in Photoshop, Premier, and games. There isn't much difference between my 8320 and 4690K in most tasks including photoshop and premier. The 4790K does make a little difference, but not enough that I would justify it over the 4690k or 8320.

 

[Fif23]

Excellent !

 

[Dent1]

quick question... FX6300 also an option if I find one thats like 50-80$ cheaper than 8320 ?

Socket AM3+ is nearing the end of its lifecycle, realistically this would be your last upgrade before moving on. Get the FX 83xx and finish on a high.

 

[TRWOV]

Yeah, if you're going to do so anyway go straight to the 8300s.


That being said, I've always thought that the only FXs worth to consider are the 6300 and 8320. The 6300 is just $10 more than the 4300 but those $10 get you an extra module AND 4MB more of L3 cache There's the 6350 but you can easily overclock the 6300 to 4Ghz and be on par with it.

The 8320 is on the same vein: has all the features of the 8350, cost $30 less and you can put those savings towards a good air cooler that will let you overclock past the 8350s stock speed. I've got two 8350s as part time crunchers but only because I got them on sale for roughly the same price as an 8320 so why not?

 

[newtekie1]

Socket AM3+ is nearing the end of its lifecycle, realistically this would be your last upgrade before moving on. Get the FX 83xx and finish on a high.

Agreed. The FX-8320/50/70 should last for a good while still and be a good holder until the next generation of Intel is out or until AMD release AM4. I remember reading somewhere that AMD is likely to release AM4 once DDR4 becomes mainstream, which will likely be when Intel release there next generation 115x socket that also uses DDR4. And if were are lucky, they'll do what they did with the AM3 and make the AM4 processor backwards compatible with AM3. Though I secretly hope they don't limit themselves by this and do a proper AM4 release, and hopefully finally move to LGA on their desktop processors.

I've got two 8350s but only because I got them on sale for the same price as an 8320 so why not?

That is the only reason I have the 4790K, I got it on sale at Microcenter with a motherboard for the same price as the 4690K and board. I've got 2 other z97 computers running 4690Ks.

 

[vega22]

The wrong is strong with this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116896
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157528
A fx on par with a i7 don't make me laugh not sure what bizzaro universe you are front the FX 8350 is nearly 25% slower then the lower clocked i7 .. here is a benchmark for reference
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=836
a intel chip draw >200W when overclocked maby on a LGA 2011 board not on LGA 1150 certainly not a i5 the entire system might draw >250 but the cpu its self noway
the 990FX chipset is indeed EOL there will not be another cpu for it AMD has stated this people here on TPU have stated it
I been down the road of milking a older 990fx system it snowballs really quickly

that mobo has to be the cheapest nasty looking z97 board you can find!

but yea i was unaware that any had been sold as such, sorry. not that i blame them for using the term to cash in on it xD

eol, the term means end of life. as you can still buy them new to use the term is wrong. not that i doubt amd will bring another new socket out for their ddr4 chips, but knowing amd i also expect they will have ddr3 imc and work in 3+ mobo too.

if you think an i5 cant pull 200w then you aint pushed any hard enough.

@newtekie1 i thought 1151 was going to be ddr3 again too?

 

[eidairaman1]

Either you can Keep the 965 and oc it or get a 8320 and oc it.

Power savings are only meaningful if you keep the rig for 10 years otherwise youd already have upgraded in 6 years of use.

 

[newtekie1]

@newtekie1 i thought 1151 was going to be ddr3 again too?

From what I've read, it will be both. The memory controller will support DDR3 and DDR4, it will be up to the motherboard to decide what RAM is used. So early boards will probably be mostly DDR3, and once the DDR3 supply starts to dwindle and DDR4 becomes more readily available a second wave of boards will come out that use DDR4.

http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-p...port-compatible-lga-1151-socket-z170-chipset/

 

[Fif23]

OK. so I bought a new Modular Seasonic 650W Gold PSU and a Corsair case.
Now just the CPU left...

I know we agreed on a FX8350 (170-200$ shipped to where I live with taxes), but now I stumbled upon an fx-6300 chip, for about 90$ shipped.

Is the price difference too much to get the FX-8 ? Will I still enjoy the FX-6, or should I really spend that 200$ to get the 8350.

 

[Dent1]

OK. so I bought a new Modular Seasonic 650W Gold PSU and a Corsair case.
Now just the CPU left...

I know we agreed on a FX8350 (170-200$ shipped to where I live with taxes), but now I stumbled upon an fx-6300 chip, for about 90$ shipped.

Is the price difference too much to get the FX-8 ? Will I still enjoy the FX-6, or should I really spend that 200$ to get the 8350.

Forget the X6.

Find an FX 8320, They are significantly cheaper. You can overclock it yourself past 8350 level.

Cant you sell your Phenom II X4 to make up the difference?

 

[Fif23]

Good point ! It must be worth a few bucks for an OC fan... C3 chip. DONE.