show me that a q6600 is no good now

[Toothless]

the 8600 will be the issue with that setup. the best card i paird with my q6600 IMO was the 5770, it had a 3870 and a 4870 prior to that all of those cards however are much better than the 8600. and the 3870 was not really that great.
i think i still have the 4870 here some where.

I know of a few games that are more CPU-based than GPU.

 

[Shambles1980]

its just the 8600 is not going to do that quad any favors imo. i still think they are great processors. they just have to be properly balanced with the rest of the system to get the best out of everything.
a 5770 would be a night and day difference.

 

[Toothless]

its just the 8600 is not going to do that quad any favors imo. i still think they are great processors. they just have to be properly balanced with the rest of the system to get the best out of everything.
a 5770 would be a night and day difference.

I get the fact that the GPU is weak. I think I know that. I'm not testing the GPU; I'm testing the limits of the CPU in a few games. I'm not going to go out to get a GPU for a rig that

1. Isn't mine. Though the owner wants me to push it to see how far it will go.
2. Isn't a gaming rig. It is a multimedia/streaming desktop that has been recently restored.
3. Will probably never see a game after the tests are completed.

 

[SaltyFish]

And here I am still rocking a QX6850 (along with a GTX 560 Ti) and playing games at 1920x1200...

It's very tempting for me to upgrade, but with DDR4 on the horizon I wonder if I should skip DDR3 completely and hold out until then: Haswell-E, Skylake, or whenever AMD rolls out their DDR4 socket (they've been waiting on DDR4 since there isn't much point in a new DDR3 socket now).

If you plan on OC'ing the living daylights out of your FX-8120 for longevity, you'd probably want to aim for a slightly higher-end motherboard. If your wife is heading to the USA anytime soon, you might even be able to score a flagship motherboard for less. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the OP's results on whatever new fancier board.

 

[Toothless]

And here I am still rocking a QX6850 (along with a GTX 560 Ti) and playing games at 1920x1200...

It's very tempting for me to upgrade, but with DDR4 on the horizon I wonder if I should skip DDR3 completely and hold out until then: Haswell-E, Skylake, or whenever AMD rolls out their DDR4 socket (they've been waiting on DDR4 since there isn't much point in a new DDR3 socket now).

If you plan on OC'ing the living daylights out of your FX-8120 for longevity, you'd probably want to aim for a slightly higher-end motherboard. If your wife is heading to the USA anytime soon, you might even be able to score a flagship motherboard for less. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the OP's results on whatever new fancier board.

Basically the old Q6600/Q6700/QX6850's are still powerhouses, just the perfect set of hardware is needed. The only reason to upgrade from those is DDR4. Unless you have the need to have more power right before a major tech update.

 

[Lopez0101]

Or more native SATAIII, USB3.0, eSATA ports. Don't forget if you want an M.2 or mSATA slot on the mobo. A CPU itself is not the only reason to upgrade, chipest upgrades make a big difference as well.

My Q6600 box back home would need to have a videocard that's a couple generations newer to game at 1920x1080 at a graphics level I'd be okay with. And more RAM, haha.

 

[Dent1]

meh Q6600 play Rome 2 Total War or Shogun 2 Total War maxed out with larger armies watch it crawl. 10-12 FPS in melee vs 29-30 of the newer Haswell chips lol

29-30 FPS on a Haswell isn't exactly good, that is actually terrible considering its Intel's flagship chip and its unable to achieve 60FPS on Total War: Shogun 2 which is like 3 years old!

if the q6600 was 3.7 and the 8120 was 3.8 I think the Q6600 would actually be better for all round performance. but to get a G0 q6600 to 3.7 stable you do need to spend money.

Then you'd be massively wrong. The Phenom II X4 9xx can match the Q9xxx at equal clock speeds. So FX 8120 would walk over it too, let alone the Q6600.

Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2715/10
Compared directly to the Q9550, the Phenom II X4 940 is a strong competitor. It had better average frame rates in CrossFire mode than the Q9550 in three titles, tied in one, and finished behind the Q9550 by about 2%~7% in the other three games.

When it came to actual game play experiences, we thought the Phenom II 940 was clearly the better choice in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Crysis Warhead due to minimum frame rate advantages and fluidity of game play. In the five other titles, we could not tell any real differences in the quality of game play between the Phenom II 940 and Core 2 Quad Q9550. Except for Far Cry 2

 

[Shambles1980]

you could argue a phenom II is better than an 8120 all round as well though.. so i stick by my statement

 

[Dent1]

you could argue a phenom II is better than an 8120 all round as well though.. so i stick by my statement

Then you'd be even more massively wrong.

The Bulldozer architecture is the Deneb's successor. At worst case scenario where the architecture doesn't scale the performance will be virtually the same +/- about <10% in either direction. But overall the where the Bulldozer's would consistently outperform by a bigger margin. As shown in this link here ----> http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/362?vs=434 (used the FX8150 vs 980BE as they have similar clock speeds)


Now, 2 posts ago I quoted Anandtech saying the Phenom II X4 940 is on par with the Q9550 (York field). The link above shows the AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE getting outperformed by the AMD FX-8150 by a bigger margin and worst performing virtually the same. So it would be impossible for the older Q6600 (Kentfield) to outperform its successor the Q9550 York field or Phenom II X4 940 BE or Phenom II X4 980 BE let alone a AMD FX-8150 or the anything from the Bulldozer 8 core family.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

29-30 FPS on a Haswell isn't exactly good, that is actually terrible considering its Intel's flagship chip and its unable to achieve 60FPS on Total War: Shogun 2 which is like 3 years old!



Then you'd be massively wrong. The Phenom II X4 9xx can match the Q9xxx at equal clock speeds. So FX 8120 would walk over it too, let alone the Q6600.

Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2715/10
Compared directly to the Q9550, the Phenom II X4 940 is a strong competitor. It had better average frame rates in CrossFire mode than the Q9550 in three titles, tied in one, and finished behind the Q9550 by about 2%~7% in the other three games.

When it came to actual game play experiences, we thought the Phenom II 940 was clearly the better choice in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Crysis Warhead due to minimum frame rate advantages and fluidity of game play. In the five other titles, we could not tell any real differences in the quality of game play between the Phenom II 940 and Core 2 Quad Q9550. Except for Far Cry 2

Thats the thing tho show me another game series that allows for 10,000-50,000 Soldiers on screen individually animated fighting each other lol.

Avg frame rate is much higher the 29-30 is the MINIMUM.

So Phenom II / Q6600 / Q9550 / FX8000 etc etc all have miniums in the 11-15 range which happens ALOT in melee battles. Haswell being 29-30 means in those intense awesome situations your gameplay is fluid.

Still old tech is old tech

Q6600 while serviceable is still extremely dated and shows its age when paired with modern graphics cards.

 

[Bucho]

Basically the old Q6600/Q6700/QX6850's are still powerhouses, just the perfect set of hardware is needed. The only reason to upgrade from those is DDR4. Unless you have the need to have more power right before a major tech update.

I wouldn't make DDR4 THE reason. DDR4 will not even make a huge improvement in performance when looking at intel CPUs and the average customer who buys a PC for internet/office or gaming. Right now there is not much difference if you use DDR3-1333 or DDR3-2133. In synthetic benchmarks and tests you can see the difference but in real life and games the difference is almost to zero (max. a few single percent).
I guess DDR4 is more important for servers since they plan to build single modules with large memory size. And they use less power / lower volts. And finally in server application areas even the plus on the speed side may me more relevant if there are memory intese applications or maybe more VMs are running and accessing the memory at the same time.

About the Q6xxx CPUs ... yes they are still quite capable, but we should not forget that a second/third gen i5 (2xxx and 3xxx models) are almost 40% faster and a fourth gen i5 (4xxx) is about 50% faster at the same clock speed. Sure, depending on the program the difference sometimes is way smaller but sometimes also way bigger. So the only way to keep up a little is overclocking. A Q6600 at stock is pretty slow compared to anything new you can buy at the moment from Intel. Even a Celeron G1820 will be faster most of the times (at least if only up to 2 cores are used). And the i3-4xxx gives a Q6600 at stock the rest.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487.html (there are some Ivy Bridge generation CPUs in the test and a Q9550 that's already faster than a Q6600 (433MHz more freuqency, 333MHz instead of 266MHz FSB, more cache (12MB instead of 8MB) and a newer architecture).

Or more native SATAIII, USB3.0, eSATA ports. Don't forget if you want an M.2 or mSATA slot on the mobo. A CPU itself is not the only reason to upgrade, chipest upgrades make a big difference as well.

My Q6600 box back home would need to have a videocard that's a couple generations newer to game at 1920x1080 at a graphics level I'd be okay with. And more RAM, haha.

eSATA is not a point since you had this back then with P35 chipset boards too. And M.2 and mSATA slots in my opinion are not really worth in on desktop boards. On ITX where space (in the case) often is rare that's a nice thing. Instead I am preferring SATA Express (basically and technically the same interface as M.2, so two SATA 6GB ports slapped together but the ports can still be used as SATA ports). But then again M.2 most of the times comes shared with two SATA ports so it wouldn't make a difference.
The rest I agree, if you can make use of it SATA III / 6GB for SSDs, native USB 3.0 and faster PCI-E (3.0) slots do make some goodies when upgrading a old platform.

Then you'd be even more massively wrong.

The Bulldozer architecture is the Deneb's successor. At worst case scenario where the architecture doesn't scale the performance will be virtually the same +/- about <10% in either direction. But overall the where the Bulldozer's would consistently outperform by a bigger margin. As shown in this link here ----> http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/362?vs=434 (used the FX8150 vs 980BE as they have similar clock speeds)


Now, 2 posts ago I quoted Anandtech saying the Phenom II X4 940 is on par with the Q9550 (York field). The link above shows the AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE getting outperformed by the AMD FX-8150 by a bigger margin and worst performing virtually the same. So it would be impossible for the older Q6600 (Kentfield) to outperform its successor the Q9550 York field or Phenom II X4 940 BE or Phenom II X4 980 BE let alone a AMD FX-8150 or the anything from the Bulldozer 8 core family.

Check out some more benches between the FX 8120 or 8150 and the Phenom II. In gaming (and that's what we are talking here about) the FX often even is slower than the Phenom II. Your link only has 4 games and in 3 the Phenom is faster and the 4th is StarCraft II that only uses two cores so the turbo of the FX can kick in.
So again, no doubt in most applications and programs that are optimized for the FX or use his many threads or his strenght (compression, converting, crypting) the FX is better. In games he is usually slower.
That said this might change now since some new games (BF4, maybe Watch Dogs ...) are better optimized for the AMD modul architecture (maybe because of the new consoles that use that too and have more threads).

 

[Shambles1980]

i did not want to say anything but seeing as its been pointed out already.
that chart shows the phenom beating the 8150 quite soundly in a lot of areas, it trails behind a bit in some multi threaded applications but even then still wins with video encoding which in reality 8 cores should win at. also if we take in to consideration that the 8150 is faster than the 8120, then the phenom would only further beat that..
so like i said you could argue that all round the phenom is better (better single threaded, better for more games. more things can utilize it better)
so i still stick to what i said clock for clock i think the q6600 is faster than an 8120 but only just. thats considering single threaded apps. games that dont use 8 cores. and so on.
"normal usage"
But the 8120 can be clocked higer. and does have added benifits of updated board features (although the lga 775 boards could support ddr3 and some did come ddr3)
and i think it would be moe of a fair test to compare the 95w 8120 vs the g0 q6600, but i do not have the 95w revision. im sure that one has to be better than the 125w

on the side of the 8120 I do think the 8120 is able to maintain a more steady throughput than the q6600 though. the q6600 seems to fluctuate a lot more where as the 8120 at the same clock may provide slightly slower performance it is a more even distibution compared to highs and lows of the q6600.
so slightly slower but more consistant at that speed vs slightly faster but fluctuates..
i think i prefer consistancy but clock per clock i still think the q6600 is faster. however as i like a constant then the 8120 is probably better for me although dissapointingly similar clock for clock compared to the ancient q6600

-=edit=-

think i have to buy a
ga-78lmt-usb3
only 4+1 phase but is reccomended for oc. (all revisions)
should let me get the cpu up to 4ghz possibly 4.2 protected circuitry so i wont fry the vrm if it cant handle the work. pretty sure it will be ok with a 80mm + the heat sinks it already has.
would have liked 6+2 or 8+1 but given im trying to do this for as cheap as possible my choice is pretty limited.
good news however i can get that board new for less than £40. was already given a partial refund on this 3+1 board because it honestly shouldnt have this cpu so if i can get a few £ back selling this board on the new board should only have cost £15 or so which really isnt bad given im still nicley under budget even after buying aftermarket cooling.
However the extra 4gb of ram will be getting put on the "next time" list

the main issues with the board is lack of sata 3 and only pci-e 2.0 16x but its not going to slow any of my components down as i dont use ssd. and the 7850 is not going to lose anything on 2.0 vs 3.0

 

[Dent1]

Check out some more benches between the FX 8120 or 8150 and the Phenom II. In gaming (and that's what we are talking here about) the FX often even is slower than the Phenom II. Your link only has 4 games and in 3 the Phenom is faster and the 4th is StarCraft II that only uses two cores so the turbo of the FX can kick in.

So again, no doubt in most applications and programs that are optimized for the FX or use his many threads or his strenght (compression, converting, crypting) the FX is better. In games he is usually slower. That said this might change now since some new games (BF4, maybe Watch Dogs ...) are better optimized for the AMD module architecture (maybe because of the new consoles that use that too and have more threads).

Actually those 3 games show virtually the same performance and are within margin for error. It actually supports my claim that at worst the Bulldozer will perform virtually the same as the Phenom II in games. In extreme cases <10% in either direction.

Dragon age, 121.4 FPS vs 118.4 FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
World of Warcraft, 80.6 FPS vs 77.7FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
Starcraft 2, 42.5 FPS vs 47.8FPS = winner, FX 8120
Dawn of War 60.1 FPS vs 51.5 = winner, Phenom II 980 BE

All that can be concluded from the gaming segment is the frame rate on these "old" games are virtually the same, you can't say Phenom II is faster in games as that isn't what the results read. There isn't enough separation between to two to conclude anything meaningful.

Now also keep in mind the Phenom II 980 BE is actually running 100MHz higher, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, but overall beginning to end when you factor in the entire review the Bulldozer is faster.

Edit:
Shambles. When does your CPU arrive?

 

[Vario]

i did not want to say anything but seeing as its been pointed out already.
that chart shows the phenom beating the 8150 quite soundly in a lot of areas, it trails behind a bit in some multi threaded applications but even then still wins with video encoding which in reality 8 cores should win at. also if we take in to consideration that the 8150 is faster than the 8120, then the phenom would only further beat that..
so like i said you could argue that all round the phenom is better (better single threaded, better for more games. more things can utilize it better)
so i still stick to what i said clock for clock i think the q6600 is faster than an 8120 but only just. thats considering single threaded apps. games that dont use 8 cores. and so on.
"normal usage"
But the 8120 can be clocked higer. and does have added benifits of updated board features (although the lga 775 boards could support ddr3 and some did come ddr3)
and i think it would be moe of a fair test to compare the 95w 8120 vs the g0 q6600, but i do not have the 95w revision. im sure that one has to be better than the 125w

on the side of the 8120 I do think the 8120 is able to maintain a more steady throughput than the q6600 though. the q6600 seems to fluctuate a lot more where as the 8120 at the same clock may provide slightly slower performance it is a more even distibution compared to highs and lows of the q6600.
so slightly slower but more consistant at that speed vs slightly faster but fluctuates..
i think i prefer consistancy but clock per clock i still think the q6600 is faster. however as i like a constant then the 8120 is probably better for me although dissapointingly similar clock for clock compared to the ancient q6600

-=edit=-

think i have to buy a
ga-78lmt-usb3
only 4+1 phase but is reccomended for oc. (all revisions)
should let me get the cpu up to 4ghz possibly 4.2 protected circuitry so i wont fry the vrm if it cant handle the work. pretty sure it will be ok with a 80mm + the heat sinks it already has.
would have liked 6+2 or 8+1 but given im trying to do this for as cheap as possible my choice is pretty limited.
good news however i can get that board new for less than £40. was already given a partial refund on this 3+1 board because it honestly shouldnt have this cpu so if i can get a few £ back selling this board on the new board should only have cost £15 or so which really isnt bad given im still nicley under budget even after buying aftermarket cooling.
However the extra 4gb of ram will be getting put on the "next time" list

the main issues with the board is lack of sata 3 and only pci-e 2.0 16x but its not going to slow any of my components down as i dont use ssd. and the 7850 is not going to lose anything on 2.0 vs 3.0

Don't buy another cheap motherboard if your doing an FX. They really need all the VRM they can get. 4+1 isn't enough unless you were doing a 4300.

 

[Shambles1980]

Dragon age, 121.4 FPS vs 118.4 FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
3fps = draw because it was in phenoms favour

World of Warcraft, 80.6 FPS vs 77.7FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
3.1 fps within margin of error because it was in phenoms favour

Starcraft 2, 42.5 FPS vs 47.8FPS = winner, FX 8120
5.3 fps "absolutley smashed it! the bull dozer is the clear winner"



lol sorry for the sarcasm. it just seems that your margin of error extends to the precice point where the phenom is able to beat the 8150 by.. some thing tells me 10fps would have been within the margin of error if the phenom was 10fps faster..

my point however still stands you can argue that a phenom is faster... (as is being proven) and i specifically stated the 8120 which is slower than the 8150 which by your "margin of error rules" would undoubtedly leave all the areas where you say "phenom margin of error draw" as "phemon wins" and the one where the fx wins because of its massive 2fps above your imposed margin of error, would be reduced to a draw.. "with your margin of error rules"

all of this is utterly pointless however because like i said you can argue the phenom is faster. dosen't mean its true and dosen't mean it isn't . it simply means you can have a valid argument about it pitching apples vs oranges all day and never really agreeing on it.

so i still stand by my statement that a Q6600 clock for clock is faster than an 8120.
and i still also stand by my statment that i believe the 8120 is able to keep the same through put up at a slightly slower pace than the q6600 which seems to fluctuate more in its work..
the end result is 2 processors that at the same speed preform almost exactly the same in almost all tasks.

Don't buy another cheap motherboard if your doing an FX. They really need all the VRM they can get. 4+1 isn't enough unless you were doing a 4300.

thats my thinking too. but in all honestly this set up is not going to be a long term build.
i chose the aftermarket cooler i did because it works very well on both amd and i5's

the long term goal is get an i5.
the short term was. get rid of the q6600 whilst i can still get newer tech for the same money. (did that)

now i need a board that i can actually use the 8120 on to atleast stock potential for as close to nothing as possible..
spent a while and the only board that i can buy for next to nothing is the ga-78lmt-usb3.

I am also trying to buy a 1155 board with 2/3rd gen i5 support. which i will stash away for a while. the boards arent that expensive right now because the cpu's are expensive so people just seem to buy pre built or bundle deals.

once i have the 1155 board i will roll this 8120 + board over aiming for the £100 mark which is a bit less than i see them going for on ebay and a bit more than i paid for it and the ram. keep the ram. and spend about £100 on an i5 2500k

this way whats happend is i turned my £70 worth of hardware (q6600 parts) in to £100 + 4gb ddr3 ram. and i really do think if i held on to the system for much longer i would have been risking getting even less for it.
What i hope to eventually happen is throug a seriese of seemingly useless upgrades that cost me nothing that i can infact get my self an I5 + motherboard + ram for the price of a mother board in cold hard cash. and the rest of it comes from selling the upgrades.

It also means that i have a system i can use upstairs whilst i try and find a inexpensive 1155 board.

typing it out like that it seems like a lot of effort to save a few quid and spread out the costs lol. But i think i prefer doing it the difficult way.
as for the cheap 4+1 board.
I could in theory just not bother with it and sell this board + cpu on..
but honestly what kind of low life would knowingly sell on a 3+1 board with a 8120..
(apparantly scan would lol. they were the ones who sold it to the person who sold it to me.)

 

[Vario]

thats my thinking too. but in all honestly this set up is not going to be a long term build.
i chose the aftermarket cooler i did because it works very well on both amd and i5's

the long term goal is get an i5.
the short term was. get rid of the q6600 whilst i can still get newer tech for the same money. (did that)

now i need a board that i can actually use the 8120 on to atleast stock potential for as close to nothing as possible..
spent a while and the only board that i can buy for next to nothing is the ga-78lmt-usb3.

I am also trying to buy a 1155 board with 2/3rd gen i5 support. which i will stash away for a while. the boards arent that expensive right now because the cpu's are expensive so people just seem to buy pre built or bundle deals.

once i have the 1155 board i will roll this 8120 + board over aiming for the £100 mark which is a bit less than i see them going for on ebay and a bit more than i paid for it and the ram. keep the ram. and spend about £100 on an i5 2500k

this way whats happend is i turned my £70 worth of hardware (q6600 parts) in to £100 + 4gb ddr3 ram. and i really do think if i held on to the system for much longer i would have been risking getting even less for it.
It also means that i have a system i can use upstairs whilst i try and find a inexpensive 1155 board.

typing it out like that it seems like a lot of effort to save a few quid and spread out the costs lol. But i think i prefer doing it the difficult way.
as for the cheap 4+1 board.
I could in theory just not bother with it and sell this board + cpu on..
but honestly what kind of low life would knowingly sell on a 3+1 board with a 8120..
(apparantly scan would lol. they were the ones who sold it to the person who sold it to me.)

Sell the 3+1 and the 8120 separately. The less money you spend on getting the 8120 working the better, as a budget processor it fails due to requiring a premium motherboard.

Alternatively you could try to find a cheap Phenom II x4 and use it with that board, I got one 2 years ago for $60 brand new. Phenom II still requires decent motherboard power delivery though.

 

[Shambles1980]

Sell the 3+1 and the 8120 separately. The less money you spend on getting the 8120 working the better, as a budget processor it fails due to requiring a premium motherboard.

Alternatively you could try to find a cheap Phenom II x4 and use it with that board, I got one 2 years ago for $60 brand new. Phenom II still requires decent motherboard power delivery though.

your right i could still in theory get around £100 for this board + the cpu separate.
I may hold off on the other board then, just find a 1155 board cheap, then sell these 2 separate and fund the i5. works out about the same just may take a bit longer to sell the board and cpu separate.

 

[Vario]

your right i could still in theory get around £100 for this board + the cpu separate.
I may hold off on the other board then, just find a 1155 board cheap, then sell these 2 separate and fund the i5. works out about the same just may take a bit longer to sell the board and cpu separate.

1155 chips require so little power you can run a real budget board, like an h61.

 

[Shambles1980]

well i just spent £20 on the cheapest 1155 board i could see that supported 2/3gen i5.
the thing will get lost in my case no doubt about that lol.

il list the 8120 and board on ebay and hope they sell at the same time so i can get an i5
really dont want to be without a pc up stairs for long

 

[Vario]

well i just spent £20 on the cheapest 1155 board i could see that supported 2/3gen i5.
the thing will get lost in my case no doubt about that lol.

il list the 8120 and board on ebay and hope they sell at the same time so i can get an i5
really dont want to be without a pc up stairs for long

Sounds good. Which 1155 board?

 

[eidairaman1]

Honestly dont care what is better or not. Building a pc for myself is considerably better than a prebuilt because of cost and able to select ehat I want.

if yall care to, check out my signature Rig. Im still ordering parts but once all is here ill build it and post pics. So far all fans are in the case, and ram/cpu are in the mobo. Bear in mind im going from a Athlon Xp and a Celeron core 2 based laptop. The reasons why im building are as follows, no Windows 7 AGP GART Driver for NF2 Ultra 400 from nvidia(otherwise id be rockin a 4670 AGP lol) plus the celeron laptop lags worse than an agp card in youtube.

 

[Shambles1980]

msi h61m-p20-g3
will end up upgraded to something bigger not a fan of teenie tiny boards lol

 

[Dent1]

Dragon age, 121.4 FPS vs 118.4 FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
3fps = draw because it was in phenoms favour

World of Warcraft, 80.6 FPS vs 77.7FPS = within margin for error. Draw.
3.1 fps within margin of error because it was in phenoms favour

Starcraft 2, 42.5 FPS vs 47.8FPS = winner, FX 8120
5.3 fps "absolutley smashed it! the bull dozer is the clear winner"



lol sorry for the sarcasm. it just seems that your margin of error extends to the precice point where the phenom is able to beat the 8150 by.. some thing tells me 10fps would have been within the margin of error if the phenom was 10fps faster..

Don't be silly, do you know what margin for error means?

A victory by 1-5 FPS is within margin for error, if you run the same benchmark 10x times, the frame rate and results will vary each time.

The results will never be exactly the same. No piece of hardware in the system, memory, CPU and GPU will run to a its most precise optimal level every test run, even on the OS level the software is always using resources differently and assigning variables differently. Unless there is a consistent large separation it falls within margin or error. It's not about saying one CPU if faster than the other, its about using common sense a 3FPS and 3.1 FPS separation doesn't tell us anything meaningful except the two CPUs perform virtually the same and margin for error occurred.

so i still stand by my statement that a Q6600 clock for clock is faster than an 8120.
and i still also stand by my statment that i believe the 8120 is able to keep the same through put up at a slightly slower pace than the q6600 which seems to fluctuate more in its work..
the end result is 2 processors that at the same speed preform almost exactly the same in almost all tasks.

I can't honestly see the Q6600 being clock for clock faster, perhaps the Q9xxx on the same level. But lets talk hypothetically, even if the Q6600 is marginally clock for clock faster doesn't mean the end performance will be better. When you're reading reviews they are in "near perfect" conditions e.g. formatted HDD, newly installed OS, etc. In reality a normal user will have significantly more background applications running and a less optimised OS on a software level and would have an antivirus scanner running or updating, Steam or Origin client in the background updating, Skype, TeamSpeak, Fraps etc along with their everyday applications cached into memory. The Bulldozer FX 8 core would have a better experience. Would you bank on a 3FPS margin for error that the under heavy stress the 8 core wouldn't pull ahead?

We've already seen a margin or error of 3 FPS between the two, run Crysis 3 on a bloated spyware and adware infested PC with your antivirus software doing a full HDD scan, whilst converting a video file and listening to a music playlist in the background, whist also recording the game using a screen capture software and I can guarantee the Q6600's FPS would dive and the Bulldozer 8 core FX would stay consistent.

 

[Vario]

msi h61m-p20-g3
will end up upgraded to something bigger not a fan of teenie tiny boards lol

good choice, (if a bit minimalist). It should be fine. Only downside is Sata II.

 

[Vario]

We've already seen a margin or error of 3 FPS between the two, run Crysis 3 on a bloated spyware and adware infested PC with your antivirus software doing a full HDD scan, whilst converting a video file and listening to a music playlist in the background, whist also recording the game using a screen capture software and I can guarantee the Q6600's FPS would dive and the Bulldozer 8 core FX would stay consistent.

What about standing on my head while wearing a space suit and driving a schoolbus using my feet?