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Thoughts about upgrade

Doomulation

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I'm still planning for a computer upgrade, to increase performance and to save power.
I'm still having my eyes locked on the Phenom X4, which is socket AM2, but my own motherboard is only socket 939, which kind of sucks.

So I need to upgrade motherboard, but that's not the main issue at the moment.

Since energy-efficient Phenom X4 has yet to reach the market, I'm planning on an energy efficient "replacement" of my current dual core with another one, which are only available in socket AM2 nowadays.
This will be my current processor until Phenom X4 becomes available.
So will DDR(1) memory work with either or do I have to replace them with DDR2?

Another question might be, if anyone knows (if I have to replace the old DDR1): is it a good idea to go for higher speed DDR2 or just 400 MHz? The RAM has to be up-to-date since I will not be replacing the memory after that. Only the CPU.

If there are any suggestions about anything, motherboard, processor, anything at all, feel free to suggest. I'm open to discussion.
 

ThomasH

New member
Have you looked at the 3Ghz duel core Opteron? There good on power and I would imagine the fast cores would be good on emulation. Many of the emulators can only run on single core any how. It may even prove faster than the Phenom in some situations? Think all the AM2+ systems use DDR2 only.
 

t0rek

Wilson's Friend
A few thoughts:

1. Yes, you have to replace your RAM with DDR2. AM2 mobos use only DDR2 RAM.

2. You might use DDR2-800, is getting cheaper nowadays. DDR2-400 or DDR2-533 are out of question here. If you want to save a few bucks go for DDR2-667 then.

3. If you are getting a Phenom, be sure to buy an AM2+ mobo to get all the juice from the Hypertransport thing.

4. There are constant price cuts on CPU's nowadays. Check out for Core 2 Quad prices and see if they fit your budget, they consume less power than Phenom and are better, but I haven't check out prices lately.

5. Are you replacing your videocard as well?

6. What are you planning to do with your old rig?
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
Have you looked at the 3Ghz duel core Opteron? There good on power and I would imagine the fast cores would be good on emulation. Many of the emulators can only run on single core any how. It may even prove faster than the Phenom in some situations? Think all the AM2+ systems use DDR2 only.
Opteron 3 GHz is way too expensive. And it's only dual core.
Nope, I'm going for quad core. For overall better system; not just emulation. It's the future!

1. Yes, you have to replace your RAM with DDR2. AM2 mobos use only DDR2 RAM.
:/
Oh well.

2. You might use DDR2-800, is getting cheaper nowadays. DDR2-400 or DDR2-533 are out of question here. If you want to save a few bucks go for DDR2-667 then.
Can't "save a few bucks" on the memory, seeing as I don't plan to upgrade them in the near future.

3. If you are getting a Phenom, be sure to buy an AM2+ mobo to get all the juice from the Hypertransport thing.
Absolutely. The latest and the best.

4. There are constant price cuts on CPU's nowadays. Check out for Core 2 Quad prices and see if they fit your budget, they consume less power than Phenom and are better, but I haven't check out prices lately.
Out of the question. That would break my upgrade route. Besides, I'm an AMD individual. I'm not leaving AMD's side for Intel :inlove:
I'm going with a temporary Athlon 64 X2 or Opteron (X2?) as a temporary replacement until phenoms become energy cheap.
Or that's the plan anyway. They are certainly better than my current hungry CPU.

5. Are you replacing your videocard as well?
Nope. Already have my Geforce 9600GT which is already bottlenecked if I'm not mistaken.

6. What are you planning to do with your old rig?
Shrug. Sell it?
 
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Out of the question. That would break my upgrade route. Besides, I'm an AMD individual. I'm not leaving AMD's side for Intel :inlove:
I'm going with a temporary Athlon 64 X2 or Opteron (X2?) as a temporary replacement until phenoms become energy cheap.
Or that's the plan anyway. They are certainly better than my current hungry CPU.
Brand loyalty will hurt you more than help you right now, to be honest. Any dualcore intel makes, outside of the low end pentium dual core chips, will outperform a comparatively clocked athlon 64 x2. The same will also apply to intels quads vs the phenom.
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
Brand loyalty will hurt you more than help you right now, to be honest.
Perhaps.
But I simply don't go for the highest bidder. I go with AMD because I like them.

The same will also apply to intels quads vs the phenom.
This may be true right now, but Phenom scales better than Intel's quads.
In other words, at higher clock speeds, Phenom will beat the crap out of Intel.
And besides, I really like the idea of native quad core instead of Intel's two dual core slapped together in a package idea.
 

ThomasH

New member
Perhaps.
But I simply don't go for the highest bidder. I go with AMD because I like them.

Best reason to do anything. If you want to why not :)

This may be true right now, but Phenom scales better than Intel's quads.
In other words, at higher clock speeds, Phenom will beat the crap out of Intel.
And besides, I really like the idea of native quad core instead of Intel's two dual core slapped together in a package idea.

But don’t read to much in to what you read on some of these hardware forums Doomulation :smurf:
 

squall_leonhart

The Great Gunblade Wielder
I'm still planning for a computer upgrade, to increase performance and to save power.
I'm still having my eyes locked on the Phenom X4, which is socket AM2, but my own motherboard is only socket 939, which kind of sucks.

So I need to upgrade motherboard, but that's not the main issue at the moment.

Since energy-efficient Phenom X4 has yet to reach the market, I'm planning on an energy efficient "replacement" of my current dual core with another one, which are only available in socket AM2 nowadays.
This will be my current processor until Phenom X4 becomes available.
So will DDR(1) memory work with either or do I have to replace them with DDR2?

Another question might be, if anyone knows (if I have to replace the old DDR1): is it a good idea to go for higher speed DDR2 or just 400 MHz? The RAM has to be up-to-date since I will not be replacing the memory after that. Only the CPU.

If there are any suggestions about anything, motherboard, processor, anything at all, feel free to suggest. I'm open to discussion.


Wait for the 45nm Phenoms with the 6mb cache. You're crazy if you don't xD
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

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But don’t read to much in to what you read on some of these hardware forums Doomulation :smurf:
I haven't read much at all about the Phenoms lately...
Yeah, anyway, we'll see what happens, if Phenom beats Intel. It's not too far off in performance anyway.

Wait for the 45nm Phenoms with the 6mb cache. You're crazy if you don't xD
No worries :)
That's why I'll have my replacement processor to hold me in line until it's actual time to upgrade to Phenom! :D
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
Well, I doubt they'd introduce yet another socket for smaller sized processor chips.
I believe we're safe.
 

I.S.T.

New member
This may be true right now, but Phenom scales better than Intel's quads.
In other words, at higher clock speeds, Phenom will beat the crap out of Intel.
And besides, I really like the idea of native quad core instead of Intel's two dual core slapped together in a package idea.

That's incorrect. Look at reviews of OCed Phenoms vs. Core 2 Quads. You'll see that the Core 2s have the IPC(Instruction per clock) advantage.

As for native vs slapped together... It doesn't really matter if you slap them together well enough. Intel managed to do this with the Core 2 Quads. They learned their lesson from the Pentium D/Prescott fiasco...
 

Clements

Active member
Moderator
Agreed, IPC is still better with Intel latest Quads right now (Q9xxx). Intel Quads also overclock a lot more too on both standard and exotic cooling than Phenom can. Phenom is only really good as an upgrade to people who already have an AM2(+) board and a lower end AM2 Athlon64 X2, otherwise you might as well go Intel or stick with what you have until Nehalem/'whatever AMD comes up with next' comes out.
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
That's incorrect. Look at reviews of OCed Phenoms vs. Core 2 Quads. You'll see that the Core 2s have the IPC(Instruction per clock) advantage.

As for native vs slapped together... It doesn't really matter if you slap them together well enough. Intel managed to do this with the Core 2 Quads. They learned their lesson from the Pentium D/Prescott fiasco...

Agreed, IPC is still better with Intel latest Quads right now (Q9xxx). Intel Quads also overclock a lot more too on both standard and exotic cooling than Phenom can. Phenom is only really good as an upgrade to people who already have an AM2(+) board and a lower end AM2 Athlon64 X2, otherwise you might as well go Intel or stick with what you have until Nehalem/'whatever AMD comes up with next' comes out.

They have better speed. For now. We'll see how it turns out as the processors scale in speed.
And actually, I don't really care.
I want a safe upgrade plan and I don't like Intel.
With AM2+, I should be able to upgrade processor in the future w/o switching motherboard since the processors thus far have been backwards compatible.
That mentioned, however, I'm not planning an upgrade right away. It's something I have in mind only. When the time is right and the economy allows, I'm upgrading to lay out a safe path to the future.
 

Clements

Active member
Moderator
AM3 CPUs will apparently work in AM2+ boards according to AMD, but AM2+ CPUs will not work in AM3 boards due to the difference in memory controllers. The AM3 CPU will be somewhat hampered by the AM2+ board, as with AM2+ CPUs in AM2 boards, since you will not have the option of using DDR3 without an AM3 board.
 

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