FX4100 or Phenom II x4 955?

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Silent Ricochet

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Well after reading many threads on this forum about the FX4100, and the somewhat lackluster launch of AMD's New Bulldozer, I'm starting to second-guess my intentions on upgrading my system:

Current System:

Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P
AMD Phenom II X3 720 (4th Core unlocked @3.2Ghz, basically a X4 955... Correct?)
2x2GB G.Skill PC-1066 DDR2

I was planning on building this:

Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
AMD FX4100 (And of course overclocking that as well)

Problem is, I'm not so sure about the FX4100 anymore. I'd love to upgrade my Chipset and Memory, but I doesn't seem all that worth it to drop $200 without complimenting it with a better CPU. Now I know it's still early, but would someone be able to answer me? Which CPU is better? The Setup I have now? or the Planned setup shown above? I suppose I could just sell my Crossfired HD4850s and grab a new video card instead if worse comes to worst.
 
I really don't think FX-4100 will be that great. You may be able to OC the hell out of it, but I think the multithreaded performance will suffer compared to 955. Worth a try for giggles I guess.
 
Get the 955. From the benchmarks going around it seems the 4100 is actually slower clock for clock then AMD's current quad core line Quite sad.

Are you really dead set on getting an AMD setup? Honestly I would just save up and go for even a H6x and 2400 will out do it with ease.

@ Michaelius

That is a good option as well for people to jump on.
 
Yeah I second the SSD upgrade idea. I have a similar setup to yours. Mine runs at 3.5 Ghz 4th core unlocked.

Going AMD makes no sense. Honestly my current machine handles everything I do perfectly fine, I'll just wait and see how Ivy Bridge performs, before I buy. If I upgrade before than it will probably be a 2500k/1155.
 
Don't forget about increased power usage, and heat output. Personally, I require all of my cpu upgrades to decrease both of those from my prior setup.
 
sirmo said:
Yeah I second the SSD upgrade idea. I have a similar setup to yours. Mine runs at 3.5 Ghz 4th core unlocked.

Going AMD makes no sense. Honestly my current machine handles everything I do perfectly fine, I'll just wait and see how Ivy Bridge performs, before I buy. If I upgrade before than it will probably be a 2500k/1155.
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I may opt for overclocking more, I do have a decent aftermarket cooler, but the problem with having the 4th core unlocked is not being able to see core temeperatures..

And I'm not sure I understand the difference between Thuban and Deneb Architectures. I was under the assumption that all Phenom II's shared the same architecture, and that the different names were just differences between the amount of cores.
 
Silent they are the same arch for the most part between the X4 and X6. The X6 did have some performance taken away in IPC I think to cope with a proper TDP, but the Turbo and two extra cores made up for it. The IPC difference is not huge either, really negligible.
 
Then I'm failing to see a point in buying a Zosma. I'm running a Phenom II x3 720 @3.2GHz (4th core unlocked) right now, which I would assume is the equivalent of an x4 955 correct? A Zosma is a quad core that already runs at a lower clock rate the only difference is wattage (which I'm not really concerned about). Sure I could unlock it to a Hexa-Core, but to what end? I could overclock it, I suppose but I don't see Newegg listing it as having TurboCore or whatever.

What really worries me, is that I plan on getting a new video card around christmas time (if not now if upgrading my CPU isn't worth it) and Running Memory at DDR2-6400 and a 790X chipset, I'm starting to think bottlenecks. Am I wrong?
 
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Yeah Zomsa is really only good for unlocking. Though I do not know how good the unlock rates are.

The DDR2 and 790X chipset will not hold you back. I don't see Phenom II chips being major bottlenecks if clock around 4 GHz till probably the 8900 series or GTX 700 series. People still run 6900 crossfire with good performance on these chips after all.
 
xBanzai89 said:
Yeah Zomsa is really only good for unlocking. Though I do not know how good the unlock rates are.

The DDR2 and 790X chipset will not hold you back. I don't see Phenom II chips being major bottlenecks if clock around 4 GHz till probably the 8900 series or GTX 700 series. People still run 6900 crossfire with good performance on these chips after all.
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I'm just disappointing by the fact that I had to underclock my DDR2-8500 memory to DDR2-6400 on my board. Which seems old. My rig rips through almost every game I throw at it, even had an enjoyable experience on Crysis 2. But I'm not sure what the performance differences are between my current DDR2-6400 and the DDR3-1333 memory I'm looking at now.

Would it be safer to just grab a new video card and call it a day? Lookin at an HD6950. I just don't want any bottlenecks to arise somewhere. This crossfire stuff is cool and all, but the drivers are a nightmare and I can't wait around for the Catalyst Team to release a new CAP weekly to fix a new game.
 
You won't see any major difference between the DDR2 vs DDR3 right now. You still have a capable machine. If you do not want to wait for next gen as it has been delayed a 6950 will likely do the the job. What video card are you coming from and screen resolution do you have?
 
Silent Ricochet said:
Then I'm failing to see a point in buying a Zosma. I'm running a Phenom II x3 720 @3.2GHz (4th core unlocked) right now, which I would assume is the equivalent of an x4 955 correct? A Zosma is a quad core that already runs at a lower clock rate the only difference is wattage (which I'm not really concerned about). Sure I could unlock it to a Hexa-Core, but to what end? I could overclock it, I suppose but I don't see Newegg listing it as having TurboCore or whatever.

What really worries me, is that I plan on getting a new video card around christmas time (if not now if upgrading my CPU isn't worth it) and Running Memory at DDR2-6400 and a 790X chipset, I'm starting to think bottlenecks. Am I wrong?
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You are running your cpu at 3,2.

Thubans will typically reach 3,8-4,2 Ghz so that's massive increase in clock speed.
Also Thubans can clock NB much higher than denebs which gives few more percents.



Even with failed unlock you get 20-30% more performance
and that;s before we factor 2 possible cores advantage.

edit: I just noticed crossfire stuff- in that case yeah definitly go for single more powerfull card than new cpu.
 
Forget the 4100 and get a 955. I picked up a used rev C3 955 for $75 shipped off the [H] for sale forum. Most 955 will O/C to 4.0ghz with little effort. Unfortunately, Bulldozer is a worse release than the first generation Phenom was. I truly hope Piledriver will redeem AMD but I cant bring myself to buy a Bulldozer. Been running AMD system builds exclusively for my own personal pc setup since the AMD 5x86 150 cpu (ala 486 days). Sad day to be a AMD fan.

I have my O/C to 4.0 with a non overclocked 5850 and it ran the BF3 demo on high smoothly on both maps. Phenom II is a little long in the tooth, but still up to the task of today's new release games.
 
xBanzai89 said:
You won't see any major difference between the DDR2 vs DDR3 right now. You still have a capable machine. If you do not want to wait for next gen as it has been delayed a 6950 will likely do the the job. What video card are you coming from and screen resolution do you have?
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Right now I have two HD4850's Crossfired. I think on my mobo the the PCIe Slots run at 8x when crossfired too. :/ Like I said I can run most games on High if not very high. But with new games coming out, there's always problems with flickering, terrible scaling, etc. So then I have to wait for the Catalyst team to release a new Driver CAP to fix the issue. which sometimes takes weeks.

EDIT: Do you think I should overclock my CPU some more? Even with the 4th core unlocked and I've bumped the clock from 2.8GHz to 3.2GHz, I feel like there's plenty more room. Running an Arctic Cooler 64 Pro, great heatsink for the price. Thing is with overclocking is that I need to watch temperatures, which I can't do because unlocking the 4th core disables temperature readings on the CPU.. The closest thing I get I think is the socket temperature from CPUID HWMonitor.
 
What would you gentlemen suggest on the order of an x3 710 > a 1090 or 1100? Planning on some VMs, programming, passable gaming on a 5870.
 
Silent Ricochet said:
Right now I have two HD4850's Crossfired. I think on my mobo the the PCIe Slots run at 8x when crossfired too. :/ Like I said I can run most games on High if not very high. But with new games coming out, there's always problems with flickering, terrible scaling, etc. So then I have to wait for the Catalyst team to release a new Driver CAP to fix the issue. which sometimes takes weeks.

EDIT: Do you think I should overclock my CPU some more? Even with the 4th core unlocked and I've bumped the clock from 2.8GHz to 3.2GHz, I feel like there's plenty more room. Running an Arctic Cooler 64 Pro, great heatsink for the price. Thing is with overclocking is that I need to watch temperatures, which I can't do because unlocking the 4th core disables temperature readings on the CPU.. The closest thing I get I think is the socket temperature from CPUID HWMonitor.
Click to expand...

You will likely see a bump in performance. If you are sick of dealing with the crossfire head aches then you can probably make the switch now and still be happy even when next gen comes.

What was the max overclock you got on the 720 with three cores active?
 
xBanzai89 said:
You will likely see a bump in performance. If you are sick of dealing with the crossfire head aches then you can probably make the switch now and still be happy even when next gen comes.

What was the max overclock you got on the 720 with three cores active?
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A bump in performance? :/ Right now an HD6950 goes for $250. Assuming I can somehow sell my two HD4850s for what.. $40 a piece? I'm still dropping $170 for how much bigger of a performance increase? According to Tom's Hardware Charts in 2010, Crossfired HD4850's equal the same amount of performance from one Nvidia GTX 460. In the 2011 Charts, the HD6950 scores an average of 30FPS more in benchmarks when up against the GTX 460 (Enthusiast 2011 charts). To me this seems like a huge performance increase, but then again it's averaged..

And as for my CPU, I've never pushed it passed 3.2GHz with 4 cores. It was my first time overclocking, and I was afraid to push it much further (Then again it's only a 400mhz increase)... I unlocked the 4th core immediately after installing it, so I never OC'd with only 3 cores...
 
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I managed 3.4 out of mine before it became unstable. I tried like hell to get a full 1ghz oc (2.6 stock on the 710) on it, but it just wouldn't behave.


I may have another go at it.... though it's all just for fun now, I Will be getting a new proc sometime soon. Just not sure whether to go x6 or x4 and try to unlock.
 
I was just looking at Tom's. Check out the 5870 vs 4850 Crossfire. Your call if it is enough of a performance boost for you. The 5870 for the most part is comparable to the 6950 in performance too. Really we have been stuck with the same performance now the past 2 years due to being stuck on 40nm. The 6900s are really just refreshes of the 5800s instead of being a true new gen.

I bet you can at least do 3.6 GHz anyway. I would maybe try going back to three cores and go from there. It should help you find your limit. At least you have temps doing that. I doubt the added core will add that much for temps most likely. Unless its that bad of a hot core.
 
Mine was on 3. Unlock doesn't work for my chip. Freezes on windows boot.

if that was @ me that is.
 
I was talking to Silent actually.

Your 710 is a locked chip correct? That maybe one reason why you couldn't go higher.
 
xBanzai89 said:
I was talking to Silent actually.

Your 710 is a locked chip correct? That maybe one reason why you couldn't go higher.
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Yeah. 710 is bclk etc type OC all the way. Multiplier, would have made it quite a bit easier I'm sure.

Definite improvement though.
 
xBanzai89 said:
I was just looking at Tom's. Check out the 5870 vs 4850 Crossfire. Your call if it is enough of a performance boost for you. The 5870 for the most part is comparable to the 6950 in performance too. Really we have been stuck with the same performance now the past 2 years due to being stuck on 40nm. The 6900s are really just refreshes of the 5800s instead of being a true new gen.

I bet you can at least do 3.6 GHz anyway. I would maybe try going back to three cores and go from there. It should help you find your limit. At least you have temps doing that. I doubt the added core will add that much for temps most likely. Unless its that bad of a hot core.
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This puts me in a hard spot.. No denying the charts you linked me to. My crossfire setup owns but the main game I'm looking forward to is BF3, and I got better performance in that game with CFX DISABLED... The 5870 and 6950 seem extremely similar, and yet the 6950 costs a bit more and only garners 10 extra frames on average. Problem is that the HD5870 is hard to come by unless I wanna buy used and even then the prices spike into the low $200's. If they're gonna float around that price I might as well as spend a few extra bucks and get a Twin Frozr III 6950.

I'll try stepping my CPU slowly up and see how things go. I'll watch my socket temperatures and complete my leisure play through of HL2 (for old time's sake lol) in a while and see if it's stable enough to game.

This is overall a tough choice, I could either upgrade to a Zosma CPU ($130) or pick up a new video card (~$250). If my CPU is more than capable with keeping up with a stronger video card then that might be what I'm gonna do. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that CFX HD4850s = HD5870 =< HD6950. Just doesn't make sense...
 
Maybe you are just best off saving up cash for a total system overhaul sometime next year. That will be money well spent if you can hop on IB and the 28nm new gen cards.
 
Silent Ricochet said:
This puts me in a hard spot.. No denying the charts you linked me to. My crossfire setup owns but the main game I'm looking forward to is BF3, and I got better performance in that game with CFX DISABLED... The 5870 and 6950 seem extremely similar, and yet the 6950 costs a bit more and only garners 10 extra frames on average. Problem is that the HD5870 is hard to come by unless I wanna buy used and even then the prices spike into the low $200's. If they're gonna float around that price I might as well as spend a few extra bucks and get a Twin Frozr III 6950.

I'll try stepping my CPU slowly up and see how things go. I'll watch my socket temperatures and complete my leisure play through of HL2 (for old time's sake lol) in a while and see if it's stable enough to game.

This is overall a tough choice, I could either upgrade to a Zosma CPU ($130) or pick up a new video card (~$250). If my CPU is more than capable with keeping up with a stronger video card then that might be what I'm gonna do. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that CFX HD4850s = HD5870 =< HD6950. Just doesn't make sense...
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I see similar performance from my i7 920 with 5770's to my x3 with 5870. The 5770s are loud and get HOT when really cranking. 90c for the top card. ~60-70 for the 5870. both in bf3.
 
xBanzai89 said:
Maybe you are just best off saving up cash for a total system overhaul sometime next year. That will be money well spent if you can hop on IB and the 28nm new gen cards.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. I'm starting to think that I'll wait until the final 10.10 Catalyst drivers from AMD and hang onto my Crossfire setup for the Release of BF3. See how that goes. Then Maybe I'll pick up a new video card. Not sure yet though..

From Trial and Error I managed to overclock my CPU from the Stock 2.8GHz 3 Cores to a Stable 3.4GHz 4 Cores, Max CPU Temp hits 59C. WEI went up a bit too :D I had to bump the vCore up from 1.3 to 1.4. I'm not sure how much farther I could push it, some people are running theirs at 3.6GHz. I'm not sure I can do that, when the TjMax on these chips are 68C. What do you think?

Roscowgo said:
I see similar performance from my i7 920 with 5770's to my x3 with 5870. The 5770s are loud and get HOT when really cranking. 90c for the top card. ~60-70 for the 5870. both in bf3.
Click to expand...

I have Aftermarket coolers on both of mine, so My temps never go above 60C on my cards. BF3 framerates were good, but stuttering and scaling was retarded. I ran better with one HD4850 than two in CFX...
 
Silent Ricochet said:
Perhaps. I'm starting to think that I'll wait until the final 10.10 Catalyst drivers from AMD and hang onto my Crossfire setup for the Release of BF3. See how that goes. Then Maybe I'll pick up a new video card. Not sure yet though..

From Trial and Error I managed to overclock my CPU from the Stock 2.8GHz 3 Cores to a Stable 3.4GHz 4 Cores, Max CPU Temp hits 59C. WEI went up a bit too :D I had to bump the vCore up from 1.3 to 1.4. I'm not sure how much farther I could push it, some people are running theirs at 3.6GHz. I'm not sure I can do that, when the TjMax on these chips are 68C. What do you think?



I have Aftermarket coolers on both of mine, so My temps never go above 60C on my cards. BF3 framerates were good, but stuttering and scaling was retarded. I ran better with one HD4850 than two in CFX...
Click to expand...

@ 3.4 and 1.5v mine doesn't go above 40 with a H60.
the x3 that is. the 920 Cooks @ 3.9 with the spinq on it.
 
What about a FX-8120/8150 vs PII X4 955 BE?

I ask this because I already have an Asus Sabertooth 990FX... and I had saved the money for BD because it was "gonna be so awesome and blow your socks away!"

Now I'm wondering if going for the FX-8120, an 1100T, or a 980... or just saving the money, hahaha.

By the by, I've been able to have the 955 stable at 4.3GHz.
 
BD didn't show any performance boost for the most part in games. What does you video card look like at the moment? If that is up to date you maybe best off waiting for Piledriver sometime next year to make use of your Sabertooth. That is a great clock on the 955. I only got to 3.9 GHz stable with mine.
 
I have a 6870; consider I use it on an old Vizio TV which only goes up to 1366 x 768, so I'm good for now.

I'm cooling the 955 with a Corsair H80. If I recall correctly - 'cuz I'm at my job, can't confirm it right now - it's on a 14x multiplier, 305MHz FSB and 1.40v. That's all I moved. Oh yeah, and RAM is at 1600. Other than that, I think I didn't change anything else.
 
Your system sounds like it is perfect to me for your resolution and video card. I would just hold out and see what comes out by next spring. BD isn't worth it all in my opinion. I was lucky to return my 990X motherboard during the summer.
 
Ignore everyone who is trying to make you waste money here. If you have an unlocked chip, which you could probably push farther (at least 3.6 GHz), you do not need a 955, 960, or 4100. Screw that. You will waste your money. Buy a 2500k or wait for the next gen stuff. Otherwise, I'd say get a 6950 and sell those 4850's. Fine cards, but I am a bigger fan of single card solutions. Especially when its an upgrade.
Other than the 6950 option, imo, your best choice is to wait for next gen CPU and GPU and upgrade then. I honestly feel like you are wasting money otherwise.
 
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If I didn't have an AMD CPU and wanted one right now, I'd grab that linked 960T too.
 
KillerFry said:
What about a FX-8120/8150 vs PII X4 955 BE?

I ask this because I already have an Asus Sabertooth 990FX... and I had saved the money for BD because it was "gonna be so awesome and blow your socks away!"

Now I'm wondering if going for the FX-8120, an 1100T, or a 980... or just saving the money, hahaha.

By the by, I've been able to have the 955 stable at 4.3GHz.
Click to expand...

Sell it and get cheap SB mobo and 2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157251

Or save money and wait for IB.
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
Ignore everyone who is trying to make you waste money here. If you have an unlocked chip, which you could probably push farther (at least 3.6 GHz), you do not need a 955, 960, or 4100. Screw that. You will waste your money. Buy a 2500k or wait for the next gen stuff. Otherwise, I'd say get a 6950 and sell those 4850's. Fine cards, but I am a bigger fan of single card solutions. Especially when its an upgrade.
Other than the 6950 option, imo, your best choice is to wait for next gen CPU and GPU and upgrade then. I honestly feel like you are wasting money otherwise.
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Did exactly that. Overclocked my CPU a little more to 3.4GHZ. I might re-apply thermal paste see if that helps with temps and then try to push it further. Meanwhile, I grabbed a new HD6950 last night :D I'll upgrade my mobo and CPU probably around Christmas time or in the spring.
 
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