AM3 Phenom III vs Core i7

DougWD

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 4, 2005
Messages
502
After spending huors trying to OC my old and tired Toledo 4800, and big deal since you could clock that thing to 9Ghz and it still wouldn't perform as well as a Core 2 Duo, I'm ready to upgrade, or at least getting hot for it. As you all know, it's no fun having a CPU that limits you playing games, much less working.

Anyway, it's time to stop messing around and get serious about upgrading. This rig has done me well.

The problem is that I am an AMD type, but I'm not buying their current Phenom II, not with the new i7s line out. The i7 920 just blows it away, and for nearly the same price.

Anyway, here are my questions (gets out popcorn and flame tally:
1. Does anyone have any ideas about what type of performance we're going to see witht eh new AM3 lineup of CPUs?
2. How will they compare to the i7s?
3. How will the i7s and AM3 Phenom III OC?
4. After OCing, will yuo be able to turn back on CnQ and Intels CPU power saving (Don't know what Intels CnQ flavor is called)?
5. Can you get nearly the same overall performance OCing an i7 920 compared to the two other higher level models (In other words, are the cache and other instructions the same and the clock is the difference?) The i7 920 is really interesting to me, now that it has the new on chip controller.

I'm just REALLY itching to do up another system, but I prefer to go AMD is AMD pulls it's head out with the AM3. I'm not in a hurry, but in the next several months, or maybe like one or two--haha. I guess I am getting itchy.

I also think down the line AMD can do some really interesting things matching their ATI cards to their new CPUs. I mean they have the ability to produce Intel matched cards to compete with nVidia, and at the same time, make their own cards something like proprietary to the AMD CPUs and REALLY make them scream--since they don't have to worry about creating a single card for both Intel and AMD systems. This might be faulty reasoning on my part, but I'm interested in what you all have to say about all this.
 
1 am3 isnt a phenom III its a phenom II with ddr3 support.. dont add names.. the first ones being released are identical to the ones currently out.. they just have DDR3 support.. your going to get the same performance out of the processor as you saw with the phenom II 920 and 940.. only difference will be the much higher memory bandwidth with the DDR3 support.. so in that category of benchmarks the phenom II am3 might give the i7 a run for its money but i think the triple channel ddr3 will still own it..

i dont get why people keep trying to compare the phenom II to the i7.. it was never ment to compete with the i7.. it was said so by AMD in many of their articles(and no im not going to link them because honestly i dont care).. the phenom II was always ment as an alternative to intel's C2Q's in the main stream market.. its a step in the right direction.. only a year to late.. but still a step..

AMD doesnt recommend using cool n' quiet when overclocking.. you can use a 3rd party application to control the multipliers and such.. but cool n' quiet does a horrible job when overclocking since it will also change the voltages.. intel uses speedstep and CE1 or CEI which ever.. and those can also be used after making sure you have a stable overclock..

and as for the 920 vs 940, yes you can the only one the 920 wont match is the 945 extreme due to the unlocked multiplier and i think the L2 cache is higher or something..

theres already atleast a 100 posts talking about the i7 overclocking in here.. so question 3 has already been answered..

also you can use AM3 processors on an AM2+ board w/ ddr2.. which honestly is the smartest thing possible.. intel wasnt able to do that due to the IMC needing more pins thus socket LGA-1366 was born..

if you already own an am2+ board and everything.. phenom II is the cheapest bang for the buck right now.. but if you dont..then i7 is probably the way to go.. depressing to see me say that since i hate intel.. but im realist..

and the last question.. AMD is working on its own CPU/IGP single unit processor.. so we will see how that goes.. i think AMD has a better chance at succeeding with that then intel since intel hasnt proven anything yet with their current IGP's.. but we will have to see..
 
"if you already own an am2+ board and everything.. phenom II is the cheapest bang for the buck right now.. but if you dont..then i7 is probably the way to go.. depressing to see me say that since i hate intel.. but im realist.."

Hangs head low--I hear ya man, I hear ya. Poor AMD. Still getting kicked while she's down.

Thanks for that information. I think the i7 920 is the way to go then. And you're saying that once you get a stable OC using the i7 MBs, you can turn on teh Intel power saving mode, and it works? That would be very nice.

One of the things holding me back right now is that there is only one chipset for the i7s, the Intel 58 and I've read mixed love affairs with it.

Also, waht about RAM. What speed does teh bus run at on the i7s? I've read that slower value DDR3 RAM still allows you to OC and runs plenty fast. If I understood what I was reading, the fastest DDR3 runs at 1600Mhz and the bus speed on the i7 runs at 1333? So you only need RAM that can do 1333, which is what value RAM does. So the only benefit would be head room while OCing the CPU. But then you can always use a divider. On the other hand, what I read said they were OCing teh value ram to 1600 and had no problems with it.

What do you know about that, since I can shave off 100,00 bucks suing the cheaper RAM. Thanks for your reply.
 
with the x58 it all depends on the board maker really.. the asus p6t is an awesome board.. the evga x58 still has some kinks in it.. a lot of the problems have been fixed with bios updates.. the asus rampage II extreme is a good board.. just have to look around.. their pretty much the same just depends if its crossfire only or crossfire/SLI or just sli support..

and no you can run the memory at 1600.. thats a divider setting in the bios.. some boards are just picky.. if you going off of the x58 reviews on hardocp.. theres been some issues with the bios not supporting certain speeds but they are usually fixed in bios updates..
though once you start overclocking then you have to drop it to 1333..

id say if you want the headroom to push to 3.8ghz go with the 1600mhz ram.. if you dont care.. then feel free to try with the cheaper stuff.. but me personally if im overclocking at all im always going to go for the memory that has the best headroom for overclocking..
 
Oh no way! I'd just like to get to like 3.1 Ghz. and be done with it.
What about this combo:

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R intel x58 chipset ATX form factor 2xPCI-E(x16)/1xPCI-E(x4)/2xPCI-E(x1)/2xpci/4xddr3 w/sata2 raid,lan(gb),1394,usb 2.0 & audio

CPU i7CORE 920 - 2.66G

PATRIOT 6GB KIT PVT36G1600ELK

740.00.

I don;t really like the MB. But one thing it does have, which I think is a really nice addition, is (1) 1.44 floppy drive controller. WTF do they put those on anymore? I haven't used a 1.4 floppy in 10 years.
 
that boards good.. just remember to take that annoying blue crap off the northbridge/pwm coolers.. they're useless and actually cause them to run hotter then they shoot..

just looking at the memory.. honestly for a 9-9-9-24 @ 1600mhz memory id rather go with something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

mostly due to a lot of failure rate on the patriot (based off the customer reviews on newegg).. that and gskill hasnt failed me or any of the other systems ive built for other people..

but if anyone else has any suggestions feel free to give them, to help DougWD out..
 
I don;t really like the MB. But one thing it does have, which I think is a really nice addition, is (1) 1.44 floppy drive controller. WTF do they put those on anymore? I haven't used a 1.4 floppy in 10 years.

Because all of these boards support booting from usb flash for bios updates.
 
So the floppy controller allows you to do that through a USB connection, which otherwise would need software drivers in Windows to operate?

Thanks for that information.
 
Since it can boot from USB the mfg's figure if you want floppy that bad then you can get a USB floppy drive. You can flash bios from usb thumb drive, usb floppy, or cd-rom.
 
that boards good.. just remember to take that annoying blue crap off the northbridge/pwm coolers.. they're useless and actually cause them to run hotter then they shoot..

just looking at the memory.. honestly for a 9-9-9-24 @ 1600mhz memory id rather go with something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

mostly due to a lot of failure rate on the patriot (based off the customer reviews on newegg).. that and gskill hasnt failed me or any of the other systems ive built for other people..

but if anyone else has any suggestions feel free to give them, to help DougWD out..


Which do you think is a better board?
ASUS P6T Or the above Gig? I think this ASUS only offers 8GB RAM total while the GB offers a total of 16GB.

Also, what about this RAM:

OCZ OCZ3G1600LV6GK 6gb kit (2gb x 3) 1600mhz 8-8-8-24 240-pin ddr3 dimm w/heat spreader 179 bucks.

Or this:
CORSAIR TR3X6G1600C8D 6gb kit (2gb x 3) 1600mhz matched pair 8-8-8-24 240-pin ddr3 dimm 230.00

MWAVE doesn't sell Gskill, so I'm out of luck there. But yeah the above RAM is a lot together than that Patrior 99 stuff. I didn't even look.

And before you ask, I always build my systems using Mwave becsaue I've been doing business with tehm for over a decade, and they give me special treatment when i need to return something, like when it's over 30 days and I "just changed my mind." They even pay my return shipping sometimes, depending on what it is--usually if I want to return something after spending 1500.00 for a system build.

I'll buy other things elsewhere for a better price--sometimes--or a different product they don't carry.

I also like the fact that I pay them 50 bucks and they will assemble the entire system I put together and do a thermal test on the MB, and then burn in everything for a few hours. That way I never get DOA parts. Then when I get the system, I get out the MB book and go over all their connections just to make sure some lackey did F-things up, and to familiarize myself with the board, and sometimes rewire stuff so it's organized better. You know, in ten years, every time I've had them assemble a system and test it that I've put together, it's been SPOT ON. All the power, fan, etc connectors were correctly plugged. Not that anyone would mess that part up, but you really never know.

Anyway, not to rant about mwave, but they just have done me right for years and NEVER tried to scam me in anyway.

Video cards are a different story. If I can get them cheaper, I'll buy them anywhere. But the other thing I like is that they keep database that goes back 5+ years so I always have my invoices for taxes--lol.
 
On another note, what about a PSU?

Will 850wts be enough for 4 hard drives the i7OCed to 3.2 and two video cards (SLI or xfire)? I really don't have the money for two video cards, but a little head room would be nice you know. The PSU really jump up after 850, so that's why I'm asking about 850s.

CORSAIR TX850 Single Rail
130.00

ANTEC QUATTRO 850 850w truepower quattro Not a single rail
168.00
 
Since it can boot from USB the mfg's figure if you want floppy that bad then you can get a USB floppy drive. You can flash bios from usb thumb drive, usb floppy, or cd-rom.

So w/o it you could still boot up suing a USB device? So my question is--who would ever want a 1.44 floppy these days--or who could even find one?
 
Thats right. No reason for floppy, some people like it as preference...stuck in old ways.
 
That's interesting in a psychological way. I wonder what the profile of a floppy user "to boot a system" looks like?

Maybe a technological Luddite? "We embrace technology, but this USB stick stuff is just too over the top. A lot of people could get hurt storing that sort of information. We should stick to 1.44" floppies."
 
I run 3 hd's on a PC&C 750w, and noticed someone at another forum running a pair of 260-216's on a Corsair 750w, so 850 will be plenty..
 
In my expereince, if you are installing windows XP and need to install the RAID drivers from FDD it WILL not work from a USB FDD drive. The windows installer forgets it just loaded up a USB FDD and it will forget the location of the RAID drivers and throw an error in windows install and not install.
So, having a native FDD controller is still a good idea for those wanting to use XP.
 
In my expereince, if you are installing windows XP and need to install the RAID drivers from FDD it WILL not work from a USB FDD drive. The windows installer forgets it just loaded up a USB FDD and it will forget the location of the RAID drivers and throw an error in windows install and not install.
So, having a native FDD controller is still a good idea for those wanting to use XP.

Hmmmm, that explains some weirdness we've had during installs of some special Dell workstations (Precision I think, vs. our regular Optiplex models). Everything appears to work fine at first, but then it just acts like the driver floppy wasn't there. I don't think any of them came with floppy drives installed, so we probably were using our USB drive.

Obviously it requires having a working system already, but slipstreaming the MSD driver right into the install is the easiest way. Make your custom CD, and it "just works" without even having to push a button for the MSD driver. nLite and RAID Slipstreamer make this pretty painless.
 
Just wanted to post back once more for anyone else with this thread question:

After doing my research, I built a brand new system from tehg round up with teh Intel i7. It's just unbelievable, and finally had the on board controller like the AMDs have had since 2005.

Now, on the other hand, as one poster noted here, the best performance per dollar option would be this:

If you have an AM2 MB, the Phenom 2 would be the ticket. It's a great CPU and as much power as you could possibly need for gaming and other duties. I'm not sure about RAM, but if you don't need upgraded RAM, you simply drop in the new Phenom and you are DONE! Buy another video card, like a 260 (216) OCed and you're good for a long time. Total price--250 for the PHenom, and 200 for teh 260 216 OCed. Total about 400-450 bucks.

Now take the system I jsut built as comparison:

i7 920
Gig UDP5
12GB 1600 RAM
CMS 830 case or whatever the top of the line stacker is
1000 wt KIngwin Modular PSU
GTX 280 SC by EVGA
(2) Western Digital Caviar Black 640s.
and you are looking at about 2000.00.

If I had had the AM2 MB, I definitely would have gone Phenom, nooooo problem.

ANyway, thanks for the help.
 
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