Been out of the AMD game awhile, now have AMD mobo.

Pyroja

Pyroja

Gawd
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Jan 4, 2005
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594
As the title says, I've been away from the AMD world for a good long while. I bought into Intel with the Q6600 and haven't looked back. Until now.

I was just gifted a Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 Rev 2.0 (nForce 570 chipset):
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There's a CPU compatibility list on Gigabyte's site, and it according to it, the beefiest Phenom it can run is the Phenom II X4 955 95w (I guess there's a 125w around that it can't handle? Yeesh.) and the newest Athlon is the Athlon II X4 640.

Thing is, I don't know left from right among AMD CPUs anymore. Are those two comparable? Worlds apart? Seems they're close in benchmarks, from what I can find... But the Athlon came out recently, and that Phenom is kinda old.

Whatever I do with this board, it'll likely be a secondary system at best. What's the best bang-for-the-buck AMD CPU out there? I just want to make something of this on the cheap for.. I don't know, nothing serious.

Any ideas?
 
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a Phenom II x4 955 is always a 95w CPU I believe where as the Black Edition of the same chip is always a 125w.

Honestly that board is pretty crappy. I wouldn't buy a CPU for it unless your getting a pretty damn good deal on the CPU as well. I would check the FS/T forums.
 
Most of the Phenom II cpus have 6 MB of L3 cache where the Athlon II series has none.
For some applications this makes a big difference, but other times it doesn't. For most games the L3 does make a difference. For video encoding, it doesn't matter from what I have seen, so the Athlon II is a good choice for that.
 
I'm still running one of those boards on my main desktop, after buying this many moons ago :) The VRMs around the CPU socket do get warm when you start pushing the overclocks, so get some good airflow going, but apart from that its been rock solid since I bought it from new.

I'm currently running it with an Athlon II X4 620 at ~3.1ghz (238x13) however its nowhere near the limit of what you can get out of the board, I just haven't pushed it very hard or know how to get it past 3.1ghz (if indeed possible!).

As long as you stay at the 95w mark for CPUs you should be good to go :) Also remember to upgrade the BIOS to the FHL version otherwise the chips won't be recognised properly.
 
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praetorian said:
I'm still running one of those boards which I am still using to this day, after buying this many moons ago :) The VRMs around the CPU socket do get warm when you start pushing the overclocks, so get some good airflow going, but apart from that its been rock solid since I bought it from new.

I'm currently running it with an Athlon II X4 620 at ~3.1ghz (238x13) however its nowhere near the limit of what you can get out of the board, I just haven't pushed it very hard or know how to get it past 3.1ghz (if indeed possible!).

As long as you stay at the 95w mark for CPUs you should be good to go :) Also remember to upgrade the BIOS to the FHL version otherwise the chips won't be recognised properly.
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Would I have to update beforehand, or is it just a thing of them running at a reduced speed until I flash it? I've got no other AMD CPUs laying around.

Re: the earlier bit about not spending too much, I'm not thinking about spending more than $100 for a CPU on this thing. A new Athlon II x4 640 seems to go for $100 online, so I'll keep that in mind.

Probably won't use this thing for gaming. That's for my main desktop, and I'll be upgrading that at the end of the year.

EDIT: Man, it seems impossible to find the 95w 955.
 
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Pyroja said:
EDIT: Man, it seems impossible to find the 95w 955.
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There pretty rare.. The 945 is much more common (beware though it also has a 125w version). Given what your working with though the cheapest Athlon II x4 or Phenom II x3 or x4 is what I would be after, I wouldn't worry about maxing the board as much as just saving a few bucks.
 
Pyroja said:
Would I have to update beforehand, or is it just a thing of them running at a reduced speed until I flash it? I've got no other AMD CPUs laying around.

Re: the earlier bit about not spending too much, I'm not thinking about spending more than $100 for a CPU on this thing. A new Athlon II x4 640 seems to go for $100 online, so I'll keep that in mind.

Probably won't use this thing for gaming. That's for my main desktop, and I'll be upgrading that at the end of the year.

EDIT: Man, it seems impossible to find the 95w 955.
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I believe that I had to update PRIOR to installing the chip as otherwise it wasn't recognised however I went ahead and done the update cause I was running an older chip so kinda preempted it :( Its more to do with the BIOS recognising the chip cause of outdated microcode so YMMV...

I got my Athlon II X4 from eBay as a special for £70 inc postage cause it was used however it was exactly the right thing for board as I can't remember if it will like the typical 125w chips :(
 
praetorian said:
I believe that I had to update PRIOR to installing the chip as otherwise it wasn't recognised however I went ahead and done the update cause I was running an older chip so kinda preempted it :( Its more to do with the BIOS recognising the chip cause of outdated microcode so YMMV...

I got my Athlon II X4 from eBay as a special for £70 inc postage cause it was used however it was exactly the right thing for board as I can't remember if it will like the typical 125w chips :(
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I got the impression that the board doesn't like the 125w chips. I'm currently bidding on an Athlon II x4 620, we'll see if I get it cheap :)

This build isn't a priority to me, so I'll just get what I can when I can, on the cheap :D Kinda nice to kinda sorta be messing with AMD stuff again, though.
 
They have the Athlon II 635 OEM for $90, I bought one, missed an $80 sale, got one at new egg for $82.These are supposed to overclock well.
I do not know what prices you expect from ebay, what I've been seeing is too high for used. Good luck.
 
wtourist said:
They have the Athlon II 635 OEM for $90, I bought one, missed an $80 sale, got one at new egg for $82.These are supposed to overclock well.
I do not know what prices you expect from ebay, what I've been seeing is too high for used. Good luck.
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If I lose out on the 620 (bidding currently sits at me leading with $30), I'll look into that. NewEgg has the 640 retail box for only $10 more. I'll just keep my eyes peeled for a deal (always checking the FS/FT forum, as well).

cerwinvega said:
Looks like that board might fit the Enzo MST-88. If you plan on a heavy OC, pick one up.
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I'm not sure how heavy I want to OC it, but darn that's a cool little item. I still haven't even got a solid use in mind for this build. It's mainly just that I have the board and want to do something with it. I'm thinking it could serve as a video editing box, in which case I s'pose every cycle I can get out of it is gold. I have a friend who is heavy into video who is trapped in using machines that just don't have the horsepower for HD (editing or playback). I've been partnering up with him so this seems like a good use for the gear.

Just depends on what I can pick up over time.
 
First off make sure your bios is updated to F15E like it says or you won't get anything working.

I have an older gigabyte board from the athlon x 2 days myself. And believe it or not I just upgraded the CPU to a x4 945 which is a phenom 2 running at 3.0ghz 95watts. The board uses DDR2800 memory.

The system it real fast now I can tell you and upgrading from a x 2 3600+ @ 1.9GHZ has been to say the least remarkable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103809&cm_re=x4_945-_-19-103-809-_-Product
 
I guess I'll have to see about getting an older AMD chip so I can update that bios, because I just won that auction (Ahtlon II x4 620 OEM for $47 shipped). Now to find a good cheap HSF for it.
 
Pyroja said:
I guess I'll have to see about getting an older AMD chip so I can update that bios, because I just won that auction (Ahtlon II x4 620 OEM for $47 shipped). Now to find a good cheap HSF for it.
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I would suggest getting a heatpiped stock Phenom II cooler, there's usually plenty about and cheap too. Should be able to handle that 620
 
If you live in the los angeles area I have a thuban 1055t stock heatsink I don't need you can have for free, but if you don't sorry, can't be bothered the hassle of mailing.
 
Nathan_P said:
I would suggest getting a heatpiped stock Phenom II cooler, there's usually plenty about and cheap too. Should be able to handle that 620
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I'll keep an eye out :)

matteos said:
If you live in the los angeles area I have a thuban 1055t stock heatsink I don't need you can have for free, but if you don't sorry, can't be bothered the hassle of mailing.
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I'm up in the Bay Area :(
 
By that list, the highest it supports is the x4 955, and only the 95w version at that.

I've got an Athlon x4 620 in the mail, anyway. Now I just need to acquire a hard drive and a PSU and I'm good to go :D
 
Pyroja said:
By that list, the highest it supports is the x4 955, and only the 95w version at that.
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You must not have scrolled down far enough. That list shows it supporting all the 125 watt chips as well as the 95 watt.
 
Pyroja said:
Huh? It very clearly does not. Perhaps you missed the part at the top where it states:
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My bad - LOL. I just glanced at it and figured if it was listed it was supported. Sorry about that.
 
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