Did I make the right choice? Athlon X3 over Phenom X2

Y

YamahaAlex37

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 23, 2005
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I hope you will tell me I made a good choice...

Instead of buying my brother a CPU I decided to upgrade mine and give him my X2 250. I'm not sure if I will be able to notice an improvement over my x2 250, but I couldn't resist the retail box for $67.49 (it would have cost me $50 with a heatsink fan for a decent cpu for him, so I spent $20 more bucks). I could have bought a Phenom II X2 550 (Non-BE) for $10 more than the X3 440.

I did this because I have a BIOSTAR TA785 A2+ on the way and it's supposed to be able to unlock cores. I figured with my luck It's better to have 3 cores instead of 2 in case I can't unlock anything. From my research I was led to believe this was smart, and also saw the 440 out perform the 550 in almost every benchmark (when stock), What do you think?
 
I think that your decision was a sound one. I recently made the opposite choice.

In my HTPC, I originally had a Athlon II X3 435 OC'd lightly to 3.2ghz that I traded out for a Phenom II X2 555 BE. In my case, the 555 unlocked to 4 cores and does offer a very noticeable improvement in encoding tasks and several games show a marked improvement, but the increase in game frame rate had less to do with the unlocked cores and more to do with the fact that the PII is just better than the AII for gaming clock for clock. So for me it luckily worked out as a good choice, but unlocking is a roll of the dice, so sometimes it is better to take a guaranteed 3 cores over the possible potential of getting 3 or 4 cores.
 
1_legged_sheep said:
Most games don't touch the L3 cache. 3 cores seems to be the sweet spot for games currently also:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/07/05/how-many-cpu-cores-do-games-need/3

That 440 should overclock like crazy too, so yeah I say the trade was good.
Click to expand...

Legged I'm going to have to dis agree with you. Most of the reason people go with the phenom II 555 or 550 in the first place is because it has the l3 cache and if you're lucky you'll unlock the other cores. Games are VERY cache sensitive. In actuality most games (including brand new Starcraft 2) do not touch more then 2 cores. I will agree with you however that 3 is getting close to a sweet spot as some games are slowing getting better threaded. The l4d series actively uses a 3 core.

Now as far as the original post goes then I would agree that if you cannot unlock the fourth core three is better then two. I personally have Phenom II x3 720 and have never regretted owning it. I only have an 760G motherboard and cannot unlock the fourth core.
 
Damn, if I would of known about the l3 cache I might of just ordered the processor for my brother, the x2 7550 (with l3 cache) for $40 and kept me x2 250. Do you think I'm even going to notice an improvement between the x3 440 and the x2 250?
 
You can unlock Athlon x3. I wonder if I should sell the 440 brand new on ebay and get something with l3 cache...
 
ccityinstaller said:
I was under the impression you could not unlock any of the Athlon II series...Or maybe that only applies to the Athlon II dual cores...hmm...

Click to expand...

Athlon II X3 can unlock to a propus X4, or if EXTREMELY lucky, a Deneb X4.

Athlon II X2 is a regor core - a dual core only design.
 
It's not a bad thing that you've done, but you could've used the chance of getting an unlockable X2...But pretty much as others said, L3 don't matter much in games. You'll be fine with the X3 Athlon
 
diesavagenation said:
I think you went with the better CPU 3 cores seems to be the sweet spot for gaming and multitasking.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Especially considering the threading in applications will increase (hopefully in the not so distant future). It should give you a little bit more longevity in the usefulness of the CPU.
 
Yeah, guaranteed 3 cores was a good choice, and as skizzled says good for longevity too. I recently upgraded my server box from a X2 6400+ BE to a X3 445 for longevity reasons as it doesn't game (folds for the [H]orde tho) but it will be good for multitasking and streaming to my Home Theatre and the kids Xbox360, simultaneously if need be. Good luck with the unlocking
 
I was unable to unlock :(

:mad:WTF I DID NOT BUY A X3 EXPECTING TO BE STUCK WITH THREE CORES!!!:mad:

j/k, but maybe i'm doing something wrong? every time I enabled "auto" then booted i would just be stuck with a black screen. does this usually indicate a defective core?

i tried upping the voltages but got a little confused at the screen. there were seperate options for cpu-nb and just a nb one... i also was'nt sure whether to use "auto" or
"all cores", and then there was an option for -2%, but allowed values of -12% to 12%.
 
You should bump the core v, the cpu nb and nb prob wont need to be bumped just to unlock cores. Whats your stock vcore? My friend had to go to 1.45 to unlock his 4 cores, but is now running 3.7ghz all 4 cores stable
 
Mr34727 said:
You should bump the core v, the cpu nb and nb prob wont need to be bumped just to unlock cores. Whats your stock vcore? My friend had to go to 1.45 to unlock his 4 cores, but is now running 3.7ghz all 4 cores stable
Click to expand...

My stock was 1.4, I tried +.1 increase... :(
 
I wonder if I should sell my x3 440 and get a Phenom II X4 945... because I don't think the x2 250 to x3 440 was much of a performance increase
 
i used a 555 and ta790, left all settings stock and just enabled acc (pretty sure it was all auto, on the acc part no 2% or nuttin).
only needed a vcore bump to oc to 3.8, but decided to just go 3.6 w/ no bump.
 
Don't unlock or buy to unlock.

As far as your choice goes. If a game can use it a core is always better than extra L3. If I could get an Athlon X6 I would get it over my overclocked Phenom IIX3. Because more and more games are using more cores. Within a few years 3 cores might just become a requirement.
 
Yes I know I shouldn't have bought just to unlock, but I did it because my brother was going to use my old processor, x2 250. I'm wondering if I should however sell mine and get a Phenom II x4, because the performance from a x2 250 -> x3 440 seems to be minimal to none (correct me if i'm wrong), but the performance to a phenom II x4 seems to be huge. And ewiz is having some good cpu sales right now.
 
If you have the money to spend then buy a new one then just get a new one. Don't just sell your old core.
 
i used a 555 only needed a vcore bump to oc to 3.8, but decided to just go 3.6 w/ no bump.
 
So will the upgrade x3 440 -> phenom 2 x4 at 3.0ghz be far greater than my initial upgrade of x2 250 -> x3 440?
 
My X3 440 unlocked to a quad and ocs well too.

Can do 3.5 Ghz stable on 1.4V with the stock hsf. Can oc more but am holding off till I get an after-market cooler.
Idles at a measly 0.65V.
pwned by PhenomMsrTweaker.
erodov.com

See if a bios update helps.
 
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This is turning into the post my successful x3 400 unlock thread and further humiliate the OP thread :( j/k it's good to hear, but i already flashed bios to the only one available on bio star's website.

Is black screen usually a indication it didn't work, or is it more likely that means i'm doing something wrong, because would'nt if just boot with 3 cores if "all cores" was set to auto and there only were 3 cores.
 
It took a while on my Gigabyte mobo to update EC firmware.
I don't know how Biostar has set it up but when I did it the first time, it took about a minute to post but has been fine ever since.
 
YamahaAlex37 said:
This is turning into the post my successful x3 400 unlock thread and further humiliate the OP thread :( j/k it's good to hear, but i already flashed bios to the only one available on bio star's website.

Is black screen usually a indication it didn't work, or is it more likely that means i'm doing something wrong, because would'nt if just boot with 3 cores if "all cores" was set to auto and there only were 3 cores.
Click to expand...

Don't attempt to unlock and just overclock further instead. Problem solved.
 
FreeRadical said:
It took a while on my Gigabyte mobo to update EC firmware.
I don't know how Biostar has set it up but when I did it the first time, it took about a minute to post but has been fine ever since.
Click to expand...

A minute to post!? so maybe I should wait a little longer when I see the black screen?
 
I wouldnt worry about it honestly.

I recently went from an Athlon II X3 435 OC'd to 3.4 to my current Phenom II X2 555. I got it to overclock to a screaming 4.014 GHz without a whole lot of trial and error but it wouldnt unlock to a quad. It did however unlock to a 3 core. Core Temp calls it a "Phenom II X3 755". Dont know what that is but it sounds cool and its in my sig. ;)

Performance wise, I went from 6.9 to 7.1 in Windows Experience Rating for whatever thats worth. I also went from 39.5 to 42 fps average in the Crysis benchmark. However I think that is more my GPU is just maxed out.

The Phenom X2 is a better proc than the Athlon IMO and definitely has the most potential but the performance difference isnt like going from a Athlon 2 to a i7. If you can get nearly what you paid for the Athlon and want to play around with overclocking, then might not be a bad idea to get one. If youre just wanting to be done with it and get to computing, I say keep it.
 
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