Which CPU - Phenom II X2 550, Phenom II X3 720, Athlon II X4 620??

B

bigweed

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 15, 2004
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144
Hi all!

Hopefully someone has seen comparisons of the above CPUs somewhere, or can provide some insight into which is 'better'? I am building a new PC, and will be using it for occasional gaming (mostly Counterstrike Source), very occasional video converting, Bittorrent, web, Office and DVD movies.

Links to the CPUs:

Phenom II X2 550 (£72) - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Phenom II X3 720 (£96) - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-238-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Athlon II X4 620 (£82) - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-258-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

I am okay doing some basic overclocking, but would also like a CPU which will be fast out of the box. I am pretty sure they will all smoke my current setup in sig! But, considering they are all similar in price - is there any consensus on which is best for performance at stock, when overclocked (on air, as I dont want to watercool), and when unlocked AND overclocked? I understand that unlocking and overclocking is luck of the draw, so just a best guess on average unlocks/overclocks that people are achieving would be perfect.

Cheers!
 
id go with the athlon II x4 620 because of the extra core over the 720.. sure it doesnt have the L3 cache that the other 2 have but since your not a big gamer its not that big of a deal.. pretty much the only thing currently that benefits largely from the L3 cache.. the extra core will also help with video converting.. not to mention it overclocks pretty decently though it will take a little more work then the phenom II's since both of those are black edition processors with the unlocked multiplier..

out of the 3 choices id say
the 620 for all around performance and extra core while being cheaper then the x3 720..
the phenom II 720 easier overclocking..
the phenom II 550 with the lower power draw and a tad bit higher overclocking but only being a dual core wont make that much of a difference..

thats pretty much my opinion on the differences between them..
 
At this moment, I am drawn by the Athlon and the PII 550 - would the lower pice, extra Mhz and L3 cache of the 550 be of more benefit than the 4 cores of the Athlon? I cant find any comparison reviews of these two, to make my mind for me!!

Thanks
 
I would wait for the Phenom II 555 to come out. It supposedly has less power consumption and better overclocking. Review sites are getting 3.8-4.0ghz on these processors with air cooling and no voltage increase, plus you can always attempt to unlock the other cores.
 
EPS Sniper said:
I would wait for the Phenom II 555 to come out. It supposedly has less power consumption and better overclocking. Review sites are getting 3.8-4.0ghz on these processors with air cooling and no voltage increase, plus you can always attempt to unlock the other cores.
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i would think by now AMD has fixed their x2's so they cant be unlocked.. but who knows.. guess it all depends on how desperate AMD is for money..
 
Phenom II X2 550 is definitely the best value. Even if you can't unlock the other two cores, it still has great gaming performance (better than the X4 620 because of the L3 cache). The Athlon wouldn't be as good for gaming, but with Counterstrike Source, it shouldn't be a big deal. However, if you get the 720, you have a great compromise between cores and speed. If you do unlock the two cores, the 550 would be better since it's default clock speed is faster. If you really want guaranteed 4 cores, get the Athlon, but if you want better gaming performance, get one of the two Phenoms. I'd personally go with the X2 550 since there's a chance you can unlock the other two cores. Besides, even if you can't, it doesn't look like you're going to do too many CPU intensive stuff anyway.

sirmonkey1985 said:
i would think by now AMD has fixed their x2's so they cant be unlocked.. but who knows.. guess it all depends on how desperate AMD is for money..
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I doubt it. I thought it mainly depends on what mobo you have. It all depends if the mobo manufactures decide to disable it or not.
 
i just got a x3 720 yesturday and ive already unlocked the 4th core. The problem is tho it did not unlock stable at stock voltage's. I am paranoidabout playing with voltages and frying shit so i set it back to stock and in gaming it runs great. The chip was well for 104 with free shipping

4core.jpg
 
EPS Sniper said:
I would wait for the Phenom II 555 to come out. It supposedly has less power consumption and better overclocking. Review sites are getting 3.8-4.0ghz on these processors with air cooling and no voltage increase, plus you can always attempt to unlock the other cores.
Click to expand...

Any ideas when it is likely to come out, and indications on pricing?

Actually I just seen it, its available for about the same price as the Athlon II X4 620, bout £80 - hmmm, is it worth the extra for 100Mhz extra in speed... Im thinking not. On a side note, its much cheaper in the US!! Im so jealous! Supposed to be $100 in US, but Im paying equivalent of $130 for it here.
 
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If you're only doing light gaming, get the 620 X4 or 720 X3, you'll notice it more in every day usage, especially if you do encoding with the additional cores. The Phenom II 555 looks good, especially with the C3 stepping which is what the 955 and 965 Phenom II X4's are based on but they just got released and I see them in the in the $110+ price range right now. I myself just got the 950 but for $60 and I couldn't pass that up. I wouldn't count on unlocking even though it's there, it's a crap shoot. My 550 didn't but my sempron 140 does.
 
the 550 no doubt is the best bargin there.....in gaming, especially CS:S, you wont see much of a difference between any of those CPUs, and you will see some quicker times for the quad Athalon for video converting, but if you can wait ~5-10 min you save your self some dough...especially if you can unlock(mobo dependant)....if you dont want the 550, the Athalon is what i would suggest next because it is a guranteed 4 core, and will encode/decode your vids quicker...


in any case any of those CPUs will fit your needs more than enough
 
hey feather. i got that 720. 4th core is a dud. running 3 cores 3.4ghz @ stock Voltage stable. :)
 
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Id go with the 720. Its a slightly better gaming CPU than the 550 especially overclocked and the extra core will help a ton on video and photo editing. It is an excellent all around CPU.
 
honestly, the 550 is more than enough though, especially if using just CS:S.....i get 90+ FPS stable for MW2 on a 9800 GTX(slightly underclocked) with my 550 at stock speeds, and only slightly more when i have it oc'd to 3.5(stock voltage).......if you can afford it the 720 is your BEST option performance wise....otherwise i would say get the 550 unless you are impatient then the 620 is your best choice...


and nice 4LC4PON, nice to see you finally deicded and stuck with a build :)---GL on getting it to 3.8, you should be able to
 
haha yeah. im actually going to leave it at 3.4 im pleased with it as is. runs everything perfect and yeah for awhile there i kept overthinking things 2 much. the 720 is a solid chip @ 104.99 free shipping.
 
Just had some good news - my employer is williing to buy me these parts, then knock it off my salary, saving me the VAT!! So I think I will go for the Tri core CPU now, as its the most powerful of the three, and will last me the longest. I assume it will be quite easy to overclock it to about 3.2 Ghz? That way a fast CPU with three cores - should do everything I need it to do? Also, does anyone know if it is being replaced in the next couple of weeks, as I assume AMD will charge the same amount for the new replacement - if so I will wait for it.

Cheers!
 
hey if their willing to buy it.. see if you can sneak in a phenom II 955 instead.. always worth a shot.. but yeah out of those 3 the 720's worth it if you dont have to pay VAT..
 
i overclocked my x3 720 at stock Voltage to 3.4GHZ stable. from what ive heard 3.6-3.8ghz is easy to hit with a voltage tweek.
 
4LC4PON3 said:
i overclocked my x3 720 at stock Voltage to 3.4GHZ stable. from what ive heard 3.6-3.8ghz is easy to hit with a voltage tweek.
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yep.. from your earlier post.. you cant fry a processor messing with voltages as long as you stay within the recommended limit.. which is 1.55v so theres plenty of room to mess around with it.. also the cooler the processor runs the lower the voltage that is required to hit the same speed..
 
i installed windows 7 64bit ultimate tonight and i updated my BIOS. i didnt realize my BIOS was 2 versions lower. I activated ACC and unlocked my 4th core tonight. im running it at stock 2.8ghz with 1.312v. ive ran intelburn test 2.4 3 times each time 10 tests. passed everytime.

Im glad i got my 4th core unlocked and at stock voltage
 
run Prime95 for 8+ hours...see if it still goes :) torture that CPU!
 
ok a bit over 8 hours in prime and no errors. looking good. going to let it from till i hit 10 hours.
 
ok i ran it for a bit over 14 hours with no errors. i have a ? tho. when im not running any programs CPUZ shows the CPU running at 803.6MHZ but when i start doing things such as gaming and what not the CPU runs at full speed.

Is this because of Cool 'n' Quiet enabled?
 
yes....it scales your CPU speed down to make it run cooler :p.....i dont use it because i see no point in it especially since i have a small OC going on
 
it will definatly be an improvement.....however....the 550 hold ground with the 720 and even beats it at some points.....honestly its which you want to get, of the 3 the 720 and 550 will outperform the Athlon in gaming, get one of them, you will be happy with either, performance will be about the same for both in games, the 720 will win out in threaded applications(3 cores over 2.....most games use 2 cores only, to my understanding)
 
W.Feather said:
yes....it scales your CPU speed down to make it run cooler :p.....i dont use it because i see no point in it especially since i have a small OC going on
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Any specific reason? I thought that there's no performance hit for running c&c. I may be mistaken, but I thought:

Cool n Quiet Enabled Pros:
-lower CPU temp @ idle
-lower power consumption @ idle
-no performance loss

Cool n Quiet Disabled Pros:
- When you go to My Computer, Windows shows the real clock speed???

I just can't think of any pros unless I'm missing something.
 
for overclocking typically you want your power all the time...and in some cases CnQ will mess up an overclock.....

and i have had it on, but the temp drop was not that much(~4-5 C), i run my overclock all the time, and most of the time my PC is doing something(BIONIC when im not doin it).....if you do a google search you will find more info on why CnQ isnt a good match for overclocking
 
your wrong Feather my x4 720 will smoke your 550BE. j/k they are about equil to each other in some cases the 550be having a slight edge over the 720. the only reason i went with my x3 720 andn ot the 550be is because you never know if you going to unlock all the cores or not.

i went with the 720 cause all i had to do is unlock 1 core and not 2. cause think about it what if you cant unlock any of the cores on any chip. the 720 will still have 1 more core :). they are both great cpu's im VERY pleased with my 720
 
:) i woulda gone with the 720 this past aug, but i bought a cheap AM3(the 550 being cheapest at time) and am waiting for the Thubans to be released so i can get either one of em, or a cheap 965 :p


and anyhow, ya, in almost anything but video encoding or transcoding, they will be close to each other....hope this long semi off topic discussion helps the OP
 
I googled around before posting previously, and there are pretty much two camps. People who hate it and say you should disable it, and people who love it and think everyone should enable it.

Those who disable it due to overclocking state stability issues. My guess is, as it drops voltage/clockspeed when CPU becomes idle it could hit some kind of combination that is not stable. This would also make the biggest impact when testing stability and you have to factor in all these other speeds/voltages, thus complicating things.

Most of the web pages I find that suggest disabling it involve people with Athlon64's or Athlon64 X2's. On pages involving Phenom II's, etc, it seems that a lot more people now overclock with it enabled on these more modern CPU's.

It would be nice if someone did an article running difference overclocked CPU's with cool n quiet both disabled and enabled to test stability.

There's a lot of opinions for both sides but I can find no hard facts.

Either way, if you're running boinc and loading the CPU 24/7 anyway, then yeah, it serves no purpose to enable it.
 
I keep CnQ enabled. Most boards allow you to select the CPU voltage in one field (AKA 1.35V, 1.375V), and have a "voltage bump" option (AKA +0.25V, +0.375V) in a separate field. If you merely select a higher voltage, the CnQ stepping voltages are not increased. If you use the voltage bump option, all CnQ steppings will get that voltage bump, and will have a higher probability of being stable.

I see no reason not to use CnQ. I have no issues with stability whatsoever. It gives me a chuckle knowing that the suckers who leave it off are probably paying $5/mo more than I am in their power bill.
 
The 550 BE is a great solid CPU. I picked one over the quad I could use due to much cheaper price. Needed to buy some other stuff so it will make the rounds through my computers as I upgrade.

The CPU itself comes at 3.1ghz which is pretty fast. I easily put my frequency up enough to get 3.6 off the stock cooler. I did not run too much testing on it at the time as I was playing around with the other 2 cores. I was unable to get them to work properly so I went back to stock everything and put the frequency up to get 3.4 out of it on stock voltages

I might try for 3.6 and see if it can handle that at the stock voltage or very close to it.

Right now my load temp is 32 - 38c. Cooler weather helps, so during the summer I expect 44 - 48c as the room gets hot. Not bad at all really.

Lowest temp I have seen once CnQ kicks in is 12c. And it was 56 -58 degree's in the room.

Look at what your usage will be. Video editing? Photo editing? Encoding? Rendering? Intensive applications like that would benefit from a quad.

If you dont do that sort of thing and do not play many games that support a full quad I wouldnt worry about it unless you have the extra cash. If you can wait for the 6 core chips to start coming out the quads might go down in price making it easier to justify.

I could use a quad as I said, but migrating everything program wise off my windows HDD increased read / write time for encoding and other applications by quite a bit so I do not plan to upgrade for a year or two depending on what comes out in the near future. I am extremely pleased with my 550 B.E. Was not expecting it to give this much improvement over my old 2.6 dual core.
 
ordovician said:
I keep CnQ enabled. Most boards allow you to select the CPU voltage in one field (AKA 1.35V, 1.375V), and have a "voltage bump" option (AKA +0.25V, +0.375V) in a separate field. If you merely select a higher voltage, the CnQ stepping voltages are not increased. If you use the voltage bump option, all CnQ steppings will get that voltage bump, and will have a higher probability of being stable.

I see no reason not to use CnQ. I have no issues with stability whatsoever. It gives me a chuckle knowing that the suckers who leave it off are probably paying $5/mo more than I am in their power bill.
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For my system, CnQ saves 10 watts at idle. I doubt that equates to $5 a month but it's noticeable and it does keep my fan quieter at idle, and as you said, no stability issues whatsoever.

I am overclocked, and undervolted, and when CnQ kicks in my proc drops the multiplier to 4 and the voltage to 0.95. At full load (mild OC to 3ghz) the voltage is 1.225.
 
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