Which Phenom II for some overclocking fun?

J

Justin Cider

Weaksauce
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Jun 28, 2007
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I'm looking to find which AMD chip is the best bang for the buck for overclocking/gaming? I have an existing I7 setup but I wanted to get a AMD setup for something to do.I would like to get a chip to pair with an Asus Crosshair IV do some overclocking and get familiar with AMD all over again.Is there any opinons about any particular chip that is cheap and will let me play around till BD comes out ?
 
Doesn't that mobo support BD? I am crossing my fingers for BD to be released the 19th. I would wait out to see if it comes out and just get that instead of going Phenom II. If you cannot wait that long I recommend grabbing a 5XX (two core series) or the 955 as a hold me over.
 
Its not really bang for the buck but the X6 1100 is showing the most consistent 4 gig overclocks. The X4 980 would be a good choice too. The newer Phenoms will have the highest yields usually and generally overclock better.
 
Classic 955 would be a cheap experimental chip, I think they are $120 on newegg. 1055T would also be a good bang for the buck overclocker if you want a 6 core.
 
Thats not a bad way to go but it doesnt seem they overclock as well. I dont see too many of them getting over 3.8 GHz. If youre just wanting to play around with overclocking then thats fine but if youre wanting to make one scream, getting one of the newer ones might be a better idea.
 
If you're just doing it for fun then get a Athlon II X3 and play around with unlocking AND over clocking, while saving a few bucks too ;)
 
Thats actually a pretty good idea. I had an Athlon X3 that wouldnt unlock but I think I was the only person alive that couldnt unlock the 4th core. Could just be my 3 year old motherboard.

You wont have an unlocked multiplier to play with but you can still overclock with the fsb and experiment around that way. You wont get as high a clock as with the unlocked multiplier but you can still learn about massaging higher speeds out of these things. And theyre a lot cheaper! ;)
 
W.Feather said:
the:
x2 550/560 BE
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^This. Doubly so if you get your hands on a more recent batch/stepping. The 555 I have will run unlocked as a quad up to 3.6GHz at default voltage (1.26v), keeping it as an x2, I was able to hit 3.8GHz at stock. 4GHz is definitely possible on air with the more recent 555/560s, on water, 4.5 may be possible.

I might go back to dual and see how far over 4GHz I can get.
 
A vote for the 955BE here, the C3's OC really well. Got mine to 4.2 ghz quite easily by simply upgrading the cooling and raising the multiplier on my Crosshair to 21x.

At 4.5 ghz it posted, loaded win7 and ran benchmarks, but at 1.5v and that clocking I really need water.

As it is I'm getting full-load temps around 59C right now, pushing 1.400v, and it's quite a noticeable bump from my old C2 945 at 3.6 ghz and 1.425v.

I'll eventually move this 955BE to the old system when BD finally makes its appearance.
 
I would just get the x2 550/560 BE. This is not an exercise in geting the maximum performance otherwise the OP would have got an i5 2500K and worked on cranking that up to 5GHz.
 
95W oem only 1055T can go to 4,2 @1,3-1,35V with good success chances


@Snowpea- lol no, they don't even have a cpu which can match non overclocked 2500K (apart form multithread blue-ray pron collection backuping)
 
Depends on what you are doing......at stock in most things no......but there are applications where a Thuban will beat a 2500k...

Snowpea said:
does AMD even have a proc that can match an OCed 2500k?
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I say 1055T.... Mine is stable NOW @ 3.8GHz X4 mode only. No need for X6 for gaming.... maybe bfbc2 might use the x6. Too high power consumption.
 
Because my statement was that the Thuban's beat the 2500k's, quick sync is also only available on the z68 chipset...

mrbigshot said:
why not use quick sinc? its flat out kills anything out there for h264
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Faethon said:
For a change, i will answer a question in this forum! :D

x264 video encoding using software (Quick Sync cuts corners, purists won't touch it):

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/15
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Well here's the issue.

The question was in regards to an OC'd 2500k which will beyond the shadow of a doubt, OC higher than the X6. Even stock vs stock, the X6 only managed to be a whole 2 seconds quicker while having 2 additional cores. I highly doubt it would maintain that nearly non-existent advantage, OC vs OC.

Then there is, well... Everything else, where the i5 is in an entirely different league.

He also mentioned "applictaions" (plural) so we have encoding where it hold a 2 second advanage (again, this is stock vs stock) what else do you have?
 
RamonGTP said:
Well here's the issue.

The question was in regards to an OC'd 2500k which will beyond the shadow of a doubt, OC higher than the X6. Even stock vs stock, the X6 only managed to be a whole 2 seconds quicker while having 2 additional cores. I highly doubt it would maintain that nearly non-existent advantage, OC vs OC.

Then there is, well... Everything else, where the i5 is in an entirely different league.

He also mentioned "applictaions" (plural) so we have encoding where it hold a 2 second advanage (again, this is stock vs stock) what else do you have?
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You are right, i am not an OC expert nor am i here to "fight" for a CPU. :D

The 2 seconds you refer at, are with Media Espresso, which isn't optimized for x264 encoding and can't utilize fully the 6 cores. Handbrake, which is dedicated x264 encoding application below, at stock gives 16,32 fps for the 2500K and 19,35 fps for the 1100T. The difference is more than one could expect. (for example, from my Athlon@2300 to 2760, in the 2nd pass, i gained 1.25 fps on the same testfile). So, IMHO, the 1100T even if it can't OC as high as the 2500K still has a chance of winning by small margin. But anyway, the 2500K is the better CPU overall (that's why it costs more too i guess).

mrbigshot said:
why not use quick sinc? its flat out kills anything out there for h264
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Purists refuse to use Quick Sync because of quality drop. Let's say that the "miraculous" performance is done because it was optimized for speed rather than for quality.

Here are some official reviews:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...d-app-nvidia-cuda-intel-quicksync,2839-9.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/9

You want the opinion of the developer of the x264 codec? It's much harsher...

MSU's test showed QuickSync giving, at best, similar results to x264's "superfast" preset in both speed and quality. I can see QuickSync fitting into the niche of "applications that don't need decent compression, only performance", but ffmpeg mpeg-2 can do that too.
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Intel fan:

Anandtech's article went over this. The quality was comparable to the x86 software encode according to their random blind test with their other three editors. Of course this is only the opinion of three people. I looked at the images and saw no discernible quality issues. And of course you could always stick with software-only if quality is the #1 issue to you. Again, being twice as fast at the same bit rate has to factor into the use of QuickSync somewhere.
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And the reply of the x264 dev once again:

If you set the bitrate sufficiently high, the quality difference between encoders becomes negligible. This fact can be used to demonstrate absurdities, such as "x264 isn't significantly better than MPEG-2". See this post for a much more in-depth analysis of how to cheat on encoder comparisons.

Twice as fast at what settings? You cannot validly claim "X is faster than Y" if you told Y to go slowly.
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http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156761&page=20

If you read more about it in doom9 and doom10 fora, you will actually see that Intel, with much delay contacted the x264 dev (Dark Shikari) for implementation of the x264 on the CPU, but when it was too late and they also actually disappeared soon after.


As i encode in x264 too, i can tell you that nobody trying for transparent HD encodes, would ever use preset "superfast" in x264 encoding. Also, bitrate plays huge role as Dark Shikari says. Give it high bitrate and you won't see much of a difference. But this means also much larger file. Same for quick motion. Low motion images are easy to encode at low bitrate. Quick Sync will have no problem. It's the high motion estimation that slows down the x264 software encoder in order to give "transparent" result, while Quick Sync apparently handles everything at the same way "gaining time".

This is basically the "cooperation" Intel seeked (on October 2010):

http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=717.0

If you further search, later they disappeared. It is rather obvious that if they had tried to contact the x264 devs earlier, Quick Sync would have produced much better results quality-wise (although it would hurt speed).

This is the story behind the Quick Sync that Anandtech doesn't know and flaws the "tests". To tell it in terms that most here understand, it's like trying to compare gaming speed running one game at 1024x768 without AA and other high settings and at 1920x with high settings and then saying "wow, the 1024x was so faster"! :D
 
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Faethon said:
The 2 seconds you refer at, are with Media Espresso, which isn't optimized for x264 encoding and can't utilize fully the 6 cores.
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That's the key issue here and for Bulldozer ;)
Majority of software won't use more than 4 cores
 
Michaelius said:
That's the key issue here and for Bulldozer ;)
Majority of software won't use more than 4 cores
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In fact, i agree that the Bulldozer is running a bit ahead of its time. I remember when i first read about 8 cores (i think i had a 2 core at the time) and thought "and what are you going to do with all these cores"?

To give you another example, if you use X264 with preset "slow", on my 605e, the first pass can't saturate the CPU (and it's just a 4 core Athlon II). As a matter of fact only about 50% of the CPU is used. Because it's decoder-limited. The decoder simply can't feed enough frames on the CPU in order to use 100% of it. Because the first "fast" pass isn't really encoding, but mainly writing down a "statistics log" to use for the 2nd pass (like where to put b frames). Only in the 2nd pass, where the actual encoding is done and the x264 is used at full features, you see 100% CPU use. And on an interesting note, even that isn't the most stressful thing i have seen. For example, using a "kill-a-watt", the 2nd pass consumes about 15-20W less compared a CPU stress test with Prime95.

As a matter of fact, i am curious to see when Bulldozer comes out, whether it will use all 8 cores in 2nd pass or not. Because i don't know if the x264 library has been optimized yet for use with 8 cores (i hope it is).
 
x6 1055t overlockable @ least 3.8GHz maybe 4.2 on some. Beast at multitasking!!!!!
955 for the x4 my 1st choice but fry's had the 1055t for $155 with free $50CG
 
I think it will boil down to either a 560BE or a 955BE I like the X2 for pure speed but they are somewhat close in price,so we will see I guess.It will be mostly gaming and something to re-familiarize myself with AMD chips as it's been awhile
 
The X2 will be more fun, unlocking cores and whatnot. I wish AMD would have held true their promise of releasing 4-core thubans, then you could have the best of both worlds...
 
Go for the dual core....will be more "overclocking" fun, since you will also get the chance to unlock the cores....this doesnt sound like a main box, so the dual is really the better choice IMHO.....also since its just for fun, look for a 550 or a 555, save a few extra bucks, hardly any difference....

Justin Cider said:
I think it will boil down to either a 560BE or a 955BE I like the X2 for pure speed but they are somewhat close in price,so we will see I guess.It will be mostly gaming and something to re-familiarize myself with AMD chips as it's been awhile
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W.Feather said:
Go for the dual core....will be more "overclocking" fun, since you will also get the chance to unlock the cores....this doesnt sound like a main box, so the dual is really the better choice IMHO.....also since its just for fun, look for a 550 or a 555, save a few extra bucks, hardly any difference....
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Just to put my 2 cents in. I also agree with going with a 560BE. I have a 555BE and the unlocking gives so many more options to overclocking.
 
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