The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

We will see. The 3.1Ghz and 3.6Ghz 4-modules are supposedly being priced at $222 and $266, so the 3.1Ghz is competing directly with the $220 i5 2500K, and the 3.6 is priced above it. Assuming that 4 modules means they act like quad cores and the 3.1Ghz and i5 2500K perform like-for-like, this means the performance/mhz is about 5% in AMD's favour, so roughly the same. If this is true though, then the genuine 6 and 8-core CPUs are nowhere to be seen, so I'm dubious about this.

 

Thanks for your input guys. Sam, I'm pretty sure it wasn't refurbished. It was directly from Dell(brand new). If it was refurbished, they did a damn fine job. Not even the slightest of imperfections. No hairline scratches, no scuffs. Everything looks pristine(as new should).
I've decided not to purchase 1090t. When 965 does become my secondary, I'll likely play around with its settings again, and see an improvement. Because I generally only run 3 of the 4 cores in X264. To insure stability. While I'm pretty sure my OC is stable, it's risky pushing the full potential. It is a 7hr process on average with 3 cores. If it crashed, I'd have to rerun it. Although that process time average just dropped, since new features have been implemented
I think I'll be purchasing another 3Tb. And another shortly after. That way my 2Tb drives can relax until I need them. 9Tb of internal space is quite adequate Though I probably won't purchase the third until I have the updated motherboard.

 

If my PC ever crashed with 4 cores instead of 3, I wouldn't consider it stable

 

I've ran stability tests. X264 is simply a beast when it comes to stability! X264 seems to be the ultimate test regarding stability. I do have reason to believe there is a slight problem, that only X264 can evoke. Or it's simply my northbridge. I really need to water-cool that biznitch!

 

You can have your 970 and pay way too much for a very little improvement in performance. Yes, it is faster but AMD is tons less expensive so the smart play goes to AMD. Now with the 990 the performance is so much better that I can see paying more for it however you are still getting the Intel screw!

I'll be Bulldozing soon I'm sure...

 

The difference between the 970 and 990X is pretty slight to be honest, the 970 is still way ahead of the X6 1100T. Not to say it isn't still overpriced of course. However, I think Intel realise that with their quad cores running successfully against AMD's hexes they have no reason to make a cut-price hex core chip. Come Bulldozer that situation may change, Intel are shrewd enough to realise that if AMD make some headway, cutting the cost of chips like the i7 970 will pay off handsomely for them.

 

It's a good 30-40% from the real testing I've seen so it is big I think. Intel doesn't even consider that they are too full of themselves, I know I've been in big marketing meetings with them. They know that they have a following just like Apple does today, drones that will follow them no matter what. Even when AMD was cheaper and had CPU's that also out performed them Intel stayed their course. It almost cost them but then they came out with the new i7 line.

Again the smart play has been AMD for over a decade now.

 

It sounds like you confused the i7 970 with the i7 975.

Depends what you mean by 'smart play'. Core 2 Duo vs Athlon 64 X2, Core 2 Quad 65nm vs Phenom I, Core i5/i7 vs Phenom II, tells me that since 2006, the advantage has been on Intel's side. The glory days of Socket 939 are long behind. Bulldozer was the first thing I anticipated to put AMD back in the running, but the proof is in the benchmarks.

 

Well, AMD has been the smartplay for me. The price has always been agreeable. Don't get me wrong though, If I were doing better financially, I'd have probably gone with an intel. I do have this thing about going with the best. Not really bragging rights, just because I have to have it LOL!

 

True the Q Series is where Intel started to out perform AMD and the i's even a bit more but again Bang-For-The-Buck AMD's are the smart play and have been for over a decade it just was a bigger bonus when they out performed Intel's as well.

I'm not confused as to the 970 either! The Phenom II's and 970 were tested against the 990 and that is what I'm speaking too.

 

Just, looking at articles like this - I can't see anything like the 30-40% difference you're claiming

http://www.anandtech.com/print/3833

 

I don't know who Anandtech is nor do I care as you can find all sorts of baked numbers and they use mostly benchmarks stuff which means nothing to me as real world is the true test. The one interesting test I saw was CS4 but I'm thinking the retouch test is bogus as I've seen CS5 tests on more intensive plugin's that showed a much bigger difference.

If I had time and felt better, I'm sick right now, I would dig up the sites I'm talking about. No matter marketing lies are all over the place for either side so it can be very difficult to get the truth as to real performance. For any site I find stating one way you'll easily find others that state different. I wish I was still at the shop I used to work at as I would have true experience that with the new Intel's in multiple configurations that I don't have now. I can only use my experience and common sense to deduce what is really the truth but again not based on physical experience which would be the best.

I do have a friend though with a i7 970 and it is faster from what little I've played with it but is not screaming faster like you want us to believe so I'm just not buying it. Again like I stated before I would buy the 990 from what I've read even though it is much more expensive as it sound like it really smokes. Before I would do that I would test drive one to make sure my money was going to be spent correctly. You could be right Sam the 970 maybe worth the money, when I go over to my bud's house who has a 970 I'll put it to some intensive testing and see if I'm wrong.

Sorry for carrying on so I do try to keep my posts to a minimum,
Stevo

 

Well, anandtech is just the first example. I haven't seen a single site post the level of differences you claim, so you can understand why I'm asking for links. Architecturally there is no difference between the 970 and the 980/990X, which is why I find it hard to believe there is that level of difference - on a technological level, I don't see anything to cause it. I'm not telling anyone to buy a 970, I'm just trying to find out what this enormous supposed difference is between it and the extreme i7 hex cores.

 

Ive been hooked on AMD since they released the K-series CPU's for socket 7 motherboards.
after the P3 era came around i was a Proud owner of a Slot A Athlon. only one other Chip caught my eye during the P3 era, the VIA Cyrix. not only did it clock higher than the Coppermine, it out performed it.

while Intel may have the lead now, AMD gave them one hell of a long Drawn out battle that left Intel looking Like a Kiddy chip maker.

 

The Thunderbird Athlons were pretty pants, let's be honest. The Athlon XP and early Athlon 64 are where AMD really shone, and definitively put out better chips than their competitor. That has not been the case since the Core 2 Duo's release - I'm not averse to it happening again though

 

I had several Cyrix processors and although they performed well they also burnt out much quicker than the K6's. In fact I still have some K6's that still work but the last Cyrix is dead, I still have it just for the good old memories.

The slot processors where a bad idea from the get-go.

There may be a day when the tide changes and I'll be buying Intel's again because AMD is too full of themselves and charging more, only time will tell but things cycle like that.

Look at Netflix and Blockbuster, now that Netflix's has put Blockbuster down for the count they are doing what Blockbuster was doing and gouging us for all they can. Netflix is just not the same good company they were a couple of years ago. We need more competition.

 

Sam,

You still don't get it? In the states, i5 and i7 are not selling, and haven't been for a while. Maybe it's different in Europe, but here in the US Intel isn't selling squat! If you look at the number of reviews on Newegg. The entire Sandy Bridge lineup (27 CPUs) totals 2230 reviews. The 7 Deneb Quads alone account for 3707 reviews and another 2694 for the Thuban 6 cores. The big bonus for AMD users is that anyone with a decent AM2+ motherboard can just drop a Thuban 6 core in and keep using their DDR2 motherboard with just a bios flash. That's 3 different socket motherboards you can use the Phenom IIx4 and the Phenom IIx6 in. Socket AM2+, AM3 and AM3+. The AM3+ motherboards, at least from GigaByte, perform about 10 to 12% faster with the same stock CPU, and overclock far better than the AM2+ or AM3 boards do. With Sandy Bridge, you have to buy another motherboard.

As far as lack of performance goes with AMD, it only really matters to a high end gamer, or a graphics design engineer. For everybody else the speed difference is virtually meaningless, especially since the majority of computer owners don't overclock, and never will.

I was able to overclock my 1090T to 4.2GHz by raising the multiplier to 21, and upping the CPU voltage to 1.40v for 1.393v in CPUz. I also increased the CPU NB VID and the North Bridge voltage by .1v each. That was all I did. I ran it like that for a day and it performed beautifully. I even did a DVDRB/CCE with an 8GB 1080p file, for a DVD5, and it knocked 7 minutes off of my best 790X time with the same CPU at 3.8GHz, and completed it at 4.2GHz in 21 minutes vs 28 minutes for the 790X board and DDR2 1066 memory. normally I would just burn it to a DVD9, but I wanted to compare to what I had done in the past, making a DVD5 out of it. I wouldn't burn it to a DVD5, but just wanted to compare known times for a large video file. I have no idea how well it benchmarks because I'm not going to put any undue stress on the CPU, especially since it's never going to be run at that speed anyway. I just ran it for a day at 4.2GHz, and it did everything I asked of it with no issues or BSOD's. It idled at 35C and reached 44C while encoding.

As far as "cheap ones" go, that's a poor choice of words, as there's a big difference between cheap and inexpensive. There's a lot of quality and bang for the buck from AMD available to keep almost anyone happy. What I don't understand is overclocking aside, how did Intel manage to produce more than twice the number of CPU models than AMD offers and still not be able to offer a better price/performance ratio over over most of AMD's model lineup. I also want to point out that AMD just lowered the price on all the Phenom II Quads, because they have recovered their development costs. You can now buy the Phenom IIx4 3.4GHz 965 for $129.99, and the 955 for $119.99. Even the Flagship 3.7GHz 980 sells for only $169.99, and they have shown a propensity for being able to overclock to 4.6GHz quite easily, without the need for water cooling. As far as being competitive, AMD does not have to worry about the high end at all, since sales are quite slim there, so they've concentrated on the high middle down to the high low end, where the majority of sales are, and pretty much own those markets. They have 2 low priced Quads under $100, the Athlon IIx4 3.0GHz Propus ($99), and the Athlon IIx4 2.6GHz Llano ($88), with no APU which has twice the L2 cache of the other Athlon II Quads at 1MB per core. I like AMD's chances for a successful Holiday Season.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Very good points Russ and that supports the Bang-For-The-Buck philosophy I live by. I still would like to have the 990 which would be great for PhotoShop, Gaming, and Transcoding Blu-ray movies or Video Authoring.

Stevo

 

Stevo,

I can't say enough good things about this build. I almost listened to someone who said that I wasn't going to gain much going from the 790x to the 990XA and DDR3. My latest benchmarks at 3.6GHz amaze the crap out of me! They are right in between 3.7 and 3.8GHz on the 790X. Amazing!

Processor Arithmetic


Memory Bandwidth


CPUz CPU


Note the HT link speed above and the NB Frequency below. That makes the Hyper Transport 5000MT/s with a 4000MT/s CPU.

CPUz Memory


The only thing I haven't figured out yet is the CPU PLL Voltage Control. I'm not sure how to adjust it or why??

Best Regards,
Russ

 

That's impressive!

Simplest explanation I can think of is that adjusting the PLL (Phase Lock Loop) voltages for the CPU, IOH, or the QPI helps clean up the frequencies and stop them from oscillating too much out of spec. If you see the CPUz core speed tab under 100% load jumping up and down in frequencies fairly quickly, even if it is by 2-6 mhz, it would be a good idea to raise the CPU PLL voltage up a notch or 2 until you see the core speed stay very even and constant under load. Be careful as too much increase in PLL voltage can actually do more harm than good and cause instability.