AMD upgrade - need some advice

[blizard]

What improvement can expect by going from Athlon64 X2 4200+@stock speed to an Athlon64 X2 6400+@stock? I am thinking on getting Abit AX78 which use the low end RD770 chipset as I am happy with RD580/M1675 chipset on my Abit AT8 32X. Would that be good option to go as that would give me an opportunity to later upgrade towards AMD Phenom or is it just wishful thinking as it seem to be many problem with BIOS for both AM2 and AM2+ motherboard at the moment?

The reason to do this upgrade is that DDR2-800 memory seem cheap, motherboard for AM2 and the low level AM2+ seem to be within acceptable price and the faster version of Athlon64 X2 seem to be cheaper then my socket 939 Athlon64 X2 for one year ago. My OS is Win XP 64-bit so I wish to stay on it and I think 2 GB is enough for what I am doing. PF seem very rare to be more then 700-800 MB.

From:
Athlon64 X2 4200+@2200 Mhz (skt 939)
Corsair VS 2 x 1024 DDR400 3-3-3-8 CR: 1T Dual channel
Abit AT8 32X (RD580/M1575) (ALC882D:dolby digital live)
Powercolor Theatre 550 pro analogue tv-tuner

Upgrade:
Athlon64 X2 6400+@3200 MHz (Skt AM2)
Corsair Twinx 2 x 1024 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12
Abit AX78 (RD770) - should be much the same as AT8 32X in features as for sound codec and NIC.


Same as before
PSU: Tagan easycon 530 W, Video: X1950XT and Samsung SP2504 250 GB x 2 (might add more HD later)

Would AMD Phenom be of any interest at all outside of x264 encoding or possible Xvid 1.2.0 (SMP support)? Do I think in the right direction by going first to use 6400+ as that would at least make single threaded application run faster compared to Athlon64 X2 4200+ like openoffice and so on and still give me an cheaper opportunity to upgrade when Phenom have become more stable?

Is there any other MB that have RD580 chipset beside ECS and ASUS as more stable option of today?

Do anybody know how cross platform usage from AM2+ CPU on AM2 MB and v.v. will work or is it all hyped up to sell more MB/CPU?

:thanks:

Thankful for suggestion that is what valid to what I talk about.

Don't start flame wars as I know Q6600 is near or better in both Athlon64 X2 6400+ and latest Phenom usage, but will not offer this kind of upgrade path. I am not an overclocker, so please don't suggest OC.

[Sharktooth]

The perfrormance difference is quite visible and almost linear with the CPU clock speed difference. But it almost depends on the software used. Xvid is not so good with multithreading but other encoders (like x264 for exampe) may behave better.
And, yes, AM2+ CPUs can be placed on AM2 sockets with a bios upgrade. The motherboard manufacturer should provide it.
For what concerns the Phenom CPUs, you should wait at least for the 9800 and 9900 (next year) since the actual phenoms CPUs have a bug and cant reach higher clock speeds AND their 3rd level cache is asynchronous (fixed at 2Ghz) and that is causing some performance and thermal issues.
The new models will have that fixed... so i think it's worth waiting for the next year.

[blizard]

[...]
And, yes, AM2+ CPUs can be placed on AM2 sockets with a bios upgrade. The motherboard manufacturer should provide it.
For what concerns the Phenom CPUs, you should wait at least for the 9800 and 9900 (next year) since the actual phenoms CPUs have a bug and cant reach higher clock speeds AND their 3rd level cache is asynchronous (fixed at 2Ghz) and that is causing some performance and thermal issues.
The new models will have that fixed... so i think it's worth waiting for the next year.

Thank you for your answer Sharktooth.

How important are tight timing on DDR2 compared to DDR memory? From what I understand it could improve some measurement, but to a very small degree and was more used for marketing purpose on skt 939 where also cache size could give a very little improvement for real world usage. (Exception are of course OC that could either push more on memory with higher bandwidth or have better timing on stock bandwidth.)

How do four DIMM effect memory controller? Is it still slower to have all four DIMM full or is that not a problem? 2 x 1024 seem to be enough for Windows XP64 and Dual core, but could be more important with more cores and a possible move to Vista. Will more memory be of any importance to any encoding process or codec (sound or video)? From my experience of speed it seem more limited on how harddisk are organized then how much RAM you have if it is at least 2 GB.

Just to make sure that I have read you right Sharktooth on this: it is better to get a faster dual core for now and wait to next generation of Phenom will be released as the first have too many bugs and hardware limitation to be of any good? As there are only x264 that could be considered real multi core capable application, which I use today, there is more to gain to use dual core with faster clock speed (3000 or 3200 MHz) on two cores then on lower on four cores (2200 up to 2400 MHz)?

I have tried to dig up THG and other sites to see how well/bad those new core with Phenom will perform compared to what I have and what is within my income range.

Do anybody know of well or bad those new 770 chipset work with "old" AM2 CPU? I am very interested in Abits latest AX78, but it seem to be very little real world review on those MB with those new chipset.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Interesting choice. From my perspective (up to this point) Intel was the way to go if you were doing a full platform shift (new board, chip, and RAM).

However, there's a lot of value in the 6400+, considering it's $10 cheaper than an E6750 @2.66 GHz. Probably a bit faster.

Still, I would prefer the proven track record and overclocking potential of a P35 chipset, instead of a new AMD chipset.

Man... that really throws a wrench in my upgrade plans! I was so sold on a q6600 and P35 board, but now I'm not so sure. That screaming 6400+ is a real steal! Now if only AMD had a Phenom quad that had the same or greater performance than the q6600, but a bit cheaper!

Regarding dual vs quad - I would say that quads are faster indeed for intensive video encoding. If you're re-encoding 1080p H.264, get a quad all the way. If you're gaming, photoshoping etc... then a dual would probably be the way to go.

~MiSfit

[burfadel]

The question I have is whether to go for a dual core E8400 (3.0Ghz, 1333fsb, 6144kb cache) for US$183 when it comes out in Jan, or go for a quad core Q9450 at 2.66Ghz, 2x6144 cache, 1333fsb at US$316 when its released in Jan?!... :)

Already have an E6600, just looking for an upgrade!

[Doom9]

I don't think going for a new generation at the same clock speed would be worth it. And what would you expect from a 3 GHz dual core over the current 2.66 GHz quadcore? Video encoding would suffer, and if you look at gaming, you're better off investing in a faster GFX card than a CPU.

Do I think in the right direction by going first to use 6400+ as that would at least make single threaded application run faster compared to Athlon64 X2 4200+ like openofficeHow do you figure Openoffice would need nearly that amount of CPU horsepower?
The kind of CPU you need really depends on the kind of usage patterns you have. For 08/15 email/web/word processing you do not need more than a single core. Only if you do heavy multasking with cpu intensive singlethreaded applications does it make to have more cores. Processing power wise, video encoding is one of the most demanding tasks, so there you cannot have enough horsepower - and if you're looking at the latest generation of codecs, those scale well over multiple cores (as already mentioned, XviD doesn't do so good.. so you might not get the bump you expect from going to 2 to 4 cores).
If gaming is more your thing, get the fastest GFX card you can afford and don't bother upgrading the CPU since CPU power is a lot less significant.
If it's anything else.. you need to say what it is. Is it image processing, video editing, etc. and what kinds of software do you use (is it SMP capable or not? Do you know how well it scales, etc.).

Would AMD Phenom be of any interest at all outside of x264 encoding or possible Xvid 1.2.0 (SMP support)?If you run multiple very CPU intensive singlethreaded applications in parallel, then yes. As I said, it all depends on your usage profile. Nowadays, PCs are so powerful that for the 08/15 user, there's hardly a point in upgrading as long as you can get spare parts for your hardware (if you are still on AGP it's becoming increasingly hard to find a card so that's a consideration, DDR-1 is also slowly going away though I think we'll see it for another 1-2 years)

[Sharktooth]

DDR2 timings are not so important when you have a huge amount of cache. Infact the new CPUs (expecially the Intel ones) have very large caches to avoid memory bandwidth bottlenecks.
The memory controller in the new AMD cores was completely redesigned and it has no problems with 4 (or more!) memory modules.
However i would wait buying anything from AMD right now, since in less than 3 months the new core steppings will be out and will perform significanlty better.

[Surf]

Q6600 based upgrade's the most bang for the buck choice at the moment.

If you are adamant about not wanting to OC, then you save a few dollars from purchasing a more efficient cpu cooler and just any basic line of the P5K chipset will do.

Personally I feel that it's almost sinful not to OC! :D

All I did to my Athlon 2000+ XP is to increase the multiplier and it went to achieve the performce of 2600+ !! Still woefully slow though. :D Do I care about the longetivity of such a cpu?

Doom9 freaks should be the Quad not the dual with respect to re-encoding.

A simple DVDshrink usage usually takes nearly an hour. 4-6minutes with Q6600. Sheesh!

[Sharktooth]

For the same price of a q6600 you can get a Phenom 9700 which has about the same performance (if not more) too (except for games which are heavily optimized for Intel processors...............).

Review: http://www.guru3d.com/article/processor/477/1

[Blue_MiSfit]

I just ordered all the bits to get my box up to a q6600 that will go 3 GHz without thinking twice. Looking forward to faster encoding and gaming!

~MiSfit

[dragongodz]

The question I have is whether to go for a dual core E8400

Q6600 based upgrade's

I just ordered all the bits to get my box up to a q6600

do you people want to stop intel crapping in a thread clearly titled "AMD upgrade" where the O.P. has said in the very first post

Don't start flame wars as I know Q6600 is

if you want to keep praising intel do it in another thread.

[dragongodz]

my opinion is the X2 6400+ is probably better value than the phenom at the moment.

however give it something like 6+ months and they will probably start to drop in price etc and become very good value for those on a budget.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Didn't mean to 'intel crap' :) I was just sharing with the world...

The X2 6400+ is a fantastic deal. Frighteningly good actually, assuming you only need a dual core.

~Misfit

[blizard]

my opinion is the X2 6400+ is probably better value than the phenom at the moment.

however give it something like 6+ months and they will probably start to drop in price etc and become very good value for those on a budget.

In 6 month is very long time in computer year, you know. ;) Phenom need to go down in price as those defects have been blown up and made potential buyers very sceptical against investing in quad core from AMD. According to different sites there is only need to update BIOS which would add some micro code to turn off those defective parts on CPU and reduce it by appr. 10 % in speed. That looks to me as if AMD will be forced to re-arrange their price and line of CPU which could make 6400+ more cheaper and Phenom to become main stream in price range as taking 6400+ price tag of today. This is pure speculation from my side, but would make a purchase in late des. or jan. a better deal.




Congratulation Blue_Misfit for your future system! Hope you will enjoy it when you have build it.

My reason to think about making an upgrade now are simple two facts: 1) Prices on 2 x 1024 DDR2-800 RAM are very cheap compared to what I paid for those Corsair Value Select DDR400 2) Athlon X2 4200+ compared against Athlon X2 6400+ is actually a jump in 1000 MHz (3200-2200) in one go and this with the same amount cores. That seem to me as that would be at least some improvement for almost everything that run on my system today. I would also be able to use the same cooler AC Feezer64 on this AM2(+), so I will not need to add that into my budget.

A Phenom 9500 at 2200 MHz (same speed as my CPU run now) will even with more efficient core, and four of these, not give such a big leap. In 6-12 month that might be another story, but for now it is less likely. It is very hard to interpret what better Cool n Quiet, HTT 3.0 and PCI express gen. 2.0 can do in practical usage. It is not the first time features have been hyped and then forgotten as those didn't work as those where advertised.

For encoding/transcoding I think hard disk is of more importance as recording and transcoding make heavy use of hard disk. That is also the main reason for me to shrink those 8000 Kbit/s MPEG2 files to something I can watch later without eating up hard disk space. WD Raptor are simply too expensive for my wallet, but could make transcoding faster.

The only game I have played so far are Oblivion, so I am not a big gamer and I am very happy with my X1950XT and Haali renderer with SM 2.0.

Recording is done in SD TV resolution and PAL, so I am not in the hard core sector of HD TV crunching (yet).

Thanks to your all for your interest and suggestion.