Endevor Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 I'm making a new build and looking at which processor to get. As most others, I was as well greatly anticipating the new AMD processor, but after reading through some reviews, it seems it didn't live up to much of the hype. From what I can get from it, it's not much of an upgrade from the phenom II minus the fact that it has an 8-core. I was looking at getting this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157281 Partially because it has the AM3+ capabilities, also looking for a higher end motherboard for the possibility of crossfiring. With that motherboard, should I go for the new bulldozer or stick with the phenom II. I was looking at the x4s for the price, but I'm looking to upgrade so info on the higher cores would be nice as well. If the phenom II is the better route, should I still go with the motherboard I picked out? Thanks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedway Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Although you are interested in a different ASRock mobo than Waco has, I think this thread may help you out since you would be dealing with the same BIOS. As well as give you some insight on Bulldozer! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Get a Phenom II, cheaper and faster. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red1776 Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Get a Phenom II, cheaper and faster. Cheaper yes faster, no Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) Cheaper yes faster, no Cheaper, yes. Faster, yes (my 8120 at 4.375 GHz was slower in games than my Phenom II at 3.4 GHz). I already sent mine back. My AM3+ board will be up for sale soon as well. OP - if you're still looking in a week or two I'll make you a deal on my board. It's still in perfect condition - it turns out the memory controller on my CPU is screwed though. Edited October 28, 2011 by Waco 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dihartnell Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Id keep your Phenom 2 for now. They are just not there yet. As for the new Mobo, I dont think its got a huge number of extra features over your current one (assuming yours is the Rev 3.1 ver with the black CPU slot) but I would be tempted just for the looks of it. That Asrock board is very nice looking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaporX Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Since you already have a Phenom II if this this an upgrade then I would NOT get a Bulldozer, it is not an upgrade but rather a side step. Now if you are building from scratch new and WANT to go with an AMD platform i am a bit torn. The FX chip runs pretty much even with the Phenom II in computing experience if you do not look at benchmarks. What I mean is your games will play just as well as on a Phenom II. The FX however has potential for better performance if the applications are multithreaded or you multitaks heavily. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaporX Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 Cheaper, yes. Faster, yes (my 8120 at 4.375 GHz was slower in games than my Phenom II at 3.4 GHz). Waco I do not doubt your results but I can tell you that not a single test I have run bares this out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) Waco I do not doubt your results but I can tell you that not a single test I have run bares this out. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/47155-amd-bulldozer-fx-8150-processor-review-3.html That's a *best* case comparison since it's using a single core per module. Those percentages represent the difference in clock speed needed to match a Phenom II to a Bulldozer CPU. I'm not going to say for sure there wasn't something else wrong with my setup, but as far as I could tell, the scores I was getting were consistent with what others were getting at similar clocks. I certainly wasn't getting thermally throttled or anything like that. Granted, the FX beat the snot out of the Phenom II in anything threaded beyond 4 cores - but not many games scale well to even 4 cores these days. Edited October 28, 2011 by Waco Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red1776 Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) Waco I do not doubt your results but I can tell you that not a single test I have run bares this out. Same here. Not sure how you could draw that conclusion using a MB that is not supporting it yet. Granted, the FX beat the snot out of the Phenom II in anything threaded beyond 4 cores - but not many games scale well to even 4 cores these days. Thats not true, if you look at the titles released over the last 12 months, you might be surprised how many perform poorly on only two cores, and in fact many of them are unplayable or close to it, (see Black ops, Crysis2) and the like Edited October 28, 2011 by red1776 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) Not sure how you could draw that conclusion using a MB that is not supporting it yet. It supports it just fine with the beta BIOS (with the exception of Cool n' Quiet not working). Overclocking is limited by the VRMs according to ASRock but that doesn't change the performance when it's stable at a certain speed. I know you guys have all read the reviews I have - the only reason I bought the 8120 in the first place was because I thought that IPC deficit could be overcome by raw clock speeds. After testing it for more than a few hours with a near 1 GHz advantage in clock speed I can say for sure that it's just not going to happen without a seriously crazy overclock. I'll try to find a review that tests with turbo core off (so instead of 4.2 GHz you're seeing 3.6 GHz) because it makes the difference pretty obvious. Edited October 28, 2011 by Waco Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red1776 Posted October 28, 2011 Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) I am not going by the reviews, I am going by the 8120 in my system. I am not sure why you would be expecting a huge bump in gaming performance as GPU dependent they are. I am getting results that range from a bit faster than than the 1100T to much faster. there are a couple things at stock that the 1100T is slightly faster at, but overall the BD is faster. Edited October 28, 2011 by red1776 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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