AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core $69

[wrems]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...IN#detailspecs

Use Coupon code: VAL4999 for $20 off the web listed price.

Not too shabby!! Would make an excellent server processor.

[ChaOConnor]

Hmm, I wonder if this would work in my server better than my AMD Anthlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz... Would I notice the drop in GHz at all?

[paulbeers]

The Athlon II's are based on the Phenom II design which was a much needed improvement over the original Phenoms (the one mentioned above). For single threaded processes your Athlon II X2 would be considerably faster. The only way the Phenom mentioned here would be better is in very threaded programs and even then I would venture to guess that the additional speed of the Regor would negate most of the advantages of having 4 cores.

Besides, with Athlon II X4's available for less than $100, it makes recommending the old Phenoms very difficult.

Oh and don't forget that processor is OEM which means it has no fan and therefore will cost you at least $15 more to get a good fan....

[paulbeers]

Just as a follow up. I received an email from Newegg today. They have the Athlon II X4 620 on sale for 89.99 with a $10 promotional card. Free shipping and it includes a fan. It would be considerably faster than the Phenom X4 mentioned in this thread for about the same money (after you buy the fan for the Phenom x4).... Just my .02 worth.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-19103706-L08B

[wrems]

I have the Athlon chip and have no complaints.

[paulbeers]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this processor. It's like my laptop: I have a Core2Duo in my Macbook Pro. It does everything I need and so I am not replacing it anytime soon (it is also only about a year old). However, if I were to go out and buy a new one I would probably buy a Core i3/i5 rather than a Core2duo (if Apple ever releases an i3/i5 for the 13" MBP). Same with this processor. It is a great processor, I just don't recommend it from a value standpoint anymore....

[drewg]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

The Athlon II's are based on the Phenom II design which was a much needed improvement over the original Phenoms (the one mentioned above).

Is there anything currently available that will work in an AM2+ motherboard that will have a TDP comparable to a 4850e and substantially better performance? The AM2+ pickings at newegg look quite slim.

I've got a an Asus M3A-H/HDMI AM2+ based system with a 4850e that I'm trying to make last for another 6 months to a year (until Sandy Bridge has been out for a few months). I'm doing more transcoding, and more virtualization stuff (clownbd in a windows VM is the worst), and I'm really feeling the slowness of this CPU for the first time.

Drew

[paulbeers]

The Dual Core Athlon II's (Regor) only have a tdp of 20watts more than the old Athlon X2 e processors. I too used the 4850e for a long time but it couldn't keep up with on the fly transcoding (especially Mpeg2 1080i videos to 480i). I ended up switching to the Athlon II X4 630 and am extremely happy with the upgrade. The new Phenom II/Athlon II's do a great job of shutting down cores not in use and because everything completes faster, the processors switch to idle mode much quicker. This means that even though the power usage is higher while in use, it idles (lowest power state) much quicker so the overall power usage is almost negligible. This is just my .02 worth.

Any of Athlon II's should be direct drop ins for any AM2+ boards (especially any with a TDP of 95 or lower).

[drewg]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Any of Athlon II's should be direct drop ins for any AM2+ boards (especially any with a TDP of 95 or lower).

Cool. For some reason, I didn't realize that AM3 was a drop in replacement for AM2+. That opens up a much wider range of options that I was really prepared for!

When you upgraded, did you replace your motherboard & ram, or just your CPU? Eg, are you running with DDR2 or DDR3?

Thanks,

Drew

[paulbeers]

Straight drop in. I have a Gigabyte 780G motherboard with DDR2 ram. Pulled the old 4850e and dropped in the 630. Did the same thing for my in-laws. You will want to check to see what your board has compatibility with (may need a firmware upgrade). Otherwise, it's just a straight swap. And yes the AM3 processors can be run on DDR2 or DDR3 ram.

[drewg]

Thanks.. I just ordered myself an x4 635 C3 stepping.

I'm hoping it might actually use less power at idle than my current 4850e. This is because I use the box as a desktop, and I disabled the lowest level of frequency scaling (set it to idle at 1.8GHz rather than the default of 1.0GHz) as the transitions were so sluggish (noticed the machine felt much snappier when one core was pegged..). Hopefully the transitions will be faster, and I can let this new chip idle at its lowest speed.

Drew

[drewg]

Well, the Athlon II X4 635 at its lowest frequency actually seems usable, and/or the transitions seem faster. Eg, I don't need to limit how low the frequency can go like I did with the 4850e to have a responsive desktop.

On the downside, it idles at about 5-10w higher running at 800Mhz than the 4850e did at 1800Mhz, according to a kill-a-watt that I have plugged in. This isn't as accurate as it could be, since it is measuring everything (monitor, network switch, HDHR, UPS, etc).

Overall, it seems much snappier than the 4850e. Memory bandwidth is *much* higher. Lmbench bw_mem went up by like 40% or so. I can't wait to see how fast it can transcode a show.

Drew

[paulbeers]

A little surprised on the power usage. I figured it would be about the same (635 running at 800mhz vs 4850e at 1800mhz), but I suppose the power increase only equates to an extra kwh per week of usage (if on 24x7) which would be worth it to me if it means the overall experience is much faster.

Glad it worked for you!

[drewg]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

A little surprised on the power usage. I figured it would be about the same (635 running at 800mhz vs 4850e at 1800mhz)

It could be because I'm running a really old Linux distro (Ubuntu 8.04) that doesn't know all the new tricks to reduce CPU usage in the K10 core. It could also be that some BIOS settings got lost. The BIOS on this board resets to defaults when upgraded, and I needed to upgrade the BIOS before installing the new CPU. I know the frequency scaling is working, as it will suck an extra 30-40W when under load.

I'll double-check the BIOS and boot some more modern Linux sometime..

Drew