Phenom II 955 slower than Athlon X2 4600+?!?!?!?!

Itronix

Itronix

New Member
My friend bought a phenom II 955, a new Gigabyte board, and a new psu. Vista scores the cpu below the old one, and games don't seem to play any better. Mainly I'm talking about GTA 4, which has multi-core support.

Does something need to be changed in the bios? Is it the DDR2 800 ram? Even if it was a dual core, it's 800mhz faster per core, plus it's a whole new class of processor. What's going on? Thanks again everyone.
 
Aviation man makes a good point about the GPU.

GTA IV is also rather GPU intensive. If you are still using the 8800GT, you probably won't notice much of a frame rate increase between those two CPUs.
 
I'll turn that off for him thanks! He has an 8800GT like I do, but I use to have a 4600+ like he did, and when I changed to a 3.1 ghz 6000+, I noticed at least a 5 to 8 fps higher average on that game. He can't run any shadows at all, while I run medium I think. Plus vista even says that it's slower, so that seems weird to me. I'll turn the cool and quiet stuff off and see what it does. I'll also do the cpu-z thing too and post it. Thanks!

So I have a question on my part now lol. I have a new Gigabyte board coming, then I'll be buying an Antec psu. If I want better performance, should I just consider replacing my 8800 with a GTX260 and leaving the cpu? I have the 6000+ running at 3.1 ghz with 1mb cache. I was going to go quad or at least tri-core, but if my cpu will cut it...
 
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That would depend on what socket the new Gigabyte board has. Is it AM2 or AM3?

In either case, the GTX260 is a fair leap forward from the 8800GT. They are rather cheap right now, too.
 
GTA IV is very GPU demanding,I had a 8800GT and it struggled in most places to get decent frame rates.

Id tell your friend its time to upgrade that GPU!...get either a 260GTX 216 core or a ATI 4890..1 gb versions.
or look into the 5 series from ATI.

He made a good decision on the cpu upgrade though....quad core does help even though alot of people still say it doesnt!
 
Ok thanks to both of you! My new board is suppose to handle AM2, AM2+, and AM3. I guess it's through bios changes, I'm not sure. Gigabyte's website said it should handle mine or even my friends 955.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128395

It's cheap, but I could afford it and I trust the company. It'll be better than my $43.00 ECS board....

Nevakonaza and Zatharus, sounds good, he wants to get a new GPU, but he doesn't have the cash at the moment. I'll check out the cool and quiet thing, but if that doesn't work, I don't know what's up because my system, with a slower processor and the same everything else (gpu, quantity of ram, etc), runs the game way better.
 
I wouldn't use Vista as a scoring device... mine was rated top for all aspects :/ . Also, the Cool n' Quiet is most likely the problem, if you see 800MHz in CPU-Z.
 
Im working on the computer at the moment and I turned off the cool and quiet. That didn't make the difference. It is running at 803 in cpu-z, 1.6 total in Vista. I saw another post somewhere and someone else was having this issue on a similar motherboard. I think it's the bios. I say that because he couldn't seem to make the observed speed change even when he stepped it up to 1.350.

I've never done a bios flash before, but downloaded the update. The most recent seems to have a fix for Phenom II processors, but I don't know how to install it. Do I put it on a disk and tell it to boot from there? I just don't want to screw it up and have to reinstall windows or something :-/ and make him lose all his stuff. Any ideas? The voltage is at a whopping .960... I thought it could be at like 1.5v? Don't worry lol I won't touch that until I get some advice. I've never done it.
 
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Itronix said:
Im working on the computer at the moment and I turned off the cool and quiet. That didn't make the difference. It is running at 803 in cpu-z, 1.6 total in Vista. I saw another post somewhere and someone else was having this issue on a similar motherboard. I think it's the bios. I say that because he couldn't seem to make the observed speed change even when he stepped it up to 1.350.

I've never done a bios flash before, but downloaded the update. The most recent seems to have a fix for Phenom II processors, but I don't know how to install it. Do I put it on a disk and tell it to boot from there? I just don't want to screw it up and have to reinstall windows or something :-/ and make him lose all his stuff. Any ideas? The voltage is at a whopping .960... I thought it could be at like 1.5v? Don't worry lol I won't touch that until I get some advice. I've never done it.
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I'm no math genius but isn't .960 less then 1? so I'm sure it's less then 1.5. If the motherboard does not fully support the Phenom II with out the proper bios then that may very well be the problem. The gigabyte board should have Q-flash which you can use to flash the bios. Make sure the motherboard board has it which it should most new gigabyte mobos do. To access Q-Flash by either pressing <End> key during the POST or pressing the <F8> key in BIOS setup menu. Then follow these instructions http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/old_motherboard_newtech/flashbios_qflash.pdf.
 
Fatback said:
I'm no math genius but isn't .960 less then 1? so I'm sure it's less then 1.5. If the motherboard does not fully support the Phenom II with out the proper bios then that may very well be the problem. The gigabyte board should have Q-flash which you can use to flash the bios. Make sure the motherboard board has it which it should most new gigabyte mobos do. To access Q-Flash by either pressing <End> key during the POST or pressing the <F8> key in BIOS setup menu. Then follow these instructions http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/old_motherboard_newtech/flashbios_qflash.pdf.
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Yeah I was being sarcastic about the voltage :P. It has the q-flash, which I'll check out.

Hmm the multiplier should be at x16? Ok I'll check that out too. Thanks!
 
Q-Flash makes my head feel better... otherwise Flashing the BIOS seems like a huge danger to me, whether or not it's such a huge deal (I have Dual-BIOS :D )
 
What do I select in the bios? Sorry sorry, I haven't done much in the bios. I think I found it, but I don't want to screw anything up.

I mean I haven't done much with bios at all lol
 
Yah, the 955 has an unlocked multiplier... that's what the BLACK EDITION is all about! Great fun, very basic overclocks on my 955.
 
i know this is a dumb question, but heck.... when you open task manager, do all 4 cores show up under "set affinity" ?
 
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