Phenom Vs. Athlon

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RainDownMyBlues

New Member
I haven't looked at computer bits since last year around this time, but when I started to last night it doesn't look like anything has changed! :eek: Not much anyway.

I'm looking to get a new MOBO and processor, and am a little torn on which processor but it will most likely be from AMD. I've been an Intel guy until last year, it just makes sense to go with AMD unless you have seriously deep pockets.

Anyway, I was looking at two processors the Phenom II X4 955, and the Athlon II X4 640. Obviously the Phenom is the better processor I suppose, but why? The phenom was my pick last year, but I never got around to ordering it, thinking I would hold off another year but now it's time.

The Athlon II must be newish, but what's the deal with them? Still quad core, clock speed isn't that much inferior. I notice no L3 cache.

So can someone give me a run down on real world differences? Is the Phenom worth the extra $50 bones? Any comparison articles or anything out there?

Thanks gents.
 
mx344

mx344

New Member
Yep thats pretty much the only differences.

The athlons just have the L3 cache disabled.

Haha, well there really is not that much difference, is it worth the extra 50? that up to you, for me, its not, Cause if you look at both of them and compare, they come very close, the phenom wins everytime, but is that 50$ worth that little edge? Up to you :p

Me personally I would go with the athlon. But thats just a 16 year old, without an income, and currently only has 300 bucks atm :D
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
There are a couple major changes since last year:
1. AMD released the Phenom II X6s, but those cost a bit more.
2. Intel released the dual-core Core i3s and i5s

The Core i3 540 is a nice competitor to the Athlon II 640. It beats the 640 in anything threaded for 2 cores (a LOT of games), and it comes close to the 640 in quad-threaded applications. The reason for this is hyperthreading. The i3 has 4 threads (same as the 640), which means that it splits applications threaded for 4 cores across its 2 cores. It provides a major boost for quad-threaded applications. Another member was just comparing the i3 540 to the Athlon II 640 (they're about the same price), and I think they've just about chosen the i3 540. I'd definitely get the the i3 over the Athlon II.

As a side note, the user who was comparing the two CPUs (burningskyline) was able to put together an i3 build for cheaper than an Athlon II 640 build, so you might want to ask him what components he used.
 
fastdude

fastdude

Active Member
i3 540 + GA-P55-USB3 = $200

Will give you better overall performance than a similar cost Athlon II X4 setup, plus the mobo is well featured and you could upgrade to an i5-760 or an i7 later on.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
Spynoodle and Fastdude also gave some great suggestions. Either AMD or Intel processors are great in my opinion.

How are Intel's current stock heatsinks for Socket 1156? I hated those pushpins they use to fasten the heatsink to the motherboards in the past.
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
2048Megabytes said:
Spynoodle and Fastdude also gave some great suggestions. Either AMD or Intel processors are great in my opinion.

How are Intel's current stock heatsinks for Socket 1156? I hated those pushpins they use to fasten the heatsink to the motherboards in the past.
Click to expand...
I also hate the pushpins, but I think I heard that it was better with LGA1556. When I got really mad with my Kingwin heatsink once, I decided to look up how to do the pushpins, and I found this:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2047683
This seems to make it a bit easier, although it was so difficult to get my hands inside my case with my Kingwin RVT-12025D that I couldn't really judge. :D
 
Benny Boy

Benny Boy

Active Member
The one with the most capabilities would be the 955.
Whether there's a noticeable difference between the 3 and what the pc is going to be asked to do, may be a different story.
 
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RainDownMyBlues

New Member
Benny Boy said:
The one with the most capabilities would be the 955.
Whether there's a noticeable difference between the 3 and what the pc is going to be asked to do, may be a different story.
Click to expand...

Not much, although I would like the capability to do some light gaming. I have Bad Company 2, and my processor currently is such a bottle neck it plays like crap. I'll be getting anew MOBO, Cpu, and ram. My GPU I think is fine, it's a little dated Radeon 4870, but that's not my issue. Graphically that guy can handle itself, my cpu currently is a Pentium D 3.0Ghz. Olllld school. One of the very first dual cores. To say the very least, it's a wimp and getting it's but handed to it by even my somewhat budget laptop.

I just need a processor for a year or two that can handle current things. I don't need, or want a six core. The 955 wouldn't be much to get up to 965 standards.

But if the L3 cache isn't worth the bump up to the Phenom, and if it would be more better to spend the 50 bones on something else that's straight.
 
Drenlin

Drenlin

Active Member
Clock for clock, the difference between Athlon II and Phenom II chips is something like 15% on average. The 955 is also clocked about 6% higher, so roughly it's about 21% faster than the 640, and 45% more expensive.

However, The 955 is a Black Edition chip, made with overclocking in mind. Typically, those can top 4GHz even on a cheap-ish cooler like my Hyper 212+. Topping 3.6GHz on the 640 will probably be difficult.
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
IMO, if you can afford the Phenom, you'll probably want that. If it's between the i3 540 and the Athlon II 640, then get the i3.
 
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RainDownMyBlues

New Member
I can afford the Phenom, but I'm not going to be spending anymore than that on the processor. If it's a better chip, then I'll get it. I'm not real up on the tech these days, what is the advantage with the L3 cache?
 
Drenlin

Drenlin

Active Member
This is an oversimplified explanation, but I think you'll get the idea:

Cache works a lot like RAM. It's a place where the CPU can put things that it uses often, for quick access. You'll see L1, L2, and L3 caches, which the L1 being very small and very fast, the L2 being larger but slower, and so on. Anything that can't be put in the cache is put into the RAM instead, which is even slower than the caches.

So basically, the L3 cache allows for more efficient use of data. Less time spent waiting on the RAM is more time spent processing, and more work done.

Also, for that reason, fast RAM is much more beneficial to Athlon chips, since they use it more often.
 
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TrainTrackHack

VIP Member
The typical apps that benefit from large L3 are compression and video encoding (well, any kinda encoding). Of course those things don't always get noticeably faster with extra L3 (just like not all aussies ride kangaroos) and likewise, there are quite a few applications other than these that will benefit from L3 a good deal.

In most real world apps, you'll only get a marginal performance increase.
 
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RainDownMyBlues

New Member
So to games it probably not entirely necessary? I don't game much, but I like play BC2 and they have Vietnam coming out. I'll likely end up getting the Phenom ANYWAY, just a little understanding goes a long way :)
 
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TrainTrackHack

VIP Member
RainDownMyBlues said:
So to games it probably not entirely necessary? I don't game much, but I like play BC2 and they have Vietnam coming out. I'll likely end up getting the Phenom ANYWAY, just a little understanding goes a long way :)
Click to expand...
There are plenty of benchmarks out there comparing equally clocked Phenom II and Athlon II quads, I looked through one on Tom's hardware and in most games the difference was negligible, I think L4D had almost 20% increase in fps and that was the highest out of them all.
 
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