AMD Phenom II 940 "Xtremely" Benchmarked

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Well, it seems my PII system has gotten a little closer to normal. I did a little more online searching regarding my weird issue of reboots when plugging in USBs and it looks like it may have been caused by defective front USB ports. I can't confirm it for sure (needs more testing) but it seems that unplugging the front USBs allows me now to plug in my pen drive. Hopefully this is the only short in my USB/MB (and hopefully no damage was done). I still can't undervolt my CPU much at all, but otherwise I'm happy.
 
Front(case) USB ports are known to cause some wierd issues. The ones of my wifes Thermaltake Soprano actually killed her logitech USB headset, some kind of voltage/power spike to them.
 
Yeah, it has been solid since then. It was really freaking me out. The comp would be 100% solid, then I would get up to check all of the fans (but not touch the comp) and bam, restart. I'm not really sure where or how the short worked (because the front USBs did work, then didn't, then did, then didn't). Could also be some static mess (I probably should raise it off the carpet). Oh well, hopefully this is the end of it. The comp has been working great otherwise.
 



That I didn't know. I generally have okay experiences with the front USB's but when they act weird I just add a USB extender with 4 or 5 additional ports and run it out of the back. That's what I did for my wife's ASUS 690G board when her mouse stopped working in the front ports.

My ports and my son's are no issue. Maybe I should get her a 780G to replace the 690G after all? Better yet, get myself a 780GX with SB750 and let her have mine.

Upgrading is fun, but it can be a nuisance at times. I'm sure we're not the only household playing musical chairs with components.
 


I can't undervolt mine as well. I'm using old 790X chipset and MSI board. In BIOS there is no voltage less than 1.35V on the other hand in AMD OverDrive it is possible to undervolt it to 1.20V on CPU-VID(whatever this means) but CPU-VDDC still shows 1.35V, I'm not sure is it undervolted or not?!
P.S. I'm pretty happy with PII 940 :)
 
I know Overdrive (2.1.5) has issues with voltages on my board. No matter what they are it reads stock or bogus. In BIOS I can lower them, but the CPU became unstable. I should retry some of the intermediate voltages after I fixed the USB issue. I tried 1.25V, but it rebooted in Windows. Maybe 1.30V will work, or maybe I should just leave it alone until I get some new games and do some OCing.
 



Via and Sis chipsets are known for usb crappyness..Especially the VT266 - oh that was dreadfull even the power on the backplate was low..

Intel again have always provided the right ampage through their usb ports on the motherboard...

I have had external hard disks ( 2.5 inch self powering ) fail on Sis and Via Chipsets through the front "panel"..

I have never had usb problems on later nvidia or intel chipsets but had a few on earlier ati ones.. Im sure the latest ones are up to spec.. Will have to get some 790 chipsets and see if their ok..


The test is to plug in a external usb 2.5 self powered hard disk as this draws a lot of current. Out of all the peripherals this draws on of the most ampage.. Of course some people have known to internally wire the usb plugs in wrong but this has almost now disapeared down to a single plug in connector. Be carefull not to confuse the usb with the firewire as they are the same connector on the motherboard ( dum in my opinion ) and can cause peripheral damage.. I have seen a pc built with the usb connected to the firewire on the font panel.. and vice a versa .. Ugh...

Secondly whilst on the topic of buiding pcs - who ever uses rubber bands to tie back cables or use sandwich ties head these warnings...

Rubber bands perish.. just dont use them
Sandwich bag ties - these contain wire enclosed in plastic - mmm put wires into metal which could short out and cause a big bang..

Use cable ties, thats what they are there for and are cheap to buy.. Also use two for holding back ide cables..

I got to say Yipsl i was never really a fan of the earlier ati chipsets the express 200 were rubbish, but i have not integrated a 780/790.... Maybe i should...
 

Exactly my point! I've been able to clock it to 3.6Ghz ROCK solid (4 hours on Prime torture test) just by rising the multy and slight bumb on vcore. On the other hand I can push it to 3.8 with some FSB increase and more Voltage(1.55) Didn't tested on 3.8Ghz for long time but prime runs for about half an hour and all benches have completed. I presume that 3.8 Ghz is not so solid, BUT note that I'me using old SB600 and there is NO ACC!
Like I said before: TH shame on you! Being intel fanboys is nothing to do with. I thought you are professionals :??:

P.S. jay? did they OCed the P2 with the stock cooler? on the picture is shown a setup with the AMD stock cooler. If so - LOOOOOOL
 



VT 266 was for the old style AMD Athlons - the socket 462 variety
 



I would say that the vt266 was the worst chipset motherboard ever with the nforce 1,2, - 3 was okayish but nforce 4 - wow did that just run hot - needed a lot of cooling for overclocking thats for sure

 
I've never had good experience with Via chipsets, but haven't worked with them in ages, and when I did it was with a friend's budget P4 build that I did to his cheapo specs.

I prefer cable ties too, but sometimes just move the cables out of the way into an empty bay. This Antec Nine Hundred is a great case for room. My wife's 690G chipset is good. Probably just an issue with the poor case's front USB's. Her case was originally part of an MSI Nvidia K9N 405 chipset barebones, which is why she's getting the In-Win GD instead.

Newegg shows the 4870x2 as shipping today. I feel that I'm too lucky. If it had failed earlier in the year, I'd have gotten another 3870x2, and if it had failed months later, it would have been MSI's call, but because it failed at a time when Newegg could only offer another product of the same price, or a full refund, I got the Sapphire 4870x2.

I just hope it runs well for at least a year. I doubt that 40nm will bring out a sub $200 card as fast, but 40nm might bring out a $450 card with sideport that's actually enabled and useful in increasing bandwidth between the GPU's.

Has everyone read the news at Tom's on the leaked Phenom II @ 3.6?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-ATI-Radeon-Phenom,6936.html

Until they get a higher IPC CPU, upping the stock clocks and allowing some overclocking room is the way to go. Even if Gigabyte does a bios that supports it later this year, I'm not sure I'd put one in an SB700 board. That would deserve AM3 and DDR3 if anything in AMD's roadmap does.
 



Looks like were gonna have a MHz war again...

Once apon a time MHz didnt matter it was how efficient the chip was, now its back to clock speed does this meant next time chips will be even more energy efficient..

time will tell

as to when Windows 7 will be out i assume Windows will be called Vista Hal - or as its the year as Space Odyssey 2010 when it will be released at the end of Jan 2010 like vista was in 2007 ( well in OEM ) anyway..
 
IPC are much closer now than they were in the Athlon 64/Pentium 4 days, though. Besides, the outcome of that war worked well for Intel. Maybe AMD will take their higher clocking (than older chips) design, lower power consumption & increase IPC and pull a Core 2 out its... magic!

Or not....
 
First they have to ask the genies of Arabia for a bit more dosh to be able to pull off that miracle. I think they will, but we could see both AMD and Intel research slow down a bit over this recession.

Yes, clock wars once again. I agree with Dekasav that IPC's are closer but I'd hoped for better software optimization for more cores such that a 4 gigahertz overclocked extreme edition dual core wouldn't beat out the same company's best quads of the same generation.

We'll all have quantum computers after the alien invasion is defeated in 2012, or the antarctic melts and we find the lost mega mall of Crystal Atlantis with 100,000 year old tech left over from the last pole shift (please note the use of satire).

There are times when I look forward to the reaching of limitations found in Moore's Law. I like upgrading, but I want the software I run to also be upgraded, and not just thrown together where clockspeed is the only thing that counts.
 



Good grief.. How on earth are the Enquirer still in business with that crap...


On top of it all a Overclocked Phenom II compared to a stock I Core 7... I mean is that what benchmarks are all about.. At least overclock the I Core to 3.7GHz then compare..

Enquirer look like their trying to be AMD fanbois and not being that impressed with the results..

At least compare overclocked AMDs to overclocked Intels... Yes AMD deserves to win but it doesnt in sum cases. These are on unconclusive test results that do nothing but adverstise Intel again and make AMD look stupid....

So to get real performance people overclock your Phenom II until it bleeds to death...Thats what most people will not be doing though is it...

Also shows that AMD are not energy efficient as they could of been which wasnt that AMD prophecy..

Havent the boxing gloves from AMD now changed over to Intel...
 
My Antec Neo 650 is listed as supporting the 4870x2 at AMD's site, though I'm considering upgrading to a Corsair 750 and moving the Antec to my wife's to replace the Antec True Power 550.
Click to expand...

Here we go..


Its a Antec4Wife (tm Hellboy) with the AMD4Wife (tm - yep Hellboy again) situation here Yipsl...

Maybe youll buy her something new one day.. lol...

Youve cracked it. lol keep persuading your wife for upgrading yours by upgrading hers..

Your a legend... Take note people... Yipsl is gonna patent this technology called "Giveoldstuftowife TM whilst I get a new one faster one"

All my missus does ( thats why they call them missus because they miss the point ) is moans at my upgrades... Well its what i do and it comes with the territory..

Im raisng my glass of Jack Daniels as i write this :)

Im off to reminisce my old Commodore A1200... I remember when Amigas had better graphics than the pc.. Sound too. It was just that workbench that was a nightmare..

 


As computers have become more powerful, software has gotten more bloated... all that extra computer power made efficient programming something of the past... Software could become more bloated and inefficient as hardware was advancing at a faster speed.
 



Software is like a fat man eating 50 mcdonalds being driven round in a M1 Abrams battle tank..

Bring on the day when games were programmed in true machine language.. Imagine the speed then..
 
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