AMD Phenom II X6 Thuban questions

[josh7331]

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz

Will Windows Xp be able to utilize all 6 cores? I do not plan to upgrade to windows 7 for a very long time.

In the next 3 months will a company bring out a motherboard that supports the Thuban fully for under $100?

Just some noobie questions for you guy's thanks! Going to be selling my motorola droid and ps3 to buy a new gaming rig! (I will also use it for cpu intensive applications)

 

[jbakerlent]

1) That depends more on the program that you are running. As for just Windows, 7 is better at utilizing additional cores than XP.

2) There's quite a few mobos that will support X6 CPUs fully for under $100, especially if you don't need a crossfire capable one.

If gaming is your primary use though, you'd be a little better off with a X4.

 

[4745454b]

Does the 770 support thuban? Thought you needed the 790? Its also not on the short CPU support list on the specs tab.

XP handles multi core CPUs. Vista/7 will handle them better, but you will have access to all six cores. Even on XP home.

 

[4745454b]

Ok, so 770 can support it. I know you need a board that can handle the power draw, so any AM3 board (and in theory any AM2+ board) that can handle the 125W will work with it. I thought the 770 boards would only do 65/95W CPUs so I wasn't sure if the 770 could do it.

 

[LePhuronn]

Thats not the board, but the PWM.

TDP not PWM 😛

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation, and is used to intermediate amounts of electrical power between fully on and fully off (i.e. controlling fan speed or light brightness)

TDP = Thermal Design Power, represents the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. So a 125W TDP CPU will need a cooling system capable of dissipating 125W of heat.

Also, because CPUs can get toasty, you need a board capable of handling the heat too - hence a TDP support list for CPUs.

 

[EXT64]

My 770 (Gigabyte 770T-UD3P) claims support for both Hexes and 125W TDP. So some do at least, but be careful to check.

 

[notty22]

Anyone else notice the BEEFY heatsinks on the new Asus 890fx boards. They are on the northbridge/cpu vrm. In the new TH article, they tested the Asrock 790fx ,same there,with a fan to boot. My point is, whats generating all the heat ? How are these older 70 dollar AM2+ boards with single phase power and no heat sinks on the VR going to handle the 6 core ? Certainly with NO overclocking. Maybe turbo boost , constantly changing states adds some heat ?
I'm specualting, I know they add heat sinks for show on the top end boards and these new AMD boards are now over the 150 dollar mark, but is it more than that to?

 

[loneninja]

Thuban is fully supported on my $80 Gigabyte 780G motherboard I bought in O8, lol Asking if there are any boards below $100 is just silly.

 

[Guest]

As far as Windows XP using all the cores, any app that is written to utilize many cores will do so. I received my new computer last month (1090T), and after uninstalling clunky Win7 64, and putting WinXP 32 back on, it flies.

h264 encoding in handbrake uses all the cores, as I believe the encoder (x264) was written to do so, where as xvid encodes with the same or different programs do not utilize all the cores.