Athlon 640 3.0 vs Phenom 955 3.2 vs Phenom 1055 2.8

[teryakisuace]

I am debating whether to upgrade an Athlon low end gamer limited to 95w am3 only by mobo. Would the x4 3.2 mhz p955 or the 2.8mhz x6 p1055 be a better gaming chip or is neither one any more than 10% faster than the athlon x4 3.0?
There are dozens of articles all seemingly contradicting each other, more cores is better, more cache is better, higher clock speed is better... it wobbles the mind.

 

[runswindows95]

In order, from worst to best far as the CPU's for gaming:

Athlon < X6 < X4

The PII X4 955 is the best gaming CPU due to the higher clock and cache. The X6 is great for programs that take advantage of multi-cores, such as video editing. Most games don't make use of four cores, much less two.

 

[FALC0N]

I am debating whether to upgrade an Athlon low end gamer limited to 95w am3 only by mobo. Would the x4 3.2 mhz p955 or the 2.8mhz x6 p1055 be a better gaming chip or is neither one any more than 10% faster than the athlon x4 3.0?
There are dozens of articles all seemingly contradicting each other, more cores is better, more cache is better, higher clock speed is better... it wobbles the mind.

More cores is better overall, just not very helpful in gaming at this point in time.

If you have a Athlon X4 640, and improved gaming performance is your goad, I would just stay there. If your looking to improve overall system performance, not just games, the X6 is the way to go. The 955 would give you slightly better gaming, but I don't think its worth the money.

 

[Raidur]

+1? for gaming on a 95W motherboard 95W C3 955BE.

+1? sticking to Athlon II X4 if you already own one and starting with some overclocking.

BUT! What GPU do you have?

 

[teryakisuace]

More cores is better overall, just not very helpful in gaming at this point in time.

If you have a Athlon X4 640, and improved gaming performance is your goad, I would just stay there. If your looking to improve overall system performance, not just games, the X6 is the way to go. The 955 would give you slightly better gaming, but I don't think its worth the money.

I have a follow up question. I agree that the performance upgrade from the a640 to p955 is probably too slight for the cost but I'm looking at the max load temps and notice the p955 runs 9°c lower than the athlon at load or almost 20°f inside the case.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/593/AMD_Athlon_II_X4_640_vs_AMD_Phenom_II_X4_955_%2895W__rev._C3__non-BE%29.html
I think that's huge and would rather spend $100 for a cooler cpu than $5 for another fan and 1 db of fan noise. I'm funny that way.
Would the phenom really be that much cooler inside my case? If not I'll stick with my athlon.

 

[FALC0N]

I have a follow up question. I agree that the performance upgrade from the a640 to p955 is probably too slight for the cost but I'm looking at the max load temps and notice the p955 runs 9°c lower than the athlon at load or almost 20°f inside the case.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/593/AMD_Athlon_II_X4_640_vs_AMD_Phenom_II_X4_955_%2895W__rev._C3__non-BE%29.html
I think that's huge and would rather spend $100 for a cooler cpu than $5 for another fan and 1 db of fan noise. I'm funny that way.
Would the phenom really be that much cooler inside my case? If not I'll stick with my athlon.

Your misreading that data. Its the manufacturers maximum recommended operating temp. Not the actual temp. In other words, the highest temp the chip can safely support without damage.

Actual heat varies by arch and individual chip, but those two parts would have similar thermal profiles in actual use.

 

[K3v1n]

I had the 955 but recently bought a X6 1090T...I would say go for a 1090T. Yes a 4 core and higher clocks is better than a slower 6 core BUT with the 1090T you can do some serious overclocking. and what people do normaly realise is that the 1090T has turbo core, which means that in games up to 3 core slow down and overclocks the rest and acts like a 2,3, or 4 core depending on what the game can use. you can get one on amazon for like 175, so I would go for that

 

[teryakisuace]

Your misreading that data. Its the manufacturers maximum recommended operating temp. Not the actual temp. In other words, the highest temp the chip can safely support without damage.

Actual heat varies by arch and individual chip, but those two parts would have similar thermal profiles in actual use.

Ok, Thanks for the help