Athlon II x3 vs Phenom X3

[cheesybacon]

Hey every1,

I'm looking to upgrade my processor (and mobo if I need to but I have the ECS a780gm-a which supports almost all new cpu's)


Just wondering which of these two would be better because price is basically the exact same.

Athlon II x3 435 or the Phenom X3 8750.


Now, according to toms charts the Athlon is better then the phenom x3. Which I am somewhat surprised by since the PHenom x3 has 2mb L3 cache. Is this because of the slower clock speed on the phenom x3(which is at 2.4ghz stock) If I got the BE and oc'd it to the same clock speed/closer to it/or higher. Would it then perform better then the athlon II x3???

Thanks for the help
~~Cheesy~~

 

[loneninja]

Athlon II and Phenom are roughly the same performance at the same clock speed, Phenom wins in some instances and Athlon II in the other. The key difference is that Phenom is 65nm, making it power hungry and a poor overclocker, 3.0Ghz would be a good overclock. The Athlon II is 45nm, consumes far less power, and will usually overclock to 3.5Ghz+.

 

[enzo matrix]

The Athlon II is a phenom II with the L3 cache removed. I am unsure how the phenom vs phenom II would perform clock per clock if they both had the same amount of cache, but I do know that typically, an extra 200MHz on the Athlon II will make up for the L3 cache in the Phenom II.
The heat and 65nm is what prevented the phenom from being clocked very high. You are much better off with the Athlon II, for both it's overclockability and high stock clock speed.

 

[cheesybacon]

Ahh.. I see, ya I'm going to go with the Athlon II x3 then, I mean it starts at a 2.9ghz clock rate... which as loneninja says would be the max on the phenom.


Thanks guys.

 

[cheesybacon]

Best answer selected by cheesybacon.