Athlon X3 450 vs AMD FX-4100

[nekulturny]

Sorta, kinda, not really. Its a completely different design than the K10 architecture (What the Phenom/Athlons are based on). But it really goes beyond my understanding of how CPUs work to really explain it though. I'm not sure if I firmly understand it anyway lol.

 

[stant1rm]

Here's that post I mentioned. Some good info in it.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1261635/buying-the-fx8150-as-a-quad-core

 

[dragonx1983]

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/183/AMD_Athlon_II_X3_450_vs_AMD_FX-Series_FX-4100.html

 

[yummerzzz]

Necro, thread is long dead.
/Thread

 

[1991ATServerTower]

1 Phenom II X4 (965-980)BE
2 Bulldozer FX-4100
3 Athlon II X3

so that means fx-4100 beats any phenom X4 below 965 on stock?

are you guys sure that fx-4100 is not a quad?why is it then sold as a quad and cpu-z sees it as a quad?

Edit - i've seen this explaination
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-bulldozer-zambezi-processor-am3,13272.html

it says that an eight core bulldozer has 4 modules consisting of 2 cores each, that means a fx-4100 has 2 modules consisting of 2 cores each, which makes it a quad core, am i right?

It's very simple really.

For whole number x86 calculations [ALU] it is a true quad core, but for decimal point x86 calculations (FPU) it's a dual core.

This processor looks like so,

<Module 1>
[ALU/"Core" 1] (FPU 1) [ALU/"Core" 2]

<Module 2>
[ALU/"Core" 3] (FPU 2) [ALU/"Core" 4]

So, having 4 ALUs allows Windows XP/Vista/7 and Linux to use it as a quad core processor. Windows 8 uses it as a dual core processor with hyperthreading though, which is done to spread out the FPU instructions more effectively - Why send two FPU instructions to "Core 3" and "Core 4", when one of those FPU instructions is just going to have to wait to use FPU 2? Could have just sent those two FPU instuctions to "Core 1" and "Core 3", so neither would have to wait. It's just a simple efficiency trick, which Win7 will also do when patched.

Anyhow, for every day use it's not a big deal. High end gaming, sure, but then this processor is not priced into that market. If you want "high end" you're going to have to pay top dollar for it (hence the reason why "high end gamers" use the $240 Intel i5 K series chips).