Phenom II 940 - Core 2 Quad Q9550

[medjohnson77]

I have the Asus M2N32-sli wifi deluxe with the 590 chipset, from my 6400be. build, It has been a great board, but I have only tried the 9850be in it and I have not put the Phenom II in it. I upgraded, so I think most people would not want to put a new tech chip in a old mother board, unless your trying to save money from buying a new one, or can't afford to upgrade, then compatiblity could be a good thing, right? New chip may not perform to full specs, but one would think it would be better then the older tech processor.

 

[tomstar]

Then PII it is. Maybe I'll wait for AM3 and AM3 processors because I've heard you need an older CPU incase you want to update your BIOS if you want to install your PII

 

[tomstar]

I've put together 2 systems. I have uploaded some pics but they are in dutch though. But I don't think it's a big problem since a Phenom II in english remains nothing more but a Phenom II in dutch.

The Phenom build costs 782 euro's and the Core 2 Quad costs 792 euro's. These prices include everything to build a system from scratch including a videocard.

Because both systems cost the same the price difference is not an issue anymore which gives the C2Q build an advantage over the Phenom.

The Phenom build:
http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=phenombuildvganw1.png

The Core 2 Quad build:
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=core2quadbuildpo8.png

The phenom build isn't that much cheaper because the mobo costs 119 euro's because I want the 790X chipset with a 750 SB. Alternate.be only offers 1 decent SB750 / 790 mobo and that's the Asus Asus M3A78-T. It includes an integrated graphics chipset though, but that can be turned off.


There are a few things that bother me:

The fact that I need an older processor to update the BIOS and run the PII. And the fact that it is an older, somewhat unpopular motherboard.

I know for a fact that the Q9550 will run perfect on the p5q as it is one of the most popular boards with a P45 chipset.

One more thing,

I've kinda dropped the future proof thing because I realised that if I would upgrade, I could keep the case, hard drive, PSU and maybe even RAM which would make the upgrade pretty cheap compared to a total system build. The 775 socket remains a dead socket to me though, but if the Q9550 performs better in most of the reviews I've seen (and think are BIASED) I should go with the 9550 anyway?

I wont be overclocking no matter how easy some people say it is. I just don't care, I lose my waranty (I think?) and even ifI don't, I just don't want to risk it. However, IF I would go with the 940 I will increase the multi because this is realy, too easy.

 

[amdfangirl]

indeed.
dont get me wrong.. when you already have a nice board and you can re-use it thats great but reality is that even though it may fit, may work you will still be at a disadvantage to boards designed for the newer tech. to me picking out a new board is one of the more enjoyable pieces of research in building a new system. tons of reviews for CPU's video cards, cases, power supplies but the motherboard forces you to really dig.

Some people can't afford new motherboards - like me. Seriously, most people should realizes that its almost pointless to buy a new motherboard of the same socket.

 

[medjohnson77]

Tom,

If you can not go with the M3 79T deluxe with the 750 SB I am not sure if I would go with the Phenom II. Either choice you will be happy with, 775 socket Q9550 or the Phenom II. I am not saying there is any thing wrong with the 78-t board, but I really like the 79-T deluxe model. Very nice mother board.


Amdfangirl,

For me it was not pointless to upgrade my board on the same socket. I made a mistake going with the Jetway HA04 extreme, because it had the 600 SB, If I didn't want to over clock, wouldn't of been a big deal, but since I did want to OC, it was not a very good chipset to OC on. I got the 9850be to 2.9ghz, some what stable, but every now and again it would blue screen out on me. The Bios update process with the Jetway sucked!! Asus boards are so much better to update the bios with, very simple. Jetway required me to have a floppy drive, and the bios update took three tries to get it to take. So when I upgraded to the Asus 79-T deluxe, it was a much better board in the same socket style.

 

[roofus]

Some people can't afford new motherboards - like me. Seriously, most people should realizes that its almost pointless to buy a new motherboard of the same socket.

dont get me wrong. it isnt a bad thing but it can be self-inflicted pain. if you are still using a eek in the door board, you may already be on the outside looking in as far as new tech on the motherboard. it really makes me think of the fact you can still get a 3850 card for AGP. very nice gesture but chances are you wasted money because the limitations of the old arch diminish the return on your investment. could have bought a 2600 and been just as well off with money left to buy a couple games.

 

[tomstar]

I have to do a BIOS update for the PII, probably. Might go with the Q9650 as well since I found a local shop that sells it for 320 euro's. It's still alot but I think and it's a very good price for a 3.0GHz quad core. Still not sure though.

I know Q9650 owns the PII but it's also 1.5x times more expensive. And still, the 9650 isn't that much faster then the 9550.

 

[spathotan]

Id actually go with the Q9550 build, i didnt think the prices were gonna be so close. Maybe drop that ASUS board for a Gigabyte model.

 

[tomstar]

Is the Q9650 worth the extra money over the Q9550. They seem pretty close in every benchmark I've seen but I'm not sure. Q9550 costs me 279 euro's and the Q9650 costs me 329 euro's.

 

[medjohnson77]

I do not believe it would be, but thats just IMO. If the Q9550 is fast, plays games smooth, then the extra 5%-15% performance gain, you have to ask yourself is it worth the extra dollars?? I don' believe it would be.

 

[spathotan]

If you want to overclock yes its worth it. The Q9650 has a 9x multi, which means youll need a lower FSB on the board to get the OCs you want. Alot of the ASUS P45's have trouble getting quads over 445FSB.

 

[amdfangirl]

^ True, but sanity-wise, its not worth it for the extra few mhz.

 

[tomstar]

Online retailer will offer me a BIOS update for 13 euro's which I think is fine for installing everything, updating BIOS and then putting everything back into the boxes...

I've been running trough the reviews over and over again but they allways say the 940 is a competitor for the Q9400 but now that the prices are updated it is very hard to find a review that compares the PII 940 with the Q9550.

Another question...

Do I need 800 Mhz or 1066 Mhz memory if I go with either of these CPU's?

 

[Hellboy]

Online retailer will offer me a BIOS update for 13 euro's which I think is fine for installing everything, updating BIOS and then putting everything back into the boxes...

I've been running trough the reviews over and over again but they allways say the 940 is a competitor for the Q9400 but now that the prices are updated it is very hard to find a review that compares the PII 940 with the Q9550.

Another question...

Do I need 800 Mhz or 1066 Mhz memory if I go with either of these CPU's?

Faster the better for overclocking.. If your going to overclock that is..

 

[jasobnd]

if u buy AMD research about their spider platform I.E get the highest memory if u want to overclock and the latest ASUS mobo M3a79 t i think it is!

also think about waiting a little longer AMD will be releasing an AM3 phenom x4 BE in the future which will prob reach about 4Ghz (i read review on X3 which reached 3.8Ghz)

i think Intel are naff allways changing sockets and compatabole parts u generally end up buy a new rig just to get their new cpu's. and the costs aswell. amd cheap cheap cheap for not that much of a power loss.

AMD phenom 2 with 4Gb of highest ddr2 ram and an xfire 4870 gpu will play any game u throw at it. the extra 400 u spend on intel rig will buy you extra 10 fps lets all have a wank....or not!!

AMD all the way.

plus wait until after western recession and see whos on top overpriced intel or cheap AMD

 

[mipeder]

Phenom II build:

Phenom II 940 3.0 GHz (not going to overclock) 229 euro's
GigaByte MA790X-DS4 (not sure if it is compatible with AM3.) 109 euro's
4GB DDRII Ram (OCZ fan.) 50 euro's
520 Watt powersupply (OCZ fan 69 euro's
Antec threehundred 50 euro's
rest doesn't realy matter.


i7 build:
Ci7 920 (279 euro's)
P6T (229 euro's)
same case
same power supply
2GB of ram, (one stick) -> upgrade a few weeks later to 4GB or 6GB


Q9550 build:

asus p5q (106 euro's)
Q9550 (279 euro's)
4GB ram (50 euro's)

So i think the prices should be somewhere near:

720 euro's for the i7 build
600 euro's for the phenom 940 biuld
650 for the Q9550 build.

As you can see prices are pretty close and I don't know which one get's the upper hand. i7 is good for multitasking and stuff, I will be doing alot of converting avi's to DVD's and stuff but i'll be gaming as well.

Gaming the Q9550 and phenom 940 perform, let's say, equal.
I'm no AMD fan and no Intel fan so... I can say they perform equal (atleast from the benches I have seen.)

Plus, the 940 will be the cheapest build.

The i7 however, costs over 700 euro's and that's without a videocard. So I think I'll be dropping the Q9550 chose as it is more expensive, and performing equal to 940.

Therefore the choise is between the i7 nd the phenom.

What I like about the i7:

It is the ost future proof system of all, but expensive. With a videocard this build will cost me close to 920 euro's. If I go for the i7 i'll be expecting atleast 5 years from it. I might upgrade the videocard and stuff in the meantime but i'm only looking at th eprocessor now.

What I like about the 940 PII:

It is cheap, 600 euro's plus a videocard, 4850/70 that would be 800 euro's for a very good gamin set-up.

How ever, I dislike the fact that AMD is in the middle of an upgrade with their AM3. So I don't want to have an outdated system within the next few months.

I'm not sure what AMD is planning to do, release AM3 only processors? I don't know but if they would do so I might go for the i7 because I know the 1399 socket or whatever it was, will last.


So the price difference is about 150 euro's and the phenom will give me more for the money. 600 euro phenom build will give me a bigger hard drive, more ram, where the i7 build had a lesser hard drive, and ''only'' 2GB of ram.


Does anybody know if AMD is going to come with a 45nm AM3 processor that runs faster then 2.8 GHz? within 2 months?

In April this year AMD will be shipping the Phenom II 945 3.0 GHz 45nm AM3 CPU.

 

[mipeder]

I would go with which ever one you can build a system with that comes out cheaper. As stated about the upgrade path. There isnt going to be hardly any new cpus for socket 775(minus low power models) The new AM3 cpus are supposed to run on socket AM2 boards.

The AM3 CPUs can run on AM2+ boards, but AM3 boards for DDR3 memory are available too.

 

[beeyang78]

Just go with the cheapest build and get yourself an ATI 4000 series card and you the stream processors to do the video conversions. It will save you a lot of time and the conversion tool is pretty easy to use.

 

[amdfangirl]

The AM3 CPUs can run on AM2+ boards, but AM3 boards for DDR3 memory are available too.

Except there's not much gain in performance in DDR3... just power savings mostly.

 

[lashton]

lol what are you all talking about the PII is crap, how can a petium II be faster than core 2 Duo lol hahahahhaha

 

[tomstar]

noob

 

[medjohnson77]

lol what are you all talking about the PII is crap, how can a petium II be faster than core 2 Duo lol hahahahhaha

AND THAT BRINGS US TO OUR POINT TODAY, "dont smoke crack", :lol:

 

[amdfangirl]

Wow... we must lock this thread.

 

[Ken168]

lol @lashton
--------------------------------------------------

@tom

sorry, can't remember if I have mentioned on your thread previously.
I am using Gigabyte mobo DS4H serie. It can let you flash bios in window mode. I have never flash bios in my life, but i did it first time with the bios utility from gigabyte --> @bios (the name of the program). It was cake, too easy!

Fyi, the cpu work pre-flash (I used it for like a week before getting the bios that support PII). It just had no name for my cpu. But once flashed, it recognise the cpu as PII. That is the only different between the old bios vs new bios in term of cpu support.

I think with the release of AM3 cpus and all the reviews, it is confirmed that my previous advice is a sensible one. (work right now, fast, cheaper and upgradeable).

cheers

 

[najongjine]

many people think am2 board will support am3, and am3 future cpu is better than PII 940.
In AMD's upcoming cpu line up, Triple core(cheap version) 2.6~2.8 will come up first, and then quad core 945 will come out.
945 will be AM3 but problem is it gonna be same as PII 940.
It means it just convert to AM3 compatible CPU.

and 955,965+ will come out in end of 2009.

today is 2/11/09, AM3 CPU still didn't come out, and no AMD DDR3 board yet.
But in intel 775 socket, even it's dead end, there's DDR3 board, and it has better performance.
you know y?
cuz AMD is having problem on the DDR3 compatible.

AMD will have full list of AM3 CPU in end of 2009, but intel will release new main-stream CPUs in 2010.



if u wait more and more, u will never get new CPU until u die.



Here's my conclusion.

*If u alrdy have AM2+ compatible motherboard, go for PII 940
*if u r buying new motherboard+CPU+RAM, go for intel q9550 with DDR3 support motherboard.