Phenom II X3 720 vs Phenom II X4 920

Phenom II X3 720 vs Phenom II X4 920

  • Phenom II X3 720 (best bang for the buck? AM3 ready?)

    Votes: 26 78.8%
  • Phenom II X4 920 (more future proof ?)

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • forget them both and get the Phenom II X4 940

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • forget them both.......

    Votes: 3 9.1%

  • Total voters
    33

spathotan

Distinguished
Nov 16, 2007
2,390
0
19,780
X3 720 for overclocking, X4 920 if not.

Also, in this "day and age", I cannot recommend buying dual-cores anymore, unless you are on a budget sub $600 build. And even then the black edition phenom X4 9600 is $105. Eventhough they suck in benchmarks and overall, with a little overclocking (easy with BE) its good enough for anybody that isnt an enthusiast.
 

spathotan

Distinguished
Nov 16, 2007
2,390
0
19,780
The original Phenom X4 is garbage and should be avoided at all costs.


Which is why I said "eventhough they suck in benchmarks and overall" . Im well aware of this. But its still a solid chip to consider at only $105. 4 cores and BE for OCing, its well enough for any basic PC for moderate gaming that somebody else ill-informed would just buy a E8400 and not OC.
 

redwave3099

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2008
65
0
18,640
well I am going to overclock...guess the 940 would be the better choice in the quads because of the unlocked multiplier but was just trying to stay under 200...:(
 

Helloworld_98

Distinguished
Feb 9, 2009
3,371
0
20,790
yeah 3.8ghz pre-production.

C'mon 4.3ghz is around what the E84 gets to and you get the extra core so it'll own the E84 in quad optimized games.

And Yeah Dual cores are dead, until the Athlon II X2 or whatever their going to call it.

But then I guess in 18 months time we'll be like 'There's no point in getting a Quad-Core anymore, go out and get one of AMD's Seven core's'
 

average joe

Distinguished
Jan 24, 2009
342
0
18,790
I just moved from an e6300 to a q6600. I can tell the difference once in a while. But it hasn't made an unplayable game playable or anything. I'm thinking of getting a tricore just for fun and cuz its cheap. I don't think the move from dual core to quad core is as big a deal as a better graphics card would be. There were times in crysis with the dual core where things would stutter it didn't happen every day or anything. With the quad it hasn't stuttered once. It also a faster chip with a much bigger cache though.
 

kal20mx

Distinguished
Oct 18, 2008
151
0
18,680
i know the e8500 is good but cmon i totally changed the other system im buying... the X3 has an extra core and be overclocked high and has 6mb of cache? for 150? Thank God AMD finally came out with this budget cpu, cuz im not saying the e8500 sucks just that for the price the extra core and the oc pontential... cmon im going AMD again
 

yipsl

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2006
1,666
0
19,780
4.2 is not the norm. The norm seems to be 3.8ghz

Since when is 3.8 a problem? Yes, we know that Intel has higher IPC but the 720 is close enough to the 8500 in game benchmarks and comes out ahead where more cores are recognized.

Heck, I'm going to replace my 8750 with one. put another in my wife's PC and move the 8750 to my 8 year old's PC. I agree with spathotan, I cannot recommend a dual core. I'd recommend one of the cheaper Intel quads over an Intel dual and I'd recommend a Phenom 8750 over an Athlon X2. That is, if the person wasn't considering a Phenom II 720.
 

LiteBulb

Distinguished
Apr 27, 2009
20
0
18,510
Now that the X4 955 is out, which would be better X3 720 BE or X4 955 BE?

Now I know the quad is obviously faster than the tri core, but is the 955 worth the extra $100? Will it future proof me better than the X3, like would the X3 be good enough to game with for the next 2-3 or more years? Or would the X4 be a better option. I'm leaning towards the quad, just b/c multi threaded programs are going to become more common in the coming years.

I will plan on OCing, just not right away. And I would mainly game, browse, watch movies.
 

loneninja

Distinguished


I personally find the X4 955 to be overpriced, I just got a 940 with motherboard in a combo from newegg for less than the cost of the 955, I found no use for DDR3.
 

clementl

Distinguished
Jun 1, 2009
3
0
18,510
But if you take the 955, you dont have to buy a new processor when ur upgrading to AM3.


Forget them both and go with a E8500. Best of both worlds. Big cache dual core > *

E8500 - 180
Gigabyte Mobo - 150
1066 DDR 2 - 50

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee88/BlackTTC6/475ghz.jpg

6MB L2 - VS - 1,5/2MB L2 and 6MB L3 (8MB total)