Phenom II x3 with ddr3 or phenom x4 with ddr2

[newtothis_81]

Which way should I go? The x3 ddr3 is faster and with an am3 mptherboard I will have better upgrade options. The 940 is faster now though. How much difference will I see between three and four cores. THanks

 

[newtothis_81]

Sorry both of those cpus are PHenom II

 

[suddenstop]

I had the same choice and went with the x3 / ddr3. With the black edition you can get some nice overclocking, and the 3 cores are a lot of cpu to keep loaded. in certain things like video transcoding etc - 4 cores can be 25% better. In almost everything else the chip with the higher clock will seem faster. Three cores seems to be enough to keep gaming smooth even with windows doing stuff behind the scenes. The phenom ii is a lot of chip for the money. DDR3 getting some good clock speeds for almost same as ddr2....

 

[nocteratus]

with ddr3 you'll be able to change CPU and get a x4 in the future... you'll have more head room for upgrability.

 

[Outlander_04]

with ddr3 you'll be able to change CPU and get a x4 in the future... you'll have more head room for upgrability.

AM3 chips work in AM2+ motherboards too so thats not an advantage .


I understand the desire for latest and greatest but while DDR3 might have a higher clock rate but it has terrible latencies and doesnt make a system perform better overall by more than 1 or 2 % . If you want performance at great value then the AM2+ platform is a better choice

 

[quinntheskamo]

you can unlock the 4 core in the X3
Or you could wait till the Phenom II X4 955 is released and its am3