How far is the Performance Penalty of Running Phenom CPUs in AM2 mobo??

[3dfxManiacz]

I'm wondering whether purchasing a Phenom 9600 Black Edition will improve much from my current system configurations. How far will the drawbacks made by AM2 mobo if being compared with K10's favourite AM2+ ?

Are there any head to head reviews regarding backward compatibility performance of K10 in AM2 vs AM2+?

[JumpingJack]

I was intending on finding that out, but my AM2 MB maker will not supply a BIOS to support (ever).

[Aussie FX]

Keep your 5000BE.

There isn't the performance gain yet.

I was running my Phenom in a Crosshair and the 6400 that was in it previously was faster.
In reality atm a fast dualcore is better than a quad due to the lack of multi threaded software.
Also I'm not sure if your mobo will support Phenom. If it does the 0904 bios Asus used was a POS.

[madfaze]

Keep your 5000BE.

There isn't the performance gain yet.

I was running my Phenom in a Crosshair and the 6400 that was in it previously was faster.
In reality atm a fast dualcore is better than a quad due to the lack of multi threaded software.
Also I'm not sure if your mobo will support Phenom. If it does the 0904 bios Asus used was a POS.


you mean that those four cores doesnt maximize at all?like in games, etc..:confused:

[Aussie FX]

you mean that those four cores doesnt maximize at all?like in games, etc..:confused:

Not unless they are multi threaded.
The only 2 I know that are, is microsoft flight simulator x and crysis.
There may be more but I'm not aware of them.

If you're a gamer keep your fast X2 for now.:up:

[jnrjim67]

I had a Phenom with my Crosshair overclocked to 11.5 x 226 2.6Ghz with beta bios 0905, I found that TLB errata bug was enabled by default and to disable it I had to use CrystalCpu to disabe it as described in a sticky by justapost, but the boost was nice only prob was you had to enable it everytime you start the OS, I also found that my Sli setup was broke with the Phenom as soon as I put back my 6400+ Sli came back too life with the same bios so there is still issues and until ASUS fix them or ever fix them I have shelved the CPU I will more than likely buy the new Nvidia based 780a chipset so I can still use my cards in Sli and then install the Phenom back, but in all honesty for youself I would wait.

[[XC] Oj101]

Crysis is multithreaded and can make use of four cores? Well only if you consider core0 and core1 sitting at ~ 100% while core2 and core3 are cruising at ~ 15% usage :stick:

[Ugly n Grey]

I know the whole concept of backward compatibility with AM2 sounds really really sweet. But the fact is, I don' think it'll be a really good solution in terms of tweaking and testing for a lot of the enthusiast crowd. Will probably be fine for lots of the stock users after a couple revisions of BIOS. But for tweak freaks, I'd just stick with the board I have and look seriously at ALL the options if I had to buy a new MB.

I did order an AM2+ board "just to see" so I will have a platform for testing all of the variants of AM2 / AM2+ that I choose to.

The above is opinion only and is just the path I chose after reviewing the struggles and victories :)

[AMDDeathstar]

Short answer
Probably best to keep the 5000BE

Long answer

Phenoms CPU performance is the same in AM2 as in AM2+ boards, anything that is multi threaded will take advantage of four cores. Lost Planet, 3DMark06, Boinc, CineBench or what have you.

Yes the M2A-VM does support Phenoms with 1603 bios **(only use this bios if you are upgrading to Phenoms, Athlon users stick with 801 or 901)**

I have a Phenom 9500 running Boinc on all four cores in a M2A-VM HDMI board .

The Phenoms get better graphics performance with AM2+ boards because increased Hypertransport speed and PCI-E 2.0 supported cards.

My main rig(w/ pair 3850's) went from
Athlon 4200 X2/M2R32-MVP to
Phenom 9500/M2R32-MVP to
Phenom 9500/M3A32-MVP .

The CPU perfomance was the same from board to board all gains came from multi threading

The graphics performance got a major boost switching to AM2+ board

I still have to try the 4200 in AM2+ board to see what lower HT does to graphics performance

Basically if the important stuff your running is single threaded use a high clock dual core.

[metro.cl]

Short answer
Probably best to keep the 5000BE

Long answer

Phenoms CPU performance is the same in AM2 as in AM2+ boards, anything that is multi threaded will take advantage of four cores. Lost Planet, 3DMark06, Boinc, CineBench or what have you.

Yes the M2A-VM does support Phenoms with 1603 bios **(only use this bios if you are upgrading to Phenoms, Athlon users stick with 801 or 901)**

I have a Phenom 9500 running Boinc on all four cores in a M2A-VM HDMI board .

The Phenoms get better graphics performance with AM2+ boards because increased Hypertransport speed and PCI-E 2.0 supported cards.

My main rig(w/ pair 3850's) went from
Athlon 4200 X2/M2R32-MVP to
Phenom 9500/M2R32-MVP to
Phenom 9500/M3A32-MVP .

The CPU perfomance was the same from board to board all gains came from multi threading

The graphics performance got a major boost switching to AM2+ board

I still have to try the 4200 in AM2+ board to see what lower HT does to graphics performance

Basically if the important stuff your running is single threaded use a high clock dual core.

That shouldnt really help on the CPU side, HT1 gives plenty of room even for Phenom CPUs. HT3 is a sever feature of K10.

I really want to know what is the TDP or powerconsumption of AM2 boards compared to AM2+ boards.

[AMDDeathstar]

That shouldnt really help on the CPU side, HT1 gives plenty of room even for Phenom CPUs. HT3 is a sever feature of K10.

Northbridge to processor is a Hypertransport Link
K8 and AM2 boards are HT2.0 1000 one way

K10 and AM2+ are HT 3.0 and speed depends on chip
9500 and 9600 are 1800
9700 are 2000
AM2+ boards max at 2600

PCI-E 2.0 with HT3.0 allows more bandwidth for graphics on AM2+ boards

The graphics performance didn't change between the 4200 and 9500 because the link from northbridge to CPU was maxed at 1000 on AM2 board.


I really want to know what is the TDP or powerconsumption of AM2 boards compared to AM2+ boards.

What kind of test are you looking for?

Do mean the 9500 tried in the MVP boards with all 4 core loaded and pair of OC'ed Crossfire video cards seeing how fast the electric meter spins type test. MVP boards aren't for the environmentally conscious (250-300W range off the wall plug)

What would be fair testing method?

[KTE]

Keep your 5000 BE unless you need 4 lower speed cores. ;)


What kind of test are you looking for?

Do mean the 9500 tried in the MVP boards with all 4 core loaded and pair of OC'ed Crossfire video cards seeing how fast the electric meter spins type test. MVP boards aren't for the environmentally conscious (250-300W range off the wall plug)Keep everything constant, 1 GPU, but change the boards and measure the idle/load power draw (AC). Specify all components and settings incl. the PSU.

[Iketh]

here's another bench for u...

phenom 9500 @ 234 ref on m2n-e scored ~1805mb/s winrar at my highest stable and memory tweaked

phenom 9500 @ 200 ref on dfi 790fx scored ~1850mb/s at all default settings! 234 ref gave 2050+ using unganged, or 1950-1975 ganged...

this benchmark is very memory sensitive, so since the m2n-e max vdimm was 1.95v, not much memory performance was achievable, and the unganged mode on 790fx chipset gives huge benefit for heavy multitasking

got a sweet pair of g.skill sticks in a UPS truck heading my way, i'll reach 2100+ stable at this same 234 ref

[3dfxManiacz]

So guys the lack of HT3.0 doesnt actually affect phenom's actual performance? i dun get it, does that mean Hyper Transport scaling isnt that beneficial for home users?

Thanks for the suggestions though, i've read many reviews that quad core cpus aren't fully utilised yet, and most of apps nowadays still love dual cores and Mhz... so i dun think i will upgrade until B3 rev. comes out and yields improved (at least the BE can hit 3Ghz without much hassle that is)


Athlon users stick with 801 or 901
Ouch, mine is already using the latest 1604beta , i believe it isnt reversable anymore. Is the 901 faster than my current one?

[3dfxManiacz]

phenom 9500 @ 200 ref on dfi 790fx scored ~1850mb/s at all default settings! 234 ref gave 2050+ using unganged, or 1950-1975 ganged...

Is this the effect of having faster Hyper Transport link?

[AMDDeathstar]

@KTE

Can do ,but I won't be able to do it until mid-week

@3dfxManiacz

Here check this article out Tech Report 790FX Chipset (http://techreport.com/articles.x/13628/1)

The block diagram in the middle of first page helps

There was problems with Athlons using 1601 and 1603 they might have fixed with 1604
1501 for was a total POS for Phenoms and 1601 wasn't much better

[3dfxManiacz]

Thanks for the linkage,. :up:

Asus doesnt allow me to downgrade BIOS from 1603 to below, but issit possible to do it under awdflash instead of Windows? anybody tried this? i;m desperate to get 3.3ghz stable.. which is better 801 or 901 for my athlon?

[Iketh]

Is this the effect of having faster Hyper Transport link?

lol no.... stop looking at hypertransport as the reason to upgrade

hypertransport 3.0 is far from a bottleneck... i can run 1.0ghz on the dfi and get same results... but playing a game while running something like f@h and a couple small apps will show a difference, in that the system remains smooth with no fps penalty... i could not maintain smooth with the m2n-e, but memory bandwidth and --->unganged<--- has a lot to do with this