Phenom 940 or 955

Pete1burn said:
If I can get the i7 stuff used for a bit of savings, I might go i7. I've just been planning this AM3 build for so long. lol
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I am planning on a 955/MSI GD70 build. However, I looked into getting the MSI X58-pro and a used 920 from a guy on XS and if I were to do that It'd end up being like $75 more for the i7 setup which is pretty cheap $170 for a X58 board is a steal no matter how ugly but I think I'm going to go with the AM3 setup because I'm going to be getting a better looking, better featured motherboard in the GD70 and really once you overclock the CPU to like 3.6ghz be it Core 2 Quad, Phenom 1, Phenom 2 or i7 the real world performance difference that most users would see is negligible at best.

I'm a heavy gamer I pretty much use my PC as my media center for music/games/video and that's about it. I see no reason to spend the money on a i7 over a P2 but If I were heavy into say video rendering I would probably like the i7 cause it's a tad bit beefier.

All of that said a friend of mine just ordered a i7-965, eVGA X58, 2x 4870x2 setup and he wants me to overclock it. I'm going to be able to sit down and play with an i7 anyways so I don't feel I'm missing much by not putting one in my system especially since he's giving me an 965 to play with. :D
 
Ha, lucky you!

I settled on AM3. I just bought an M4A79-T and I'm working on a deal for 6GB of DDR3. I wish I didn't hate Vista so much. I'm gonna run it on XP and leave one stick of RAM out to wait for Windows 7.
 
6GB ? I understand you will leave 2GB out for now, but, are you thinking AM3 runs triple channel like i7 ?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I know you will anyway :) ) but, AM3 is still dual channel for now right ? If so, wouldn't 4GB or 8GB be more appropriate ?
 
cerwinvega said:
6GB ? I understand you will leave 2GB out for now, but, are you thinking AM3 runs triple channel like i7 ?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I know you will anyway :) ) but, AM3 is still dual channel for now right ? If so, wouldn't 4GB or 8GB be more appropriate ?
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Use 4gigs ,,DDR2 1066 for AM2Mobo's with AM3 Cpu ,,,

Use 4gigs ..DDR3 1600mhz for AM3 MOBO/CPU combo.

2gigs will work but 4gigs or more will keep things up to par..

Also AM3/AM2 955/940 PHII will benifit from running NB @2600mhz+ instead of stock ,, there are a lot of options to to tweak PHII .

Stock cooler isnt too bad up to 3.7/3.8ghz,, Run a Nice aftermarket Aircooler or Watercooling.

The cooler the better regarless of any CPU.

Note: Dual channel on AMD is fast ,,dont worry about Tri Channel ,, it is exclusive to Intel.
 
Well crap. I already committed to buying the 6GB kit.

Oh well, I'll run 4GB and try to sell one of the 2GB sticks.
 
You can still use the 2GB. Last I knew it will still run dual channel mode no problem.
 
Pete1burn said:
Well crap. I already committed to buying the 6GB kit.

Oh well, I'll run 4GB and try to sell one of the 2GB sticks.
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There's nothing wrong with getting a 6gb kit. If you're overclocking you can cherry pick which 2 sticks of ram oc best. DDR3 pricing is strange atm. Pick a given speed like say ddr3 1600, well there's 6gb its you can find for cheaper than some 4gb ones due to supply and demand. The first really big demand for DDR3 was after i7 hit and we got a rush of 6gb/3gb triple channel kits to the market. I've been browsing recently and I've noticed that 6gb kits are usually cheaper per dimm than 4gb Dual channel kits of the same speed stuff and sometimes the same exact ram.

Don't worry and enjoy your new build. :D
 
xBanzai89 said:
Will quad channel be exclusive to AMD?
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amd's next gen is rumored to be quad channel amd could go tri channel but why do something that intel has done already heh also trichannel on a desktop is not needed all the i7 is a desktop xeon as well you want to see the future of amd keep an eye on the server chips most likely desktop varrients of them are not that far off ( 6 and 12 core)
 
The value of triple channel over dual channel is not even proved and people are talking about quad channel =)
Dual channel over single channel was nothing close to double performance (I've read 8% at bottom, 20% max), the benefit from triple channel is less.
 
Malakai said:
The value of triple channel over dual channel is not even proved and people are talking about quad channel =)
Dual channel over single channel was nothing close to double performance (I've read 8% at bottom, 20% max), the benefit from triple channel is less.
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Depends on what you are doing. Games? Not really going to matter much. High bandwidth video editing with certain codecs? Huge difference.
 
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