Anyone own a AMD Phenom Processor?

[Meredith]

I am thinking of upgrading my single core AMD 3500+ Socket 939 processor for something with a little bit more "Kick".

I am looking at maybe getting a AMD Quad core Penom processor, of course I will need a new motherboard and memory and probably a new video card as my old one is AGP and will need a brand New PCI-Express video card.


So anyone have simular experience?

 

[HellRaiser]

The latest benchmarks I've seen for the Phenoms don't compare well to the new Intel 45nm processors. I've been using AMD processors for a long time, but they've been behind the curve for a while now.

Until recently, I had a Athlon XP system running, but I think it's mobo went out. I'm currently doing the research for a new system.

 

[ialfan]

I currently am running an AMD Athlon X2 4000+ Dual Core processor overclocked from 2.1GHz to 2.81GHz.

Considering the Athlon X2's beat Intel's Core 2 Duo's to the market by almost a year AMD was still beating Intel in performance up to that point. But the C2D's do 12 clocks per cycle to the X2's 8. The previous generation Pentium 4 and Pentium D did 6 to X2's 8.

The current phenoms do a little better than the X2's but not enough to match Intel's new 45nm quad core processors so when I build a new computer for my apartment I am moving out to next month I'm getting a Q9300 Intel C2Q processor. It'll be my first non-AMD processor ever.

Hopefully the 45nm Phenoms rumored to be released in Q3 or Q4 of the year on an upgraded phenom K10.5 architecture will even things up between Intel and AMD.

 

[HellRaiser]

Wow ialfan, now I know the problem behind AMD's current problems with their processors. I hadn't got around to finding an in-depth article on architectures. You reminded me about the first generation of dual cores. My friend is running an X2 (Opteron) from when it was competing against the Pentium D.

I'm probably going to have to go with a Intel 45nm processor (E8400) if I build in the next couple months. Though I may decide to try to tough it out by getting an EEE PC (if the Atoms come out quickly enough) and then holding out until Intel's next gen processor comes out. Apparently the next gen (Nehalem) is going to have an entirely new architecture that's going to be as big as the jump from Pentium Classic to Pentium Pro, or something like that. I'll have to keep reading to see if it's worth waiting for.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Yeah, at this point it's not really suggested to go with AMD for a top end processor. I went with a shiny new Q4450 myself which, honestly, was not a price/performance purchase. With the quad core, vista actually runs faster than xp right now, although I'm still sticking with xp. Using cpu monitors, it looks like vista x64 does a way better job of spreading out tasks among the cores. If only the drivers were in a better state.

 

[ialfan]

Yeah, at this point it's not really suggested to go with AMD for a top end processor. I went with a shiny new Q4450 myself which, honestly, was not a price/performance purchase. With the quad core, vista actually runs faster than xp right now, although I'm still sticking with xp. Using cpu monitors, it looks like vista x64 does a way better job of spreading out tasks among the cores. If only the drivers were in a better state.

I've never had problems with drivers on Vista. Not with my current Athlon X2 4000+, 2GB DDR2 800 Ram, Geforce 8600GTS 256MB graphics card and not with my 6 year old Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB DDR Ram, Geforce 6200 128MB Graphics card. The only thing close to an issue I had is my webcam driver not being fully 64-bit compatible but even it works more or less. The four other people I personally know who run/have ran Vista never had driver problems either.

I really don't know what problems you guys are having with drivers. Vista has more bundled drivers than any operating system released prior. There is like 1.2GB of bundled drivers on the install dvd. The drivers are rock stable and have been since the start. If you guys are having driver problems then either your hardware probably isn't up to the task of running Vista.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

My biggest problem with drivers right now is with my audigy 2 card. The audigy drive doesn't work, and the sound crackles. Most of the problems are with older divices, like a sound recorder that has proprietary software that hasn't been updated for vista and doesn't want to work in legacy mode.

Considering the griping about vista, I'm actually surprised at how well it works. For general everyday use Vista is faster for me in everything outside of network file transfers. Considering most of the stuff I'm having problems with wouldn't even work on a mac or don't have mac drivers, I think the problems are a little over blown. (Which worked out well for me since I was able to get vista for free from someone who refused to use it.)