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CPU Phenom II X3 A even better buy?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by teamtd11, 23 Feb 2009.

  1. teamtd11

    teamtd11 *Custom User Title*

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  2. djDEATH

    djDEATH Habari gani?

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    i think that has to be too good to be true, especially as the ACC is turned on to Auto on most motherboards anyway.

    If it does work, its highly unlikely to work on every PII X3 out there, most likely those that were made out of X4's to meet demand might just be perfectly functioning chips with one disabled, and the rest are X4's with a problem with one of the cores.
     
  3. pimonserry

    pimonserry sounds like a party.

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    From the guide on there, that looks way to simple to realistically work.

    I vote hoax/plain lies.
     
  4. Diosjenin

    Diosjenin Thinker, Tweaker, Et Cetera

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    Apparently it only works on certain Biostar boards. So it's more likely a bug in some BIOS than an actual, intentional capability of the chips themselves.

    Besides, given that X3s are X4s that were tested, found to have a core that malfunctioned, and had the bad core disabled rather than throwing the whole chip out, it's a good bet that even if you can unlock the core, it's not a good idea to do so.


    - Diosjenin -
     
  5. kassenz

    kassenz Obsessed with overclocking

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    Read my post on the AMD 720, I just bought one. Even though I couldn't get it to unlock the fourth core with an ASUS M3N-HT, its works well with all my games, even Crysis Warhead, maxed out at 1600x1200 full very high settings using a PNY 9800GTX @725mhz stock OC. My 3dMark scores went from 7900 to 16000. Plays most games at at or over 50fps, and loads fast. Worth the $144us/113 euro to me!
     
  6. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    It is true, although, it seems to only work on certain motherboard
    Both Biostar and Gigabytes have worked
    However, as some have said, you may get one with a 4th core which is fine, you may noy
    One guy has 100% OC on all 4 cores, so obviously his 4th core is fine, another guy couldnt get his stable at 100mhz......
     
  7. kassenz

    kassenz Obsessed with overclocking

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    The asus M3N-ht does not have the ACC option. I was planning on getting the Crosshair, but this was $75 less and did SLI too. I wish This had the same BIOS as the Crosshair. This is set up for media/HDMI and has a few built in OC'ing options. My previous board was a 939 DFI LanParty NF4, which had a nightmare-ish amount of adjustments. It too me a few years of tuning before I got it from 2.6 to 2.8ghz

    I've found, even with one core missing, its not any less fast. Only when in Cinebench/burning DVD's/benchmarks - the 720 runs equally as fast in-game, according to 3dMark Orb.
     
  8. pimonserry

    pimonserry sounds like a party.

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    To be honest I'd say 3 cores was where it's at right now, as having 1 extra core helps with core-optimised programs, but the higher clock speeds with 3 cores (compared to 4) gives better game performance, similar to that with dual-cores.

    Not to mention it's excellent value. If I was building a PC right now I'd go for the Phenom II X3.
     
  9. kassenz

    kassenz Obsessed with overclocking

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    Three cores always seemed gimpy to me.


    Would you date a girl with 3 eyes, or arms, or 3 breasts? well....wait. um.

    I'm thinking about returning it and upgrading to a AMD 940, just because i feel like I got something slightly retarded. Like its missing something, even tho its not really. It works really well, but maybe I'm just a CPU snob. I was holding out for the quad core Deneb stuff to come out for over a year, then I bought the economy version instead. When I check the Window task manager, it looks like it uses all three cores. I wonder if the fourth would have any real advantage for gaming? I read there wasn't alot of programs or games written multi-threaded, and most programs & games don't use the third or fourth core.

    Since I bought the 720 X3 its works fine, but do you think I should return it and get the AMD 940 instead? I have the opportunity to get the intel i7 too for couple hundred more bucks.Should I keep the X3 720?

    X3 720
    +Lower heat
    +Lower power consumption.
    +equal horsepower and faster overclocks on air
    + was at least $80us cheaper than AMD 940
    -"three-legged" weirdness
    - 5 to 10% slower then quad in video compression.
    - resale value will be next to nothing
     

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