Phenom II processor?

[TMAN10112]

Recently I've been looking to upgrade my processor from a quad core AMD phenom 9500 to a AMD phenom 9850 black edition, but while looking for a good deal I saw someone mention that AMD will be releasing the Phenom 2 processor soon. Obviously not wanting to buy a new processor only to have a better one released soon after, I want to know anything that you might have heard about it. I mostly want to know what it might cost, how good it will be, and if I should wait until it comes out rather then buying a new processor now. so what do you guys think?

 

[TMAN10112]

Anyone.....?

 

[Aries_Split]

Don't get the black edition. Marginal increase from a fairly decent processor. If you MUST have an upgrade, wait until the phenom 2 is released and has decent bios.

 

[TMAN10112]

Don't get the black edition. Marginal increase from a fairly decent processor. If you MUST have an upgrade, wait until the phenom 2 is released and has decent bios.

Thanks, any idea how much it will cost?

 

[Aries_Split]

Not a clue sorry, but I'd check out tomshardware.com.

 

[Ago Iterum]

I have the Phenom. It's awesome!

Have no clue about the upgrade though, sorry.

 

[PaladinBlake]

As far as I know, the Phenom II's aren't out yet. Really, the jump to a 9850 won't be a gigantic increase in your performance, so I'd wait until the the Phenom II is released before you do anything. At the very least, it'd knock prices down on the current Phenoms.

Also, tomshardware blows. Check out Anandtech.com at the least.

 

[Chaos Marine]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

I have to second Intel. The Phenom II preview chips some of the benchmark sites are getting actually show worse performance than the i7. Granted this could be BIOS but still.

Either or, get a Q9 or Q9 Intel rather than a Q6 for a couple reasons. Firstly, newer and faster hardware for the same price. Secondly, the Q6 is becoming the last chip in the 65nm range that Intel will support, and production officially ends in January.

Getting a Q8 or Q9 is more future proof and yet doesn't require a stupid amount to be spent on new tech (the i7 chips themselves may be reasonable for what they are, but the i7 motherboards, and DDR3 ram, are definitely overpriced).

 

[not a zaar]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

Can you explain why a quad core would be better than a dual core? From what I've heard games don't even use more than one core at a time.

 

[jords]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

Can you explain why a quad core would be better than a dual core? From what I've heard games don't even use more than one core at a time.

Most new games use at least 2 cores, some use 4.(only if you have a quad core of course :Z) Also even for a single core only game it helps to have other cores to do any background work so one core can be completely dedicated for the game.

 

[not a zaar]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

Can you explain why a quad core would be better than a dual core? From what I've heard games don't even use more than one core at a time.

If quad cores are so cheap and easy to overclock to 3.0GHz (anything beyond that speed isn't very useful for modern and future gaming), there is no reason to get a dual core, especially considering it is the general trend of games (and all computing applications) to increase in their utilization of parallel programming as time goes on.

How can you say that beyond 3 GHz wont be useful to future gaming? How can an upgrading enthusiast be so short sighted about technology?

 

[Theo Samaritan]

Its not the clock its the chip. a 2.4Ghz Core 2 E6600 was a fair whack faster than a 3.6Ghz Pentium Extreme.

3Ghz is enough on any modern chip for any game out today to not be bottlenecked by it. By the time games start hitting that bottleneck on todays chips, another chip will have come along that makes better use of the 3Ghz, and the cycle continues.

 

[Chaos Marine]

Go Intel. At the moment, nothing AMD has anythnig that comes close to matching the current i7 chips or even the older ones. Getting a Q6600 which is still an excellent processor, is piss easy as it's dirt cheap.

Can you explain why a quad core would be better than a dual core? From what I've heard games don't even use more than one core at a time.

If quad cores are so cheap and easy to overclock to 3.0GHz (anything beyond that speed isn't very useful for modern and future gaming), there is no reason to get a dual core, especially considering it is the general trend of games (and all computing applications) to increase in their utilization of parallel programming as time goes on.

How can you say that beyond 3 GHz wont be useful to future gaming? How can an upgrading enthusiast be so short sighted about technology?

In addition to what was said above, you have to also realize games are GPU limited. We are a long ways away from flagship GPU killers like Crysis Warhead being limited by the CPU.

Haven't you wondered why Intel and AMD have not really broken the 3.0GHz barrier in mainstream chips and have moved on to adding more cores and cache? It's a matter of simple thermodynamics. Beyond 3.0GHz, you will have an extremely hard time producing, in sizable volume, viable and reliable processors at a competitive price point. Instead, it's better to go with more cores and cache and hope programmers and developers catch up. So far, it's the game developers who have been taking their sweet time; just about all other resource intensive applications have some form of scalable multi core extensibility.

That's only half true. The gaming industry is the one business of computers that really drive companies like Intel, AMD, nVidia and ATi to push for faster and faster hardware. If it weren't for gamers most home and business computers would barely have passed the GHz mark. After all, most computer programs wouldn't really require much more than aPIII chip.