Well, I guess Jim didn't approve of my attachment but that's ok. CPU-z v
1.50 says that its a Phenom 2 X3 720 BE but then you look further down
and the specification string shows Phenom 2 X4 20 Black Edition. Notice
that it has a "20" instead of "720" and that it says "X4". The screen
shot I wanted to show has Window's Task Monitor showing 4 cores running
and Core Temp also shows 4 cores. Either I'm dopped up or this
particular CPU got past QC without one of the cores being neutered.
Anybody want to see that Jpeg just PM me and I'll send it as I really
want to get some feedback on what's happening. Thanks!
Stan Zaske wrote:
The 720's finally showed up at the Egg last Thursday and the UPS man
delivered it a couple hours ago. Being my first Phenom I was somewhat
confused by the newly unlocked BIOS options on my Biostar 790GX mobo
and it kept spontaneously re-booting when I first fired it up. I
thought at first it was because I had all four DIMM slots filled but
it ran fine with my old CPU and then I looked at the VID and it was
set at 1.14v which is seriously low. I bumped it up to the next tic
and now its running fine and so far stable. I also fiddled with other
confusing settings so I'm not 100% that it was the low VID that was
the problem. Anywho, I wanted ask for any body's input about a curious
thing that I have been pondering for an hour over. I hope I'm not
violating list policy by sending an attachment and if I am then please
accept my apology. Take a look at this Jpeg screen capture and tell me
what you think of it. Thanks!
Stan Zaske wrote:
Check it out guys, I think this is the best bang for the buck to
upgrade my old 5400+ BE. :-)
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/phenom_ii_x3_720be/
*snip*
I think the reason AMD targeted the E8400 is due to the third core,
the Phenom II X3 720 BE running at 2.8GHz actually outperforms the
Core 2 Duo E8400 running at 3GHz for rendering; thus supporting AMD's
marketing strategy that three cores are better than two.
That strategy is absolutely true - if the software can support it. If
LAME and TMPGEnc had supported more threads, the Phenom II X3 720
would also have beaten the Core 2 Duo E8400 for them. Fortunately,
more multi-threaded codecs are becoming available, and I will soon
look for one for benchmarking purposes.
What the benchmarks don't show you is that with three cores, a system
will multi-task more smoothly. For example, using a Phenom II X3 720
for a small server should result in better web server and SQL server
performance, as the extra core could be take advantage of.
I think the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition is a great chip - and
it is especially good for people who like to tinker and overclock, as
with a cheap 780G based motherboard and DDR2 you can put together a
nice fast overclocked system for significantly less than it would
cost to put together a nicely overclocked E8400 system. Yes, for some
benchmarks the E8400 won - but for some others, it was the triple
core 720BE that shined.
