Legit Reviews

As you can see from my sys specs my processor is providing quite the bottle neck at the moment and I'm looking to trade up to a Phenom II. I can't afford an X4 so I was pretty set on the X3 720 but then along came the X2 550 BE with the same 6 MB cache, tons of OC headroom and (seemingly) no difference in gaming performance based on reviews I've read. I'm trying to play COD4 @1920x1080 with max or near max settings.

The X2 550's price point is so attractive and it's a stock 3.1Ghz vs the 720's 2.8GHz.

Can someone kick me a clue as to what's going to serve me best here?

Check out this review... Both processors are in the charts - http://www.legitreviews.com/article/981/1/

I guess I'm asking for help interpreting the results because I read the review before I posted and it seemed as though there was a somewhat negligible difference in gaming performance.

G!n&Ton1c wrote:I guess I'm asking for help interpreting the results because I read the review before I posted and it seemed as though there was a somewhat negligible difference in gaming performance.

Yeah, the CPU doesn't play a major role in gaming these days as the video card does.

What video card are you using? You really want to build a 'balanced' system these days. Our test system was using a GeForce GTX 295 for the game tests, which is a $500 enthusiast graphics card. If you purchase a sub $150 you will like be GPU limited in the games, so the CPU really won't matter that much. Sounds crazy I know, but it is true.



If you look at this chart it kinda proves the point...

Intel Core i7 975 Processor - $1024
AMD Phenom II X3 720 - $119

On our test system the performance difference between the two processors was less than 10%, but one processor costs nearly 10 times more.

Yeah, 3 cores just seems better but the price point on the 550 is so attractive.

I've got the GPU in my .sig
EVGA GTX 260, Using precision I've set its core at 740 and the mem at 1180.
VVV

What's the best price around on the Phenom II X2 550? I see Newegg has it for $102.99 shipped.

Yeah, $102. I went ahead and ordered the 550 from newegg last night. I'm pretty sure it will fit my needs just fine - until I'm ready to invest in a mobo that can handle ddr3.

G!n&Ton1c wrote:Yeah, $102. I went ahead and ordered the 550 from newegg last night. I'm pretty sure it will fit my needs just fine - until I'm ready to invest in a mobo that can handle ddr3.

Good call... I think you'll like it and as you saw from my article is has killer overclocking performance.

Try and unlock the two cores when you get your Phenom II X2. If it works, report back. $102 for a Phenom II X4 would be such a hot deal lol

Apoptosis wrote:

G!n&Ton1c wrote:Yeah, $102. I went ahead and ordered the 550 from newegg last night. I'm pretty sure it will fit my needs just fine - until I'm ready to invest in a mobo that can handle ddr3.

Good call... I think you'll like it and as you saw from my article is has killer overclocking performance.

Thanks for your help!

geokilla wrote:Try and unlock the two cores when you get your Phenom II X2. If it works, report back. $102 for a Phenom II X4 would be such a hot deal lol

Will do! I'm trying not to get my hopes up....but yeah, that would be pretty freakin' sweet!

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ov ... ocked.html

Some people managed to unlock the two extra cores and it's stable even after overclocking.

geokilla wrote:http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ov ... ocked.html

Some people managed to unlock the two extra cores and it's stable even after overclocking.

Sadly, I've just confirmed that my GA-MA78GPM-UD2H is a Revision 1, with SB700, which doesn't feature ACC so it looks like no extra cores for me. It would've been fun but I think the X2 will work just fine for my needs.

With no extra cores I would go with the 720.
The 550 is intriguing for users that can unlock since some are getting better than 720 Overclocks and 4 cores.