# Replace 6000 w X2 550 Black Edition?



## LaidLawJones (Jul 19, 2009)

Hello all,

I am trying to tweak the last amount of performance out of my system. Unfortunately I have a motherboard with a 750FX North but the 600 South. Full specs are listed under my avatar. From other forums I gather that having an increase in frequency is more important than increasing the number of cores. As I let the computer work through the night for rendering and downloading, 4 cores are not a big concern.

The 550 is already rated at 3.1 which is only .1 off of the fastest I can get my 6000 up to. Many people have reported the 550 at 3.8 stable. I can also get the 550 at a cheap price and free shipping.

I do loose 1MB of Lvl 1 cache, but pick up 6MB of Lvl 3.  

If I can achieve 3.8, it will bring my memory to 475 from 402. I seem to recall that I have had it that high before and it was stable. I think it started to crash around 483.

Base Question. Do you think I would see an improvement of say 10-15% with this swap?

Thank you for the help.


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## MN12BIRD (Jul 19, 2009)

I think stock for stock the 45nm K10 Phenom II architecture is going to mop the floor with the old K9!  I mean the 7750 at 2.7 beat the 6000+ at 3.1 GHZ in all the tests I've seen and the Phenom II has WAY more overheard for overclocking!   It wouldn't surprise me if you see over %15 improvement with just a little OC!


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## Gjohnst4 (Jul 19, 2009)

I just recently went from a 5600+ overclocked at 3.2 to a 720 Phenom II at 3.5 (modest, I could push it further) and Yes, you will easily see 15%+ improvements.


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## p_o_s_pc (Jul 19, 2009)

at stock i'm sure you would see an improvement go for it.


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## Gjohnst4 (Jul 19, 2009)

Jones, I see in your specs that you are using three 3870's in crossfire, I use the same configuration. What are you FPS like in crysis if you play it? I get odd results that fluctuate ALOT. What other titles have you seen big improvements on? I just recently added the third card.


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## Darknova (Jul 19, 2009)

LaidLawJones said:


> I do loose 1MB of Lvl 1 cache, but pick up 6MB of Lvl 3.
> 
> If I can achieve 3.8, it will bring my memory to 475 from 402. I seem to recall that I have had it that high before and it was stable. I think it started to crash around 483.
> 
> ...



No you don't, you lose a total of 1MB of L2 cache, as the Phenom IIs use 512KB per core, you only have 64KB of L1 cache but you then gain a big L3 cache store which 
does make a difference.

Also, if you think of it this way The Phenom II is roughly the same as the Core 2, and so is a lot faster than an AM2 X2 chip. You'd see, maybe 5% in gaming, but benchmarks, video editing, encoding, and graphics design will increase by a substantial amount.



MN12BIRD said:


> I think stock for stock the 45nm K10 Phenom II architecture is going to mop the floor with the old K9!  I mean the 7750 at 2.7 beat the 6000+ at 3.1 GHZ in all the tests I've seen and the Phenom II has WAY more overheard for overclocking!   It wouldn't surprise me if you see over %15 improvement with just a little OC!



The K9 was never released, the AM2 chips are just a tweaked K8 architecture, the K9 was an entirely new architecture that AMD canceled.

Still, with an OC for 3.4-3.6Ghz you will see a good performance increase


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## LaidLawJones (Jul 19, 2009)

Hi,

Darknova, I was thinking Lvl 2 but entered Lvl 1,. That'll teach  me to write before I've had my 5th cup of coffee.

Gjohnst4, I also just added the third card. I want to try and play Crysis so no benchmarks yet. I can not get 3D06 to work with the three cards so no luck there. I think the picture named 3DV is with two cards but hard modded to 950/1350. I had to give this up as the heat was incredible from the GDDR4. The other vantage picture is current under three cards. So ~1000 points more GPU with three cards. My 3rd pcie is at 4x(16x16x4) so may be some hurt there.

Thanks for all of the help. I will try the upgrade and see how it goes. It will take about a week as I have to rip the entire build apart and only have weekends to work on it.

P.S. I think FurMark went from about 6500 to 8700 on default setting.


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## p_o_s_pc (Jul 19, 2009)

you know what in Vantage ATI got there ass handed to them alot in the 8800 vs 3870
My 8800GT scores alittle over 6k with CPU @3.1ghz and phyx off. with phyx on over 8k with CPU @3.25


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## DreamSeller (Jul 19, 2009)

p_o_s_pc said:


> you know what in Vantage ATI got there ass handed to them alot in the 8800 vs 3870
> My 8800GT scores alittle over 6k with CPU @3.1ghz and phyx off. with phyx on over *8k *with CPU @3.25



that sounds so impossible  
my brothers e5200 (3.8) + 4850 clocked can hardly give P8007


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## MilkyWay (Jul 19, 2009)

get one it will clock much better and has more cache eg L3 runs cooler too and consumes less power

they didnt want to call K9 that because it sounds like the word for a dog i know stupid but true


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## subhendu (Jul 19, 2009)

don't expect any big changes in games....you ll get some improvements in encoding ,winrar,mp3 conversion etc...


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## Darren (Jul 19, 2009)

Clock for clock the Phenom II 550 BE will give you around a 5-20 FPS increase in games, for encoding, compression, rendering the increase will be bigger. If you're coming from a Athlon X2 6400+ I'd go with either the Phenom II X3 720 BE or wait a month for the Athlon II X4s which are rumoured to be sub $100.


I'm going to post some benchmarks:

Gaming:


















encoding:


















full review:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3572&p=1


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## p_o_s_pc (Jul 19, 2009)

DreamSeller said:


> that sounds so impossible
> my brothers e5200 (3.8) + 4850 clocked can hardly give P8007



take a look at this then. Its not impossible 
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=1341305&postcount=2458


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## LaidLawJones (Jul 20, 2009)

As the 550 seems to beat the 6400 at every turn, and the 6400 is one step above mine, then I will be doing the upgrade without question. My only concern is can I reach 3.8 with the 750FX/600 combo?

Thanx again for the help.


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## MilkyWay (Jul 20, 2009)

remember thats all the cpu's at stock, so the x3 isnt oc'd its at 2.6ghz thats possibly why it slightly getting beat

so the x2 550 is far better in comparison to what you have


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## p_o_s_pc (Jul 20, 2009)

LaidLawJones said:


> As the 550 seems to beat the 6400 at every turn, and the 6400 is one step above mine, then I will be doing the upgrade without question. My only concern is can I reach 3.8 with the 750FX/600 combo?
> 
> Thanx again for the help.



it could be possible but i would say it greatly depends on the chip.


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