Phenom X6 or FX-6100 from Phenom X2

Hi Guys,
I'm in the market for a new processor. I currently have an AMD Phenom II X2 550BE unlocked to a Quad core and overclocked to 3.6GHz. I get a bit of CPU bottlenecking with my 6850s in crossfire when running games that rely on the CPU a lot. Plus I think this processor is on it's way to the little CPU heaven in the sky.

I currently have an Asus Sabertooth 990FX Mobo, and so I have a nice choice of processors I can use. In the UK the AMD FX-6100 is £119.99 (cheapest) and the Phenom X6 1090T is around £140 - £160. I know the bulldozers have received bad press for being slower than the phenoms, but is it true they overclock very well? I wouldn't say I'm good at overclocking but I'm confident in my ability not to murder the chip, and so I'd be willing to OC to push the most out of it. Are either of these a decent upgrade from my current processor?

My Spec:
CPU - AMD Phenom X2 550BE (Unlocked to Quad @ 3.6GHz)
RAM - 4GB 1333MHz HyperX Blu
GPUs - 2x 6850s in CFX
PSU - OCZ 1010w (Can't remember exact name)

My main use will be for gaming, but it would be nice for the PC to be snappier in general. Also, I heard of rumours about a Phenom X8, do these hold any truth and do you think it would be worth the wait?

Thanks,
Tristan

Your computer is like your bedroom when it is a mess it cant find anything hence the slower speed on the desktop. My advice clean up your computer's OS and get faster HDDs in RAID 0 or and SSD.

I would strongly reccomend the PII X6 1100T - Its a strong CPU when overclocked and the Performance per clock is higher than that of the FX-8150 in games.

Overclocking the 1100T is a simple procedure, but will require aftermarket cooling as you may already know. 4.2ghz is not uncommon for these chips and that should drop the bottleneck significantly.

Avoid the FX Series for gaming - I simply cannot reccomend any of them over the tried and tested Phenoms.

Just to make you aware, the 1100T will not eliminate the bottleneck entirely - Skyrim for example, whilst intensive on 2 cores (to the point of 100% load) will not use much on the other 4 cores (if any) bringing it down performance per thread/core. The Phenoms are still behind on this so you will be riding on the Clock speed here.

The Phenom X8s are rumoured to be cut down FX Processors (As hard as that is to beleive...) Avoid these like the plague if this is true.

@ Headspin_69

Seriously bro - Reinstalling windows? New HDD?

This is the level of advise people get at Currys/PC World/Best Buy

Overclocking negates the need for a turbo core anyway

The 1100T will be ample for your needs - Clock it to 4.2ghz (or higher if possible) and you'll be on track for a perfectly balanced system.

6 Cores may not improve Gaming performance right now no, but running a 3.6ghz B55 Quad is going to slow things down in comparison to a Thuban at 4.2ghz +

My reccomendation stands.

tjcoops: I'm lucky enough ( 60 yrs. old) to own 3 computers - 2 with i2500k CPUs and 1 with an 1100T. The Intel rigs are faster but the AMD 1100T is no slouch. I'm using an Asrock 970 Extreme 4 mb with the 1100T and a solid over clock of 3800. Your mb is better so an OC of 4000 should be no problem (4200 might be iffy). I am running 2 MSI Cyclone 460 GTX - 768s in SLI. The 1100T runs like a dream. The I2500k will beat it in benchmarks, but honestly, in game play, you hardly know the difference. Go with the 1100T.

4.2ghz is very possible on these chips as far as I can see, but the X6's vary massivley - some will do 4.2 on 1.425v and be perfectly stable and some will do 4.1 on 1.525v and then crash.

Good chips though, one of AMDs gems of the last 2 years.

An X6 would work great for you.

Since when is a B55 X4 a 1055t?

And since when is a 1055t a 1100T?

I Suggest you read the thread before replying.

@ 4.2ghz the bottleneck will be there but it will be minimal - and the Phenom II 1100T is the strongest chip you can buy for the 990FX Platform as far as gaming goes I beleive (unless you want to fork out £220 on an FX 8150 overclock it to 4.8ghz and still have a chip slower than the i5 2500k) and will provide a huge increase on top of his unlocked B55 @3.6 in terms of performance.

Thanks very much for the replies. It looks like the 1100T with an overclock is the way to go. I'll keep my options open for the time being as there may be deals on certain processors around this time of year. So if an FX-8150 can barely perform on par with the 1100T I guess the FX-6100 is a waste of time? I have to ask as pretty much all the reviews I've seen on BDs focus completely on the 8150.

It being OCED its on par with a 1055t if not faster. 1055t and 1100t have very little difference WHEN oced, they both get the same max oc ALMOST.

I have done more research on this topic than you have. Im stuck in a rut because I cant buy a faster cpu. Several old benchmarks showing what is needed to pull the 5850CF and 6850CF. Its more than anything AMD has to offer.

Also your suggesting a novice OC to 4.8GHZ? Get real.

Damn. I feel tricked by AMD and Asus almost. Why sell a motherboard with the capability of Quad Crossfire for AMD CPUs when NO AMD CPUs could even possibly come close to feeding those graphics cards.

I highly doubt my parents would let me return the motherboard as I've changed my thoughts on what's been causing the bottleneck so many times they don't believe me.

I'm sure AMD will react to the bad reception of the Bulldozers with a new chip but what about people like me who need a processor to power our needs. I can't wait months for performance I should already be able to buy.

Thanks for your reply

How come I see people running 6970 Crossfire rigs with the AMD 1100T, if it will still bottleneck dual 6850s then it must be terrible on dual 6970s?

If I could I'd exchange my motherboard for an 1155 mobo and get a 2500K, that will not happen though

I will try what you said however

I guess you're right, it's a waiting game.

Sorry
I get 65-70FPS on BF3 Multiplayer (High, not Ultra)
Crysis 2 I get a smooth frame rate until I turn with the mouse
Skyrim I get around 35FPS around towns and up to about 50 in open areas
Test Drive Unlimited 2 I get 30 - 35 FPS
Rage runs smoothly, but doesn't seem to improve with crossfire
Crysis Warhead runs a couple frames a second quicker, but crossfire introduces 1-2 second freezes when turning with the mouse (similar to crysis 2)
I run 1920x1080

Runs a lot smoother without crossfire. Will try to overclock some more taking into account what Wisecracker said and report back tonight or tomorrow

look, you have been given a lot of bad advice in this thread, not all, but a lot. I suggest you start a new thread and hopefully wou will get some replies that will help. First of all, Skyrim is cpu bound, 35fps or lower is normal around towns, its a very cpu bound game, only thing to increase fps in this is to get an intel SB cpu and overclock it. As for things not being smooth when you move the mouse it could be a few things:
1. RAM, get more, you want 8gb.
2. you have some crossfire issues that may/may not be able to be resolved. You neeed to make sure you have your cardsin 16x/16x or 8x/8x slots. If you put the cards in 4x slots or any mixed speed slots you will get more stuttering. Check this with GPUZ.
3. http://www.overclock.net/t/796040/ [...] tutter-fix < do that, it should help some stuttering.
4. Make sure you have latest game patch installed, AMD drivers installed and the latest Application profiles downloaded & installed. > http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downl [...] files.aspx
5. Use Driversweeper in safe mode to remove all AMD drivers and reinstall only the latest ones + profiles
6. Enable/disable vsync - play around with it, use whatever is smoother.

The advice about getting 6 core CPU's, its highly unlikely to help your problems, and the chances of getting these to 4ghz+ is lower than getting a quad core cpu to that speed. A 6 core cpu at 4ghz will generate more heat than an air cooled solution can cope with. Your problems seem to be mostly crossfire/software related anyway.

If you want good advice, here is a list of people you can trust with good answers in no particular order: rolli59, malmental, Haserath, amuffin, k1114, Supernova1138, jsc, obsidian86, davcon, JackNaylorPE, HEXiT, dirtyferret, rubix_1011, nforce4max < get some answers from these guys and you will get your problem solved, not saying there arent some other experts in this forum but these guys give pretty consistent good answers.

Wow your ram usage is super high I guess 8GB's is needed.
After seeing the CPU usage I am starting to agree with everyone else but something isn't right there.
Put in another hour or two and try to gain some more clock speed out of the cpu.
Squeeze out another 200 mhz and see if you CPU usage drops to 90%.
If it does clearly there is a bottleneck. Try disabling uneeded processes but seeing as how this is a fresh installation i'm really skeptical.

Also I noticed 3 GPU's this looks like a problem.
Hybrid xfire is engaged ? that makes no sense but something is wrong with that software or in your bios

Maybe the three seperate temps are different sensors on the cards? Maybe one for each fan (2 on each) and one on the GPU? Wild guess, have no idea
Just ordered another 4GB RAM, exact same as my current RAM.

mine has 77 processes and its just normal stuff like web browser and general aps I like open like skype and steam.

and 4 gigs of ramp is plenty unless I have a game running and I alt tab.

The 1100T will free up ~20% of your cpu usage in single player, should ammount to not running 100% on multiplayer.

http://www.techspot.com/review/458 [...] page7.html

Those are single player usages. obviously MP cranks the PII x4 up at least 30% since your pegging 100%. free clocks gives your cpu more time to communicate to the GPU instead of robbing it.

Is Caspian Border Multiplayer? If so you may run into a few issues there, and you probably arent running it on high enough settings to utilize your Xfired GPUs.

Its an unlocked Dual Core - Its running as a Quad, but it doesnt mean AMD didnt see it and say "Well, this is a naff Quad core - chuck it in the Dual Pile" - you tend to sacrifice the higher overclocks to unlock them to Quads.

You say it was working before? no changes? No windows updates? No driver updates? No BF3 Updates?

Have you checked all the processes for CPU time?

Go back into the BIOS and reset to Default

Boot the system and then go back in and setup your unlock + overclock again.

Also incase you missed something, do a system restore from the night it was working smoothly.

Don't listen to these people. The FX 6100 is the better buy as there will be a patch for it as soon as January that will increase perf on ALL FX chips. Also, when using all cores, the FX does beat everything except the 980\990X. Look around at benchmarks.

According to System Restore, an update was installed for Microsoft C++ Redistributable. Thought I had turned off automatic updates, but I restored to the date and there seems to be a slight performance increase. From a maximum of about 40FPS to 60FPS on BF3, performance still seems a bit off as I'd expect more than 60FPS (On High, No Vsync) with 2x 6850s, also the CPU Usage still reaches the mid 90s which is worrying, even after deadjon's advice.

What the?

Trolling?

In gaming the FX-6100 doesnt stand up to s**t - its a triplecore with HyperThreading for all intents and purposes.

The benches are on alot of highly threaded apps - find a game that uses 8 threads, and we might have a winn...oh wait - that means the i7 can use all its threads too! gg.

The update is rumoured to increase performance only by a small amount - there are TONS of benches for games where the 1100T trounces all of the FX chips, including the 8150.