March 2009 PC Configuration Guide | Phenom II X3 to X4

Thanks to the competition between Intel and AMD, prices of Core 2 Quad and Phenom II have come down significantly over the month. What's more, there's a fact that Phenom II X3 can turn into a X4 simply by buying X3 cpu with Biostar 790GX+SB750 chipset motherboard, then set the ACC (Advance Clock Calibration) to auto. And BINGO, you get an X4 cpu for the price of a X3. Quote from the guru3d, "Only with the 904xxxx-stepping; this tweak seems to work, not with 0849xxxx". So good luck with your search :)

Now let's continue with this month's guide:

• 2k pc can play games at 1440*900 or 1280*1024 or 1680*1050 resolution with medium to high settings.
• 3k pc can play games at 1680*1050 or 1920*1080 with medium to high settings
  

And here's the pc guide for 2k pc (Most items are based on C-zone pricelist as of 4/3/09):

• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5200+ (2.7GHz) - RM 210
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM DDR2 800MHz 2GB *2 - RM 160
• Motherboard: Albatron KM740G- RM 200
• Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA2 16MB Cache - RM 195
• GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD4830 512MB - RM 380
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM 75
• Monitor: Acer X203 with speaker (20" wide) - RM 380
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340 - RM 125
• PSU: Cooler Master Extreme Power 460W - RM 160
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 1974

Note 1 : With monitor prices falling down, each penny can get you a bigger screen size. The Acer monitor incorporates the speaker, thus I removed last month's speaker. Having more budget to spend, thus I increased the HDD size.

And here's 3k pc guide:

• CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 710 2.6GHz - RM 465
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM 2GB DDR2 800MHz * 2 - RM160
• HDD: Western Digital 640GB SATA - RM 230
• Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM - RM 300
• Graphic Card: Palit HD4850 SUPER 512MB DDR3 - RM520
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM75
• Monitor: Acer X233 23" wide LCD - RM 560
• Speaker: Edifier M1350 2.1 - RM 80
• PSU: OCZ Stealth X Stream- RM319
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340- RM 125
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 2923

Note 2 : The Phenom II X3 720(2.8GHz) beats Phenom X4 9850(2.5GHz) hands down, so I presumed that X3 710 can beat X4 9650 since both are 200 MHz difference from the cpus mentioned above. Because the 710 is cheaper than 9650 and offer more performance than it, thus 710 is the wise choice.

Note 3 : Phenom II X3 710 is a new cpu, thus you must update the motherboard with the newest bios to support it.

How's my configuration? Do you have other opinions? Please kindly leave them here :)

AMD Phenom II Released

AMD Phenom II has been released and it's performance is more or less equivalent to the same price range of other Intel Core 2 Quads. However, it still can't beat the Core i7 cpu. AMD Phenom II employs 45nm manufacturing process (lower power consumption) and contains 6MB of L3 cache. 

AMD Phenom II currently available as Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition and Phenom II X4 920 (trying to copy the Core i7 940 & 920?) with price of 275 USD and 235 USD respectively.

More reviews here:

• Tom's Hardware
• Hexus.net
• ExtremeTech
• Bit-tech

What do you guys and girls think about this processor? Will it be able to take a small chunk of Intel controlled market or more than that? Will it prove more worth than Intel Core 2 Quads systems? Leave your comments then~

Release of AMD Athlon X2 7xxx : Cutting Phenom X4 in half

On December 15th...AMD made a cutting move...and thus...AMD Athlon X2 7xxx series is born~ Yeah~~
OK, what's the big deal about this processor? Well, it's basically AMD Phenom X4 with 2 cores disabled (just think of a hotel with a floor being cut off from access), like Phenom X3 with 1 core disabled.
However, this Athlon X2 7xxx series will perform better compared to any Athlon X2 6xxx or 5xxx that have the same clock speed. For example, Athlon X2 7750 at 2.7GHz will surely beat Athlon X2 5200 at 2.7GHz.
There are 2 Athlon X2 7xxx Series now, which is Athlon X2 7750 black edition for USD 79 (about RM 280) and Athlon X2 7550 (2.5 GHz) for USD 69 (about RM 245).

For more detailed review, click the website below:

• Hexus.net
• Tom's Hardware
• Bit-tech
  

AMD Display Driver 8.12 and ATI Avivo Video Converter

AMD has released the new display driver for this month (8.12). The driver enables owners of 4800 and 4600 series Radeon graphics cards to have the privilege of able to utilise the stream processors in these graphics cards for more general computing tasks that are handled by CPU nowadays. 

Simply said, the graphics cards will help CPU in processing, IF the software supports ATI Stream.

With the ability to harness the power of stream processors in 4800 and 4600 series Radeon graphics cards, AMD has released ATI Avivo Video Converter for free. This converter uses the ATI Stream to speed up the video conversion, up to 17x the speed of CPU conversion speed.

The converter is included inside the Catalyst 8.12 suite.

You can download the driver suite here and read more about the Avivo converter here.

Successful with the conversion? Then leave your comments here.

Core i7 have been Released!!

Core i7 (codenamed Nehalem) has been released! It combines quad-core with Hyper-threading and SSE4.2 for better multimedia editing. Be warned that Core i7 requires both new motherboard with Intel X58 chipset and DDR3 RAM. It uses tri-channel memory controller for greater memory bandwidth, so remember to get slot in 3 RAM modules rather than 2.

Below are the websites for the Core i7 review:

• Bit-Tech
• Anandtech
• Extremetech
• Hardwarezone
• Hexus.net

To know more about the Core i7 architecture, click here.

AMD’s First 45nm Desktop Microprocessors Set to Arrive on the 8th of January, 2009.

Advanced Micro Devices plans to announce its first desktop microprocessors produced using 45nm process technology on the 8th of January, 2009, the first day of Consumer Electronics Show. The code-named Deneb chips will not get truly high clock-speed boost, but will be able to offer substantially higher performance thanks to larger cache and architectural improvements.

The first desktop processors from AMD made using 45nm process technology will be AMD Phenom X4 chips clocked at 2.80GHz and 3.00GHz, sources familiar with AMD’s plans said. The new processors will support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory, but since the initial chips will be available in socket AM2+ form-factor, the chips will have to rely on dual-channel DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066MHz DDR2) memory.

Surprisingly, but the 45nm process technology will not allow AMD to reduce power consumption of its quad-core AMD Phenom X4 process considerably and the new chips are projected to have 125W thermal design power (TDP), inline with today’s higher-end Phenom X4 chips. Still, the new microprocessors will definitely have better performance-per-watt ratio compared to predecessors.

Earlier this year AMD said that code-named Shanghai and Deneb microprocessors, which are based on the improved K10 micro-architecture, will be able to offer higher instructions per clock (IPC) throughput compared to currently available AMD Phenom and AMD Opteron processors, which should transform into higher overall performance per clock. Thanks to higher IPC and larger level-three cache (6MB instead of 2MB), the new processors are likely to offer considerably higher speed than existing quad-core chips by AMD.

Pricing of the new chips will depend on their performance against competitors as well as other market conditions.

Officials from AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Personally, I think AMD might be able to dominate the lower market where budget are most important(read: rm500 and below) to user. Intel CPU might have higher performance but they costs more too. You might say Intel CPUs overclock better. But we must remember not all people know what is overclock.