I've mentioned I'm building or upgrading 4 PCs. I started with an upgrade to my PC.

Moved to Phenom II X4 965 125W (nominal 3.4GHz), GigaByte MA790GP-UD4H motherboard, cut back to only 4GB DDR2 (from 8GB) and moved the excess to my wife's machine.

I tried a simple overclock (like I always do). I have a quiet system and low output fan on my CPU heatsink. I use the in-BIOS temperature sensitive fan control; thus, usually the fan is slow. Mediocre cooling will hold back my overclock. I tested with Prime95 "Blend" for a minimum of 2 hours.

In brief, I got 4.1GHz under no load at standard 1.40V with CPU fan at max. 3.8GHz was stable at 1.45V letting the fan run under BIOS control. Currently, I'm running at 3.7GHz at 1.45 to allow some head room -- OK with Prime95 for 3 hours (then I turned it off).

Presumably, I could get more as serious overclockers raise Phenom II volts to 1.55V if necessary. But, I only want to add 0.05 to standard. They also use stronger (louder) air cooling -- or liquid cooling.

Well, 3.7GHz is not a "visible" improvement over the stock 3.4GHz -- so, this is a vanity overclock

I notice both Phenoms and Intels seem to max out at about 3.8GHz with modest air cooling (there are exceptions) -- the newer Intels getting more done per clock.

This is my first GigaByte motherboard. It seems well made. The BIOS is much more intuitive and better commented than any of my ASUS motherboards -- better for overclocking, to me.

FWIW.

Wow! Vanity-shmanity! I want! If people are raving about an i7 920 being fast, then I wonder what the X4 965 is?

I'm looking forward to your experience with this, Allen, as I think this'll be my CPU-of-choice when I do my build.

Which CPU did you upgrade from? And how much of a performance increase did you see compared to your old CPU (in games or programs like Vegas ect.)?

I am thinking of upgrading my AMD 9950 BE to that CPU when the price comes down some more.

I upgraded from a DEll XPS (first gen) gaming machince (I use a mac book pro for "real stuff") to a self build AMD 955 BE, gigabyte MA790 MB, 6 gb of cosair DDR3, ATI 4870 (2048).


Lomac with Tweak graphics (avg 72 FPS from low 20's)
rFactor Max setting/graphics (AVG 190+ FPS from 30's)
Race on series (avg 170)
Arma 2 in the 70's
FSX Full on with traffic (60-70's)
SF2 series---was avghigh 70's to 100's until the most recent patch which enables v-synch (60 fps)

I upgraded from a Phenom II 940 that I was running OC at 3.35GHz. 3.72GHz is only 10 percent more. From past experience, I expect an average of 5 percent improvement in FPS. I do not expect to "see" a 5 percent difference as none of my games are running "rough" -- all are smooth -- even Crysis at mostly maximum image quality settings. I didn't think an "invisible" 5 percent was worth measuring/verifying, in my particular case.

So, why did I bother? We needed a third computer in the house. And, my granddaughter needs an upgrade. My way of providing a new computer is to upgrade mine and move parts down the chain (for example, my wife's computer gets updated with my old parts and her parts move down to the grandkids). Otherwise, I would not have upgraded for such a small improvement. It was fun, though

I posted to indicate what one can "easily" get overclocking a Phenom II 965 with "quiet" (i.e. mediocre) cooling. Most articles one reads deal with how to get the absolute max using sophisticated techniques. I merely changed the multiplier and voltage -- which anyone can do.

That's a very good overclock. That 4.1Ghz suicide run is a very good OC for a AMD proc especially. It's fairly easy to get some of the newer Intels to run at 4Ghz. So that Gigabyte board must be outstanding. And you have a very good CPU sample too.

Thanks for the reply Allen.

Yeah, I wouldn't think you'd see an improvement from the 940.

Any good benchmarks you know of that compare the 965 to the AMD Phenom 1 9950?

Here are all the CPUs compared using all the benchmarks -- well, that's a slight exaggeration

All CPUs Compared

Best Gaming CPU for the Money

AMD stuff is good for the money. Pretty much the best in the under $200 category. And, according to the link above, in some games, the $185 Phenom II 965 performs nearly identically to the $1000 Intel i7. In other games, the Intel stuff is faster -- but they are all so fast it does not matter to the human eye.

That's the rub. A faster CPU does not necessarily mean significantly more FPS or visually better gaming -- depends on how the game is coded.

Still, its fun to have a faster CPU