Phenom comments

[mike]

I am looking for any comments, pro and con, regarding user experiences
with the Phenom 9500/9600. Newegg has many comments, but looking for
more form the experts who frequent this ng.

1. Is the TLB error likely to be a real problem for most users?

2. Is there a stepping to look for that has corrected the TLB issue?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Zootal]

The TLB can be a serious issue, depending on your system and what you do
with it. I experienced 3 or 4 lockups a day. I was about to replace the mobo
because I couldn't find anything else wrong. A bios upgrade fixed this -
after the upgrade, no more lockups. None at all.

Now I have a new mobo, with an older bios that does not have the TLB patch.
I get lockups once or twice a day. This weekend I'll upgrade the bios in the
hopes of stopping the lockups.

So - the TLB is very serious, but not if your bios has the patch.

Question 2 - I have not clue.

 

[mike]

The TLB can be a serious issue, depending on your system and what you do
with it. I experienced 3 or 4 lockups a day. I was about to replace the mobo
because I couldn't find anything else wrong. A bios upgrade fixed this -
after the upgrade, no more lockups. None at all.

Now I have a new mobo, with an older bios that does not have the TLB patch.
I get lockups once or twice a day. This weekend I'll upgrade the bios in the
hopes of stopping the lockups.

So - the TLB is very serious, but not if your bios has the patch.

Question 2 - I have not clue.

Thanks for the information.

As the Intel Q6600 is very close in price to the Phenom series, may I
ask if you are happy after your purchase considering the issues? I, in
the end, enjoy learning about and addressing issues as you have
described. I would also volunteer that I have a single core AMD 64 3200
that boots faster and is more responsive than a Core 2 PC, 2.4 GHz. The
AMD box is four years old, too. That is why I am looking at the Phenom,
sheer responsiveness.

 

[None]

So - the TLB is very serious, but not if your bios has the patch.

Question 2 - I have not clue.

Which was:

2. Is there a stepping to look for that has corrected the TLB issue?

It has been answered:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3260

 

[Zootal]

As the Intel Q6600 is very close in price to the Phenom series, may I ask
if you are happy after your purchase considering the issues? I, in the
end, enjoy learning about and addressing issues as you have described. I
would also volunteer that I have a single core AMD 64 3200 that boots
faster and is more responsive than a Core 2 PC, 2.4 GHz. The AMD box is
four years old, too. That is why I am looking at the Phenom, sheer
responsiveness.

I have two Phenoms now, and I have no regrets at all. The quad core Core
chip is supposed to be faster then the quad core Phenom. The core
microarchitecture is much more efficient then the Pentium 4 was (which isn't
saying much - the P4 netburst architecture was really quite inefficient). I
stopped using Intel processors several years, and I'm not quite ready to go
back. I'm not quite ready to forgive Intel for keeping the crappy P4 for so
long. They cranked the clock up to 3.8GHz, but neglected to tell you that it
didn't give anywhere near proportional performance - they had to stretch the
pipeline out to 31 cycles to get the thing to run that fast, and in the end
you definitely did not get your moneys worth out of it.

So I'm running on a Phenom 9600 with two ATI 3870 cards, XP64 and 4GB ram.
It does what I need it to do, and then some .

 

[None]

So I'm running on a Phenom 9600 with two ATI 3870 cards, XP64 and 4GB
ram. It does what I need it to do, and then some .

Can you tell us a bit about what temps are you seeing at idle and 100%
load?

Thanks very much in advance.

 

[Zootal]

Can you tell us a bit about what temps are you seeing at idle and 100%
load?

Thanks very much in advance.

With the stock cooler, the cpu would run at about 120 F at idle, and peak at
about 135F. I thought that was a bit warm, but not exessively so. I then
installed a Zalman cnps9500 am2 cooler. Now it idles at about 110 F and only
hits 123 F or so under load. I got about 10-12 degrees reduction by
switching to a better cooler.\

The cards themsleves run quite a bit hotter. 51 C is not unusual at idle,
and it will easily peak up to 65 C or so. That is waay too hot for me, but
I'm not sure what I can do about it.

 

[Miles Bader]

Apparently the fix hasn't helped this newsgroup much.

Damn it is quiet in here.

People are fickle, especially "enthusiasts".

-Miles

 

[Rick Savoie]

If you want to get a Phenom, get one of the new ones that end in a
"50" like the 9850. They are the new stepping and have the fix. Less worries
about compatibility with older boards. Last month Asus just released the
BIOS fix for my M2N32 SLI deluxe and I can finally use it with my 9600 B2
stepping. Of course, now I can buy a 9850 at TigerDirect for almost $20.00
less than a 9600! Kind of sucks.

Cya, Rick