Hi everyone,

At the start of this year I bought a new super-budget PC with some cheap gigabyte socket AM2+ mobo (MA770-UD3 loll) and a AMD 7750 Black Edition 2x2.7Ghz cpu (4 gigs of ram, a borrowed 512mb NV 8800).

My friend has a "spare" (who has "spare" cpus lying around?!) AMD X2 240 at 2x2.8Ghz lying around, which he says I can have.

I have two questions,

1. Would the 240 even work ing my socket AM2+ mobo? My friend swears that it will - but I was sure that AM2+ and AM3 were incompatible.

2. Which CPU is more worth it? The 240 is 100mhz faster, but the 7750 is unlocked (although AMD's overclocking software just made my PC freeze, so there may not a lot of headroom there).

O help me, great GPForums!

-Will

Urgh double post.

Check out your manufacturer board. Most AM2+ boards will support AM3 CPU's with a bios update(if it's there yet). But not vice versa.

You won't see much difference between the 240 and the 7750, only slight variations although the 240 has a 65w tdp whilst the 7750 is 95w.
Difference is only if you're overclocking where the 7750 will win naturally.

Rather large power difference.

suntoucher wrote: Check out your manufacturer board. Most AM2+ boards will support AM3 CPU's with a bios update(if it's there yet). But not vice versa.

Thanks suntoucher, I've just done some more looking into my motherboard and it says AM3 ready, so that's nice.

Seeing as how these CPUs are so cheap, I wouldn't imagine (touch wood) that I'll have them forever, so I suppose I will overclock a little (just stock cooling - there's a reason I've bought such a cheap CPU!) and not worry about decreased lifespan.

So people are thinking the 7750? My main priority/usage scenario is framerate in Dwarf Fortress - it's all in the CPU, baby. Very low ram and graphics card requirements.

-Will

Probably the 240 unless you want to overclock quite high.

240 has 2x1MB L2 cache, while the 7750 has 2x512KB L2 cache plus 2MB shared (and slow) L3 cache.

IMO moar L2 cache gives better performance. not much in it though. for you, i doubt it's worth swapping chips for. you'd be much better off whacking another few hundred megahertz under the hood of your current chip

[REPLY=pablo d] 240 has 2x1MB L2 cache, while the 7750 has 2x512KB L2 cache plus 2MB shared (and slow) L3 cache.

Hmm... good points pablo d, cheers for replying. Damn... it's hard to think decide whether a couple 'a hundred extra Mhz from overclocking the 7750 is worth more or less than more level 2 cache.

If I were a real man, I'd do an empirical test and post both sets of results here. However, my friend has someone else who he can give the processor to, so I'll have to deny you all the chance at a Willfarb's Grand Crappy Cheap CPU Shootout.

If anyone else has an opinion, keep 'em coming!

-Will

Be a few more than a couple hundred mhz if you're overclocking. Should get it about 3.2 I'd say on stock. So about 400mhz more. Plus you'd slightly be able to push the ram.

Again though power efficiency would go dead out the window. So I vote 240.

suntoucher wrote: Be a few more than a couple hundred mhz if you're overclocking. Should get it about 3.2 I'd say on stock. So about 400mhz more. Plus you'd slightly be able to push the ram. Again though power efficiency would go dead out the window. So I vote 240.

Amigo, one of my flatmates is too skimpy to let us use the heater. Stuff power efficiency - as long as I don't fry it I'm happy XD

Edit: I r gud at spellingz