P55 vs X58 differences

[Octopuss]

I have recently started to think about an upgrade. There is nothing wrong with my current machine based on Gigabyte P45 board and E8400 CPU, but... It's an addiction in a way (plus a few very minor performance reasons, mainly CPU related).

I can't seem to make a final decision about the chipset. P55 is cheaper and rather enough, while X58 is THE thing if you want top performance. But what are the differences between them? I know P55 is not very crossfire (or how is the other technology called) friendly due to PCI-e limitations. I would like to know a bit though. Unfortunately I am a little behind when it comes to latest technologies, so could anyone throw some knowledge in my direction please?

[puntoMX]

Biggest difference is the socket to start with , 1156 pins for the P55 and 1366 pins for the X58, dual channel memory for P55 and triple channel memory for the x58.

Check out AMDs six-cored CPU with a 890 chipset too first as both sockets from Intel are going to be E.O.L. soon!

What are you going to run on it?

[Octopuss]

I know the socket differences, the memory as well. I didn't speak about that at all, because those are the obvious differences

Technically speaking I don't NEED X58-based PC. Hell, I don't even need the current one

What does EOL mean?

[puntoMX]

I know the socket differences, the memory as well. I didn't speak about that at all, because those are the obvious differences

Technically speaking I don't NEED X58-based PC. Hell, I don't even need the current one

What does EOL mean?

EOL= End of Life, so basically discontinued. Socket "R" 2011 will be released next year, official release date isn't set but it could be at the beginning of 2011.

So, what software are you going to run on your new monster?

[CoffeeFiend]

The P55/H55/X58 chipsets and associated Sockets (1156/1366) are being replaced indeed. If you build a machine using them don't expect to be able to upgrade it much. It looks like they're going to be changing sockets like that quite often in the foreseeable future (every couple of years or so perhaps). In the end, you'll end up in the same position where you are today: there are no nice CPUs that decently priced for your board. I'm there too on my C2D rig, thanks to Intel.

Upgrading your CPU means getting one of the very few remaining C2Q, all of which are overpriced for their relative performance. A simple Q8300 costs neary as much as a Phenom II X6 1055T ($40 difference) but it has less cores, all of which are slower (slower single threaded perf too). And getting that isn't even attractive in your case. Yes, it has more processing power if your apps manage to use all 4 cores (hardly ever), but the single threaded perf is slower so a lot of stuff would actually run slower. A Q9650 would have about the same single threaded perf and 4 cores, but it costs more than the X6 1055T which still outperforms it quite a bit and some faster i7's too. Intel doesn't want to sell you half-decent C2Q's that are priced competitively, they want you to buy a whole new kit again and again. This is why I'll soon be selling my C2D setup too.

If you go with a current Intel 1156/1136 system, you'll soon be in the same position, and waiting for the new 1155/2011 offerings means mostly the same thing but a bit later. Upgrading Intel rigs is becoming a too much trouble IMO. Besides, the upcoming Intel chipsets very much fail to impress. H57/P57 hardly get any improvements, be it in terms of total PCI-e lanes (the existing AMD chipsets already have more, ranging from 26 on the 870 to 42 on the 890FX; this will be a bottleneck with fast video cards + SATA "3" with SSDs and USB3), it's only getting 2 SATA 6Gbps ports (WTF, really?) out of the 6 ports when AMD already has 6 out of 6 beign 6 Gbps today, and only 2 USB ports move to USB 3, the remaining 12 staying at 2.0 which is overall no better than what you're getting on a fairly typical ~$100 AMD motherboard today, but only you have to wait for it. And if you're thinking about X68 (the replacement to X58) then be aware its going back to 4 memory slots I just can't think of why I'd possibly want to wait for any of this, only to be able to pair it with rather expensive processors that will be EOL'ed way too fast.

Intel basically sold me into buying a Phenom II X6 1055T ($200 for a 6 core beast that's faster than a i7 920 or i7 860 both of which are ~$80 expensive), 2x4GB of DDR3 and a decent motherboard which already has more SATA 6Gbps ports than the upcoming Intel offerings will have and at least as many USB3 ports (many of which are available with the power boost option too) and depending on my chipset choice, way more PCI-e lanes too. Cheaper, faster, better in many ways and most likely upgradable for far longer. AMD makes it far less trouble to upgrade these days (I can drop in a 6 core beast CPU on the kids' old dual core setups anytime I want, or even a great quad core for $100 total expense -- no such luck with my C2D)

I'm not sure what Intel is up to lately, but it just fails to impress. Perhaps it's their new IGP they're working on but that also fails to impress. For example the i5 661 at $200. For that much, you can have a faster Athlon II X4 630 along with a Radeon HD 5670 1GB or a GeForce GTS 250. Except such an i5's 3D performance is no faster than the IGP in the outdated 780G AMD chipset from 2008 (ouch), and I'm not confident it's any good for H.264/VC1 acceleration (with MPC HC, VLC or any codec), if it has a OpenGL performance that's any good (for apps like Photoshop) and the like either. They'll have to earn my trust first.

Intel seems to be AMD's best salesman For about $600 you can get a Phenom II X6 1055T beast along with 8GB (2x4GB, not 4x2GB) of nice DDR3 and a really nice motherboard today. That's what I'll be buying. With the same $600 budget and going with X58 today, all you could get is a significantly slower i7 920 that's also more power hungry ($280), less RAM (a cheap 3x2GB kit) which uses smaller sticks too (around $150), and one of the very cheapest x58 boards (there's only 3 or so within $170). But hey, if you have a significantly bigger budget than I do, it might still be a good pick.

[Octopuss]

Those are interesting thoughts, and exactly the type of text I was looking for.

I haven't even thought about AMD since I moved away from socket 939. I have total zero knowledge about their current technologies, and it looks like I made a mistake Too bad I recently bought Venomous-X CPU cooler as a replacement for my current HR-01, thinking it would do the job better with newer hardware

Definitely gonna take a look at AMD and what they have been up to lately.

[puntoMX]

Now we are talking about AMD vs. Intel:

Intel isn't planning on a USB 3.0 chipset any day soon (as in 2012), they want to push their Light Peak technology (release date in 2011) before native USB 3.0 support with their chipsets. It seems that NEC USB controllers are really overpriced, cost 15USD/pcs! , so motherboards for Intel will be more expensive although other providers will make USB 3.0 controllers soon for less.

[Octopuss]

And current AMD-based boards have USB3 natively already? what I dislike about AMD is that there don't seem to be any 32nm processors coming in near future.

How is AMD doing performance-wise in general lately? I remember back from ancient times that it always was somewhat behind in some areas, although the buck/performance ratio was good.

[Guest]

AMD gained a strong lead in 2003-2004 in price, performance, and efficiency when it began including the memory controller on the CPU die. Intel's NetBurst architecture could not compete, especially when AMD's new x86_64 instruction set became the consumer standard for 64-bit computing, bypassing Intel's Itanium entirely. It wasn't until Intel released its first batch of Core architecture chips that things turned around and Intel became the one to beat again.

I have to agree with CoffeeFiend. At this time, AMD seems to be the more economically stable choice in terms of upgrade paths. AMD never has changed chipsets and CPU pin-outs as often as Intel. Perhaps there's wisdom in allowing others to work out the bugs in new processor lithography before jumping to the next die shrink.

[Zenskas]

Back on the topic of P55 vs X58, another difference that I don't think has been mentioned (only skimmed through some posts) apart from the socket and RAM configuration is the amount of PCI-E lanes. Generally your standard X58 board with support at least two GPU's running at full x16 speed while a typical P55 board will only run them each at x8 speed. Realistically a difference of a few percent performance loss maximum but if you are running more than two GPU's then an X58 board would be better suited to the job.

[CoffeeFiend]

And current AMD-based boards have USB3 natively already?

Not yet, but they do have native 6 Gbps ports today (all 6 of them, not only 2 like Intel will have next year). But either ways, there is a limited benefit to USB 3 and SATA 6 Gbps on a Intel motherboard -- there's just no PCI-e BW to back it all up (not enough lanes, and not enough of the 2.0 kind, like I previously mentioned), and the speeds are going to suck for the most part. All of the SATA ports and USB ports, as well as the PCI-e slots (besides those for the video cards), the Gigabit Ethernet and others share the same 2GB/s DMI path, and that's one huge bottleneck. If you go with P55 it's even more crippled (it doesn't even have half as many PCI-e 2.0 lanes as X58... *nowhere near* what any current AMD chipset offers, even the low cost 870). The only way to mitigate that is by buying an expensive board that uses a PLX 86xx series PCI-e switch chip or a nforce 200 bridge (such as the $700 Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 for instance), neither of which solves the real problem of not having enough PCI-e 2.0 lanes (which the upcoming chipsets don't seemingly address either), it merely gives you the option to cripple your video slots for not-as-bad SATA 6 Gbps & USB 3 performance.

[Octopuss]

I see. I don't care about USB3 or "faster" SATA at all, and I sure don't like the idea of an extra chip so that extra PCI-e slots or whatever are available.

Guess I'll start new thread about AMD upgrade

[Octopuss]

Just one more thing: let's say I wait 3-4 months with the upgrade. Is either AMD or Intel have cooking anything significantly interesting? Would it be worth it? Aside from a bit lower prices.

[puntoMX]

Lower prices, not much, I would not wait for that. The AMD X6 and the 8x0 chipsets just came out and so there won't be much to wait for. if you need and want a new machine, I would go for it now .

[Octopuss]

Bleh, allright

I am gonna have to stay at home for over a month because of an operation soon, so might as well get something to play with.

Shall I expect similar temperatures from overclocked Phenom II to those of C2D? I got E8400 atm, running at 4ghz.