b1lk1
Tech Monkey
My PC recently died and I found myself needing something with some good power on a very strict budget. I started poking around and I remembered that nice new chipset from AMD, the 780G. It was advertised as a fantastic overclocker with exceptional graphics capabilities, for an IGP system that is. The fact I could toss in this little HD3450 I have laying around for a cheap Crossfire boost was very appealing too. Since I had no wiggle room in my $500 budget, I figured I'd give the Phenom a chance.
I bought:
Phenom 9850BE - $255
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI - $99
Mushkin 2X2GB - $99
After taxes, it came to $509 (that was also counting the $5 for the computer shop to flash the board to the latest bios beforehand).
I got it home and set it up. Installed Vista Ultimate 64 just fine. Got everything loaded up. I had a few problems but they were cause by me accidentally setting the CPU multi to 25. Believe it or not, it was still getting into windows like that! Then I decided to do some research on this board, the research I wish I had done BEFORE I bought it.
It seems that AMD failed to inform the motherboard manufacturers that they needed to produce a board that could handle the 125W TDP spec processors. Motherboard manufacturers seemed to not care as well and many built them with such poor CPU power circuits that even running a 125W CPU at stock speeds while stress testing would cause the motherboards to fail. Needless to say, I was quickly realizing I made another HUGE mistake with a PC build.
Now the current argument is that AMD never intended the 125TDP CPU's to be used on this board. The next argument is that very few people but MATX boards for enthusiast platforms so it isn't needed. Hogwash.
Almost every MATX board with an Intel chipset will happily support a Quad, even while overclocked. Why wouldn't AMD want to make certain their products could do the same?
To make a long story short, Intel has won yet another battle with inferior performance. The 780G walks all over the 3100/3500 platforms in terms if IGP performance, but the inability to reliably run a high end CPU gives AMD the loss. I am still also at a loss how a $250 CPU is considered high end, but I guess the standards have been lowered so far for AMD that $250 is indeed their highest end product. It is just a shame it can only be properly used on a 790x chipset board meaning another $200+ layout of cash is needed to run it.
So my advice to everyone, AVOID the 780G platform. AVOID the 770 platform as it too is not capable of the power requirements. If you want a Phenom and plan to overclock, you are FORCED to buy a very expensive 790 chipset motherboard. Now I am fully understanding why AMD is falling further and further behind. Poor design and ever poorer implementation is going to be their downfall.
I bought:
Phenom 9850BE - $255
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI - $99
Mushkin 2X2GB - $99
After taxes, it came to $509 (that was also counting the $5 for the computer shop to flash the board to the latest bios beforehand).
I got it home and set it up. Installed Vista Ultimate 64 just fine. Got everything loaded up. I had a few problems but they were cause by me accidentally setting the CPU multi to 25. Believe it or not, it was still getting into windows like that! Then I decided to do some research on this board, the research I wish I had done BEFORE I bought it.
It seems that AMD failed to inform the motherboard manufacturers that they needed to produce a board that could handle the 125W TDP spec processors. Motherboard manufacturers seemed to not care as well and many built them with such poor CPU power circuits that even running a 125W CPU at stock speeds while stress testing would cause the motherboards to fail. Needless to say, I was quickly realizing I made another HUGE mistake with a PC build.
Now the current argument is that AMD never intended the 125TDP CPU's to be used on this board. The next argument is that very few people but MATX boards for enthusiast platforms so it isn't needed. Hogwash.
Almost every MATX board with an Intel chipset will happily support a Quad, even while overclocked. Why wouldn't AMD want to make certain their products could do the same?
To make a long story short, Intel has won yet another battle with inferior performance. The 780G walks all over the 3100/3500 platforms in terms if IGP performance, but the inability to reliably run a high end CPU gives AMD the loss. I am still also at a loss how a $250 CPU is considered high end, but I guess the standards have been lowered so far for AMD that $250 is indeed their highest end product. It is just a shame it can only be properly used on a 790x chipset board meaning another $200+ layout of cash is needed to run it.
So my advice to everyone, AVOID the 780G platform. AVOID the 770 platform as it too is not capable of the power requirements. If you want a Phenom and plan to overclock, you are FORCED to buy a very expensive 790 chipset motherboard. Now I am fully understanding why AMD is falling further and further behind. Poor design and ever poorer implementation is going to be their downfall.
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