Q6600 would probably be slower. And would pull more power too. I find 50w quite low, you must have a really nice psu if that 50w idle is right.
I had/worked on a few higher end Phenom 2 and 3rd gen operon setups and they were a step up from most 775 systems. But below most x58 steps I had. They aren't bad and a lot of people will claim that the hex core Phenom 2s were faster then the FX cpus that came after.

Edit
As for unlocking, the 4th core was locked for a reason. The CPU will likely not be 100% stable with the 4th core enabled. But if your lucky all your need it a bit more core voltage.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Q9660 would probably be slower. And would pull more power too. I find 50w quite low, you must have a really nice psu if that 50w idle is right.
I had/worked on a few higher end Phenom 2 and 3rd gen operon setups and they were a step up from most 775 systems. But below most x58 steps I had. They aren't bad and a lot of people will claim that the hex core Phenom 2s were faster then the FX cpus that came after.

My psu is a Corsair VS650, the basic of the line. I see the 12V rails from the bios @ 11,8V. I think it's the combination of light lxde gui and modern kernel of linux that support both the dynamic freq and voltages plus also the dynamic power managament of the radeon driver. I'm sure about the power meter at the plug since the 115W idle with the Barton core. 😵 🤣
But I was impressed also by the Athlon 64 X2 5200 @ 0,65u that at idle used 45W with a R5 graphic card (never tested with the onboard probably even 5 to 10W less).

50W is probably idle Phenom II wattage with Cool n Quiet enabled, something Barton did not have hence 115W at idle with Barton.. It's a pretty decent processor and definitely better than Q6600. It has better IPC than Bulldozer and is generally regarded as a better processor than its successor. That judgement was heavily biased by apps and games of the era, however, and even Bulldozer has started to punch above its weight in modern multithreaded apps. Regardless, its high clocks and number of cores make it pretty comparable to a Piledriver in my view, though it has its own shortcomings.

You have a triple core, which isn't something to write home about in an age when you can buy 8 core 16 thread processors without selling your car. It also can only use DDR2 memory, so it will be somewhat bandwidth starved compared to more modern CPUs. However, paired with a cheap and efficient modern GPU such as say the RX460, or if you want something cheaper I suppose the GT950 or GT750Ti it will do light 1080p gaming pretty well.

Also, the 4th core is not necessarily disabled because it's faulty. Deneb line actually had pretty good yields and a good ratio of CPUs had their fourth cores disabled for segmentation rather than cache or core faults, so give it a shot. A 4th core will really help with more threads and give you more L2 cache.

appiah4 wrote:

50W is probably idle Phenom II wattage with Cool n Quiet enabled, something Barton did not have hence 115W at idle with Barton.. It's a pretty decent processor and definitely better than Q6600. It has better IPC than Bulldozer and is generally regarded as a better processor than its successor. That judgement was heavily biased by apps and games of the era, however, and even Bulldozer has started to punch above its weight in modern multithreaded apps. Regardless, its high clocks and number of cores make it pretty comparable to a Piledriver in my view, though it has its own shortcomings.

You have a triple core, which isn't something to write home about in an age when you can buy 8 core 16 thread processors without selling your car. It also can only use DDR2 memory, so it will be somewhat bandwidth starved compared to more modern CPUs. However, paired with a cheap and efficient modern GPU such as say the RX460, or if you want something cheaper I suppose the GT950 or GT750Ti it will do light 1080p gaming pretty well.

Also, the 4th core is not necessarily disabled because it's faulty. Deneb line actually had pretty good yields and a good ratio of CPUs had their fourth cores disabled for segmentation rather than cache or core faults, so give it a shot. A 4th core will really help with more threads and give you more L2 cache.

Thank! Sure I always liked the Barton cpu but its 5v power usage was not the highest but still a lot. About the memory this board support DDR3 up to 2000 I think even if I'm running mine cheap one at 1600 single channel.
I ran a Cpustress test and with multiple core it use up to 108W at the plug. I'll try some 3D test if I found some on linux supporting this gpu (Dx9 level I think).

I have no idea why but I thought you had it in an AM2+ socket, hence my DDR2 comments. It was just a brain fart; DDR3 is plenty enough for that chip.

appiah4 wrote:

I have no idea why but I thought you had it in an AM2+ socket, hence my DDR2 comments. It was just a brain fart; DDR3 is plenty enough for that chip.

No problem I still don't know the differences of both sockets. I never used this "modern" systems I'm discovering lately. 😀
But I was happy with a pure AM2 / DDR2-800 system I tried before, the Athlon 64 X2 @ 0,65u is still usable and cool to run imho for office use.

Love this CPU. I have one and it's been in daily use since 2009. My brother bought it back then with an appropriate motherboard and easily unlocked the 4th core and raised the core clock slightly to reach 3GHz. 100% stable for us, never bluescreened, never caused us an issue. In the past few years, it has been in use in my father's system with the same setup going on and it is still mighty fine.

In my eyes, the X3 720 has always been an amazing value processor, truly one of the greats like the Celeron 300A and the Durons. It probably overclocks nicely, although I never had the chance to push it honestly, but the 4th core unlock had a really high success rate. I was so jealous of my brother back then, as I was using an E6550.

I believe at the time (May 2009) it cost around 130-140E, so it was an amazing deal, as Phenom II X4s started at ~220E (?). If you were going Intel, the Q6600 was a nice deal, but probably not as good overall (plus the platform was about to be superseded), although there were also the Q9300,Q9400... and the Q9450,Q9550... The former ones were pretty good performers, although I believe they were closer in price to the X4s, rather than the X3s. The latter ones had twice the amount of L2 cache and were really expensive back then. There was also the i7 platform, which seriously kicked ass, especially with the i7 920.
I don't think the first i5 had launched yet.

It is definitely no slouch, especially if you unlock the 4th core, in which case it should be directly comparable to a Phenom II X4 of the same core clock. If you keep at stock that means Phenom II X4 925. The X3 720 is lacking 512KB L2 Cache for the 4th core, however it still has all of the L3 Cache, so it should be only slightly behind an X4 of the same core clock. I'd say, despite the years that have passed, Phenom II are still plenty fast for everyday use, although if you plan to use one for gaming you will find that you will be severely CPU limited in demanding games from the last 2-3 years.

F2bnp wrote:

Love this CPU. I have one and it's been in daily use since 2009. My brother bought it back then with an appropriate motherboard […]
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Love this CPU. I have one and it's been in daily use since 2009. My brother bought it back then with an appropriate motherboard and easily unlocked the 4th core and raised the core clock slightly to reach 3GHz. 100% stable for us, never bluescreened, never caused us an issue. In the past few years, it has been in use in my father's system with the same setup going on and it is still mighty fine.

In my eyes, the X3 720 has always been an amazing value processor, truly one of the greats like the Celeron 300A and the Durons. It probably overclocks nicely, although I never had the chance to push it honestly, but the 4th core unlock had a really high success rate. I was so jealous of my brother back then, as I was using an E6550.

I believe at the time (May 2009) it cost around 130-140E, so it was an amazing deal, as Phenom II X4s started at ~220E (?). If you were going Intel, the Q6600 was a nice deal, but probably not as good overall (plus the platform was about to be superseded), although there were also the Q9300,Q9400... and the Q9450,Q9550... The former ones were pretty good performers, although I believe they were closer in price to the X4s, rather than the X3s. The latter ones had twice the amount of L2 cache and were really expensive back then. There was also the i7 platform, which seriously kicked ass, especially with the i7 920.
I don't think the first i5 had launched yet.

It is definitely no slouch, especially if you unlock the 4th core, in which case it should be directly comparable to a Phenom II X4 of the same core clock. If you keep at stock that means Phenom II X4 925. The X3 720 is lacking 512KB L2 Cache for the 4th core, however it still has all of the L3 Cache, so it should be only slightly behind an X4 of the same core clock. I'd say, despite the years that have passed, Phenom II are still plenty fast for everyday use, although if you plan to use one for gaming you will find that you will be severely CPU limited in demanding games from the last 2-3 years.

Thank!
I can say compared to the AM1 Sempron I was trying lately and the X2 5200+ this is even at default values a big improvement. And I still have no pushed bios configs or turbo switch or the other core.
Also I'll have space for some speed when i'll put some dual channel fast ram, not the cheap 4GB I've now. Using linux I can't know on games side.