AlexZ wrote on 2025-06-15, 19:17:

I will be building a Phenom X4 9950 (AM2+, 2.6Ghz) rig on Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3. I already have a Phenom II X6 so Phenom II X4 makes little sense even though they would work in that board.

I have a Phenom II X4 AM3, faster clock on the GA-MA770T-UDP3. I have been using it as my main workhorse since I got it in 2010. I have only run current versions of Linux on it. So I can't really say retro. It has up to date browsers, runs Chrome and Firefox fine, no slow down. Proton was a nice addition when it came along, and it can run DX12 games too. The main drawback will be AVX whenever people really push it -- I've dodged games outside the specs for now. I do have a newer system, if there is something I really wanted to do.

Not sure if I care about Phenom I, but your build is so similar, I think it's still servicable. Is this a modern system? Still feels like it. But you can decide. It can run many things old and new so it's a keeper.

You can get up to 32GB RAM on AM3 boards, that makes a big difference in its life time. AM2 is basically limited to 8GB, unless you buy Chinese memory sticks from ebay. I also have GA-MA870-UD3 boards but those are sitting idle as I got a better board for Phenom II X6. 32GB RAM on Phenom II X6 makes it feel kind of modern.

The choice of Phenom I is intentional, it serves same purpose as Intel socket 775. I like the potentially wide coverage of Phenom I and II.

Are we even allowed to mention that CPU on here?

I dont want to get people in to trouble an all that... Just sayin ya know.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-06-15, 21:01:

Thanks for letting us know, I was planning to install Windows 10 on Phenom II X6 in addition to Windows 7. I'm not too pleased that I will have to disable updates. The main motivation for Windows 10 is a more recent Firefox and DirectX 12. But after my GeForce 2080 died it is less of a priority as 980 isn't powerful enough.

Based on your experience, Windows XP seems to be a good fit for the original Phenom.

You can choose to install updates or not in GPEdit, but in my experience, it works much better without. XP is the best Microsoft OS of all time, You can install all the updates, and still it will run fantastic, even on older HDDs (of course, minimum of 1GB RAM, more is better). There is a small difference between SSD and HDD in XP, only on MBOs which have option to enable AHCI in BIOS You can see the difference in speed. On older, difference is too small to notice.

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 does support AHCI mode so running Windows XP in AHCI mode with periodic TRIM is an option I will explore.

Gigabyte GA-K8NE I use for Athlon 64 doesn't support AHCI as it's a socket 754 board. It uses 1TB 7200rpm magnetic drive. The board is SATA 1 only so little benefit from an ssd compared to GA-MA770UD3.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-06-16, 10:45:

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 does support AHCI mode so running Windows XP in AHCI mode with periodic TRIM is an option I will explore.

Gigabyte GA-K8NE I use for Athlon 64 doesn't support AHCI as it's a socket 754 board. It uses 1TB 7200rpm magnetic drive. The board is SATA 1 only so little benefit from an ssd compared to GA-MA770UD3.

Of course, if You want to install xp with ahci enabled, You need to have floppy drive, so You can install ahci drivers during instalation. Other option is to make xp cd with already installed ahci drivers for Your motherboard. Hope You didn't forget this 😁

I actually missed the original Phenom line. I got on-board with the Phenom II and actually really liked them.

They were so popular at the time that AMD couldn't keep up and started binning perfectly good X4 quad cores as X2 dual cores. I can't tell you how my X2 550's I bought and unlocked (Core Unleashing) the other 2 cores for cheap quads back then. I ended my time on Phenom II with the X6 1090T (loved that one), and I kept it as a home server for a couple more years. Yes, the Intel offerings were arguably "better", but at the prices you could get the Phenom II for in my area the deal was hard to beat. They were "good enough" to handle a majority of tasks and gaming when paired with other decent hardware.

Good times. 😀

candle_86 wrote on 2020-02-05, 04:17:

BinaryDemon wrote on 2020-02-05, 03:22:

Seriously it can’t handle web surfing?

Nope it chokes badly to the point where browsing Facebook, YouTube, or outlook.com saw my CPU ramp to 100% and appear locked up temporarily.

Even the phenom ii can struggle at times with web stuff. yeah it works and its usable but it struggles and maxes out the CPU at times. or at least it does on the dual core ones.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-06-15, 21:55:

You can get up to 32GB RAM on AM3 boards, that makes a big difference in its life time. AM2 is basically limited to 8GB, unless you buy Chinese memory sticks from ebay. I also have GA-MA870-UD3 boards but those are sitting idle as I got a better board for Phenom II X6. 32GB RAM on Phenom II X6 makes it feel kind of modern.

The choice of Phenom I is intentional, it serves same purpose as Intel socket 775. I like the potentially wide coverage of Phenom I and II.

I've got an OEM board that only supports Phenom 1 and A64/Sempron chips, its not an option its fastest supported cpu is the x4 9650 or x2 6000 89W 🤣

candle_86 wrote on 2025-08-05, 21:34:

I've got an OEM board that only supports Phenom 1 and A64/Sempron chips, its not an option its fastest supported cpu is the x4 9650 or x2 6000 89W 🤣

If it supports Phenom 1 then it should support Phenom X4 9950 BE. I have found it to be underpowered for gaming due to low locks in Re: Any love for AM2? . Lower clocked Phenoms are not worth it at all. The best choice is Athlon X2 6400+ 3.2Ghz (Windsor) or Phenom II X4 3-3.2Ghz.

To be fair, I wouldn't expect anything pushing 20 years old to do well in any modern tasks. I wouldn't consider failing like this being aged poorly. It's something to be expected.

It's like expecting a Pentium 2-300 to do the same in 2015 or a i486DX-25 in 2006. If anything, considering how fast hardware went obsolete historically, Phenom and Core2 do well for their age.

Overall Phenom I is just cursed, because older boards that support it usually also support at some of Phenom II, which is much better anyway (no TLB bug, much better clocks, etc). And hunting for a few decent Phenom I models is not worth it.

Phenom X4 9950 BE (B3 stepping) that I tested doesn't have the TLB bug. It is the only Phenom 1 model that makes sense to use for retro rigs. Most Phenoms that I have seen on sale are B3, so you will not be facing the TLB bug. The main problem is too low clocks. 2MB of L3 cache doesn't compensate the major drop in clock speed. 65nm process was a total flop on AMD's side. It can't compete with 6MB cache in c2duo E8600 either. I originally thought I would be using Phenom X4 in my AM2+ rig, but it turned out to be too slow for gaming. Phenom 1 really needed 400Mhz higher clocks. Phenom II isn't any revolutionary change. It is just Phenom on 45nm and larger L3 cache. 2008 was a really bad year for AMD.

AM2+ with Phenom II 3.2Ghz does suprisingly well in Windows 7 era, I had expected it to be good up to Vista era only. It works well few years ahead unlike previous AMD CPUs.

DDR3 doesn't benefit the Phenom II architecture much, they also work well in AM2+ with DDR2.

When my computer was optiplex 780 with win 10, which I still have, was lagging on website loading, installed intel pro/1000 PT PCIe x1 card. This helped.

I suggest intel pro/1000 MT ethernet card plugged into 32 bit PCI slot and see if the Phenom CPU get better with website. These line of these have TCP/IP offload processing baked into this ethernet chip.

Cheers,

AlexZ wrote on 2025-08-06, 19:46:

AM2+ with Phenom II 3.2Ghz does suprisingly well in Windows 7 era, I had expected it to be good up to Vista era only. It works well few years ahead unlike previous AMD CPUs.

Apart from games - i am still practically using my phenom II based system. With win7/linux it is still capable enough for browsing the internet and with NVENC/NVDEC from GTX750 it can play modern 4K videos (including youtube) and record 4K@60FPS. Given i still need win7 for work and the fact win7 does not work well on modern hardware i see no reason to retire this system for now. And here 4 cores actually help....

With all the downsides of this platform/CPUs this system lasted longer than any other one i've had so far...

AlexZ wrote on 2025-08-06, 11:25:

candle_86 wrote on 2025-08-05, 21:34:

I've got an OEM board that only supports Phenom 1 and A64/Sempron chips, its not an option its fastest supported cpu is the x4 9650 or x2 6000 89W 🤣

If it supports Phenom 1 then it should support Phenom X4 9950 BE. I have found it to be underpowered for gaming due to low locks in Re: Any love for AM2? . Lower clocked Phenoms are not worth it at all. The best choice is Athlon X2 6400+ 3.2Ghz (Windsor) or Phenom II X4 3-3.2Ghz.

no you missed the 89W, the board supports max 95W cpus so 9750, 9850, and 9950 are out1

AlexZ wrote on 2025-08-06, 19:46:

Phenom X4 9950 BE (B3 stepping) that I tested doesn't have the TLB bug. It is the only Phenom 1 model that makes sense to use for retro rigs. Most Phenoms that I have seen on sale are B3, so you will not be facing the TLB bug. The main problem is too low clocks. 2MB of L3 cache doesn't compensate the major drop in clock speed. 65nm process was a total flop on AMD's side. It can't compete with 6MB cache in c2duo E8600 either. I originally thought I would be using Phenom X4 in my AM2+ rig, but it turned out to be too slow for gaming. Phenom 1 really needed 400Mhz higher clocks. Phenom II isn't any revolutionary change. It is just Phenom on 45nm and larger L3 cache. 2008 was a really bad year for AMD.

AM2+ with Phenom II 3.2Ghz does suprisingly well in Windows 7 era, I had expected it to be good up to Vista era only. It works well few years ahead unlike previous AMD CPUs.

DDR3 doesn't benefit the Phenom II architecture much, they also work well in AM2+ with DDR2.

DDR3 benefits it massively. As someone who was on Phenom II until 2013 and still onto a living room HTPC until 2020 DDR3 helps a lot. In software from 2008 no it won't show a benefit but even tests in 2010 and 2011 showed 10-15% difference in performance between the same Phenom II on DDR2 and DDR3. Phenom II was good realistically until 2015/2016 when games started requiring instructions it didn't have, for the average person a good Phenom II X4 + 8gb DDR3 was all they needed, the DDR3 also let them beat the Core2 Quads finally, and the i5 6xx cpus, and don't forget later in life the Phenom II X4 competed with the i3 2xxx and it was a tossup in performance while the X6 competed with the i5 2xxx and they traded blows depending on workload.

As for viability for retro rigs, it really depends on what your after, I've got one rocking a Phenom X4 9500 just because i can.

Phenom II north bridge/L3 cache work at 2 GHz, so unless NB part is overclocked, it does not benefit much from anything beyond DDR2 1066 MHz.

candle_86 wrote on 2025-08-12, 11:36:

DDR3 benefits it massively. As someone who was on Phenom II until 2013 and still onto a living room HTPC until 2020 DDR3 helps a lot. In software from 2008 no it won't show a benefit but even tests in 2010 and 2011 showed 10-15% difference in performance between the same Phenom II on DDR2 and DDR3. Phenom II was good realistically until 2015/2016 when games started requiring instructions it didn't have, for the average person a good Phenom II X4 + 8gb DDR3 was all they needed, the DDR3 also let them beat the Core2 Quads finally, and the i5 6xx cpus, and don't forget later in life the Phenom II X4 competed with the i3 2xxx and it was a tossup in performance while the X6 competed with the i5 2xxx and they traded blows depending on workload.

As for viability for retro rigs, it really depends on what your after, I've got one rocking a Phenom X4 9500 just because i can.

Phenom II X4 955 BE with 4x DDR2 800 unganged running at 4 4 4 12 has memory bandwidth 9.75GB/s, 77% bandwidth efficiency in SiSoft Sandra 2013. It isn't that good, in Athlon XP times we saw much better values in terms of efficiency. It is even worse in Everest. My measurements showed it depends also on CPU clock speed and uncore clock (just 2 Ghz for Phenom II). Low clocked Athlon 64 barely benefited from DDR2, especially 667. These benchmarks also contain measurements for DDR3 and it isn't that great for Phenom II. I don't have the exact value but bandwidth efficiency is very low.

See Re: Any love for AM2? and Re: Any love for AM2? for comparison of Athlon 64 X2 6000+, GeForce GTX 480 (we are CPU bottlenecked) with DDR2 800 and DDR2 1000. See 3d mark 2006 breakdown, 1024x768. We added 20% memory bandwidth and didn't get much back in exchange.

My testing showed a CPU like AMD Phenom X4 9500 is not a good choice for Windows XP retro gaming because the CPU clock is too low.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-08-12, 12:30:

Phenom II north bridge/L3 cache work at 2 GHz, so unless NB part is overclocked, it does not benefit much from anything beyond DDR2 1066 MHz.

That is consistent with my findings. It seems one could run Phenom II X6 on AM2+ at DDR2 1066 and not be bottlenecked. DDR2 1066 would provide theoretical 8533MB/s with unganged memory controllers, so for each CPU core separately, with up to 2x in total bandwidth. The value I measured represents bandwidth for all cores simultaneously.

For reference SiSoft Sandra 2013:
- cache bandwidth L1: 248GB/s, L2: 122GB/s, L3: 42GB/s

Main benefit of DDR3 for Phenom II is higher memory capacity.

candle_86 wrote on 2025-08-12, 11:36:

DDR3 benefits it massively. As someone who was on Phenom II until 2013 and still onto a living room HTPC until 2020 DDR3 helps a lot. In software from 2008 no it won't show a benefit but even tests in 2010 and 2011 showed 10-15% difference in performance between the same Phenom II on DDR2 and DDR3. Phenom II was good realistically until 2015/2016 when games started requiring instructions it didn't have, for the average person a good Phenom II X4 + 8gb DDR3 was all they needed, the DDR3 also let them beat the Core2 Quads finally, and the i5 6xx cpus, and don't forget later in life the Phenom II X4 competed with the i3 2xxx and it was a tossup in performance while the X6 competed with the i5 2xxx and they traded blows depending on workload.

As for viability for retro rigs, it really depends on what your after, I've got one rocking a Phenom X4 9500 just because i can.

Not, anything on AM2/3 is not even remotely close to sandy/ivy bridge. Yes, 4 core CPU can probably compete with 2 core one and perhaps 6 core with 4 core if you compare them in perfectly multi-threaded workload, but ultimately single thread performance is what matters, even now, more so then. And phenoms are hopelessly behind on that, basically on a level of high-end LGA775.

And as someone who used this CPUs i've never seen DDR3 benefit them significantly, the same as with LGA775. The difference is there, but usually it is negligible.

I have a 2.4 GHz Q6600 and it has no problems opening a site in Firefox on FreeBSD.

I am of opinion, that under no circumstances, should amd64 platform with PCI express be conflated with retro or vintage stuff, regardless of the age.
If things in computer architecture don't change these platforms could reach nominal 'vintage' age of 25 years but they still won't be vintage or retro because they're the contemporary platform.

486/PCI PCs weren't called retro or vintage in 2000s, they were just called junk.