Thanks Paul. From the information that you linked, I've concluded that
waiting for the BIOSs to get de-bugged would be wise. Perhaps the price will
go down by then also. I also need to run some of those benchmark programs on
my current system and compare my results. Ultimately, I'm looking for a
significant increase in overall performance to justify my costs. At first
glance - performance gains considered - it doesn't appear to be a good
investment at $260 per device.
-James
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message:
> James wrote:
>> I have 2 AM2 systems. The M2N-E & M2A-VM HDMI.
>>
>> I guess my first question would be if the current BIOSs (1202 & 1601)
>> will accomodate this cpu..?
>>
>> The big question: Is it worth the $260 per machine to upgrade? My reason
>> would be for overall performance. The alternative would be to give the
>> technology another year before upgrading.
>>
>> Also, will Vista 32bit Business edition utilize the 4 cpu cores?
>>
>> -james
>
> The supported motherboard list is pretty short right now. (Manual line
> wrap
> for a stupid news server).
>
> http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/c...r.aspx?type=0&
>
> name=Phenom%209600%20(HD9600WCJ4BGD)%2C2.3GHz%2C95 W%2CSocketAM2%2B%2CQuad-Core&SLanguage=en-us
>
> So some people here did their own testing.
>
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=166792
>
> If you have software that can harness four cores, then why not.
> Try Microsoft Flight Simulator FSX SP1, as it uses four cores.
> The description here (no picture) describes one core as
> pegged, and the others averaging lesser amounts.
>
> http://www.fsx.co.za/showthread.php?t=1504
>
> This is Supreme Command running on four cores. Not all threads
> are doing the same amount of work, which is not surprising.
>
> http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==
>
> Both games seem to share the pattern. The thing is, if you have
> "helper threads" running in a program, they'll have to synchronize
> once in a while, as everything feeds into the displaying of frames
> at some point. So perhaps seeing that pattern should not be
> a surprise.
>
> For multimedia applications, where a task can be split into equal pieces
> and worked on by a set of cores, you see a better speedup characteristic.
> The Cinebench benchmark, for example, shows good scaling.
>
> http://www.legitreviews.com/article/597/7/
>
> The enthusiast sites have to struggle, to show the benefits of multi-core
> processors. It takes the latest software to get the best effects, so the
> budget for the project is going to involve more than buying the
> processors.
>
> Paul