# athlon II x4 630 vs q6600



## kdfresh09

hello.  im currently running the q6600 overclocked to 3.2Ghz.  i have a x4 630 sitting here doing nothing but collecting dust.  im wondering how well does the x4 630 compete with the q6600 when it comes to overclocking.  the q6600 has 8 megs of l2 cache, as the x4 630 only has 2.  stock the 630 runs 400Mhz faster than the q6600, but ill be overclocking for sure.  i have 6 gigs of ddr3 1066 sitting around as well, just no MB to put the stuff in, which is why im contemplating on buying a MB for the 630 and selling the rig in my sig, or sell the 630 and keep my current rig.  tell me what you would do


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## mx344

You could probably get that 630 up to 3.8ghz, but not much more, it would be pretty close with the q6600, i cant remember what the q6600 Oc's to its been a while, but it should get up there in the 3.5-3.8 range.


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## Twist86

3.2ghz is typical...3.6ghz is the goal and 3.8ghz is achieved with water I think.
Id go with the AMD chip...superior to the Q6600 + 45nm + cooler + better overclock per person. Plus DDR3 makes it a even better option. Personally though id sell the Phenom and wait for the 6 core Intel to come out and fall in price then upgrade.

Least that is what I plan to do


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## 87dtna

They are pretty evenly matched CPU's, and they both max out at about the same overclock of 3.8ghz on air.   

But, I would personally run the Athlon II with an AM3 board.  Get atleast a 790gx board.


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## kdfresh09

well currently im only at 3.2Ghz with the q6600, and 3.5 is the highest it will go.  and for those who misunderstood, its a athlon II x4 not a phenom that i have sitting around.  so, i think i will go with the amd chip, and sell my rig in my sig.  if anyone is intrested let me know.  but since i have always used intel, im a little lame when it comes to picking a good amd board.  i know i like asus and gigabyte, mainly gigabyte, and will only need one pci e slot, since i prefer to run one good card.  i might as well get a board that has usb 3.0, and sata 6.0...so if anyone can post some links along those guidlines it would be great.  my budget would be say...$125 including shipping to 48706.  if i need to go higher i can but would rather not.  by the way, i will be keeping the gtx260, and putting a 4890 in its place when i sell the pc in my sig...yeah i know the 4890 is better right. well ive compared them during gameplay, and i just feel the 260 is a bit more smoother than the ati card.  besides, ill probably end up selling them both and get a new nvidia card after the summer.  thanks again all


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## ganzey

Twist86 said:


> 3.2ghz is typical...3.6ghz is the goal and 3.8ghz is achieved with water I think.
> Id go with the AMD chip...superior to the Q6600 + 45nm + cooler + better overclock per person. Plus DDR3 makes it a even better option. Personally though id sell the Phenom and *wait for the 6 core Intel to come out and fall* in price then upgrade.
> 
> Least that is what I plan to do



umm, its already out. 

i'd wait for the 6 core amd bulldozer. i hear it is going to have an equivalent of hyper threading


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## kdfresh09

wait for what?...i already have the athlon II x 4 630. im just not using it right now.  im using the q6600.  i have a dell am3 board, but i cant overclock with it.  when i run vantage, on the 630, the cpu score is sinificantly lower than the q6600, which makes me wonder if its truly in the same rank as it, and when i do intle burn test, it gives you  a read aout of the gigaflops, well the q6600 gets like 39, and the 630 gets around 34, so i still dont know.  maybe if i had some suggestions on the MB to get then it would help, but maybe i should just save my $ and wait for this pc to become more outdated, and then sell all my stuff and get a new build going in a year or something, after all this computer does play games fine on max settings.


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## 87dtna

Well you are comparing 3.2ghz on the Q6600 and 2.8ghz on the athlon II correct?
Gaming performance, clock for clock, the Q6600 will have the edge because of the cache.  But if you are running 3.2ghz on the Q6600, running 3.4-3.6ghz on the Athlon II will be the same performance even with gaming.

As for gtx260 VS the 4890, I'd rather have the 260 as well LOL.  Nvidia cards have always seemed better to me, and I've tested dozens of cards.  Everybody on this forum calls me the Nvidia fanboy, but thats only because they are ATI fanboys and they don't want their ego hurt because they run ATI cards.


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## Aastii

87dtna said:


> Well you are comparing 3.2ghz on the Q6600 and 2.8ghz on the athlon II correct?
> Gaming performance, clock for clock, the Q6600 will have the edge because of the cache.  But if you are running 3.2ghz on the Q6600, running 3.4-3.6ghz on the Athlon II will be the same performance even with gaming.
> 
> As for gtx260 VS the 4890, I'd rather have the 260 as well LOL.  Nvidia cards have always seemed better to me, and I've tested dozens of cards.  Everybody on this forum calls me the Nvidia fanboy, but thats only because they are ATI fanboys and they don't want their ego hurt because they run ATI cards.



I run ATi, that doesn't make me an ATi fanboy, I have run both cards and am happy with both. The 4890 beats the 260 every time, look at any benchmarks, be it ingame benchmarks or performance benchmarks, the 4890 is always on top.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart...s-charts-2009-high-quality/benchmarks,74.html

that is one source to prove it, there are several other out there


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## 87dtna

Aastii said:


> I run ATi, that doesn't make me an ATi fanboy, I have run both cards and am happy with both. The 4890 beats the 260 every time, look at any benchmarks, be it ingame benchmarks or performance benchmarks, the 4890 is always on top.
> 
> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart...s-charts-2009-high-quality/benchmarks,74.html
> 
> that is one source to prove it, there are several other out there



I know that about the benchmarks, and I knew someone would post benchmark results.  But when gaming for real, Nvidia cards just seem to be smoother as the OP mentioned.  I've found it to be the same as he does, kinda hard to describe really.

If you haven't used a gtx200 series, I wouldn't expect you to understand.  I've owned a gtx260 and a 285.  I've never owned a 4890, but I've had three 4870's including 2 1gb's in Xfire and also a 4870 X2.  I preferred the 285 over the X2 anyday except when benching, and the 260 over a 4870 twice on sundays.


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## El Gappo

87dtna said:


> I know that about the benchmarks, and I knew someone would post benchmark results.  But when gaming for real, Nvidia cards just seem to be smoother as the OP mentioned.  I've found it to be the same as he does, kinda hard to describe really.
> 
> If you haven't used a gtx200 series, I wouldn't expect you to understand.  I've owned a gtx260 and a 285.  I've never owned a 4890, but I've had three 4870's including 2 1gb's in Xfire and also a 4870 X2.  I preferred the 285 over the X2 anyday except when benching, and the 260 over a 4870 twice on sundays.



I have seriously about 5 nvidia cards around the house in different rigs, folding photoshop etc but when it comes to gaming I have to stick with ati  The image quality is so much better, (AA actually gets rid of the jaggies) catalyst control center is nice and easy to use and l4d is much more ati friendly :good:

@op I would probably go for the athlon because 775 gear is so overpriced atm  ( says he who just bought 4 775 cpu's  ) and in terms of upgradeability am3 wins hands down.


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## bomberboysk

El Gappo said:


> I have seriously about 5 nvidia cards around the house in different rigs, folding photoshop etc but when it comes to gaming I have to stick with ati  The image quality is so much better, (AA actually gets rid of the jaggies) catalyst control center is nice and easy to use and l4d is much more ati friendly :good:
> 
> @op I would probably go for the athlon because 775 gear is so overpriced atm  ( says he who just bought 4 775 cpu's  ) and in terms of upgradeability am3 wins hands down.



Yup, especially with bulldozer coming, and Phenom II X6's on the way.


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## maroon1

If you already have Q6600, then there is no point in upgrading to Athlon II X4

You should get something like i5 750 or PII X4 965 if you want a noticeable performance improvement


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## Drenlin

ganzey said:


> i'd wait for the 6 core amd bulldozer. i hear it is going to have an equivalent of hyper threading



No, it won't, but what it does have is much better. Hyperthreading fits two threads into one pipeline, but AMD's system actually has two cores per "module"...so every thread has its own pipeline(s). That's oversimplifying it, though. The design is far more complex than your typical CPU, and thinking of a module as two separate cores is inaccurate, as many of their resources are shared, or in the case of the FP unit, can fluctuate between being shared and being dedicated. Here's a map of it:





It's actually somewhat similar to stream processing.


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## 87dtna

El Gappo said:


> I have seriously about 5 nvidia cards around the house in different rigs, folding photoshop etc but when it comes to gaming I have to stick with ati  The image quality is so much better, (AA actually gets rid of the jaggies) catalyst control center is nice and easy to use and l4d is much more ati friendly :good:
> .




What are the nvidia cards you have?   And what ATI cards are you comparing with?


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## kdfresh09

alright, well i thinkn i have made up my mind.  even though i have both the athlon II x4 630 and q6600, as well as the 4890 and gtx260, since i already have a nice gigabyte board running the q6600, and since the athlon II x4 will be comparable at 3.4-3.6 to the current 3.2Ghz q6600 i will save my money and continue to use the rig in my sig until it can no longer play games at max settings or until the end od summer or the year, when then i will invest in a new platform from either amd or intel.  i know its hard to understand what i meant when i said that the gtx 260 runs smoother than the 4890.  i know that any benchmark out there will show higher results for the 4890, but in my experiance with the 2 cards in real time playing, the 260 just seems superior with the games that i play.  for example, guitar hero 3, with the 4890, it stutters alot, and with the 260, its smooth as butter, even though they both are consistantly pulling 60fps according to fraps.  anyways, thanks for all the advice.  and if anyone is intrested in buying the 4890 or Athlon II x 4 630 then feel free to let me know, since i dont use them at all and both are in pristine condition with less than 12 hours af run time on them, ive also got an Athlon II x2 235 and 240 (2.7 and 2.8Ghz) am3 cpu's, an nvidia 8600 gt 256mb pci-e card, and a few hard drives (ide and sata) ranging from 80 gigs to 750 gigs and i have a i3 m330 cpu and a socket 775 celeron d 3.2Ghz cpu, i thonk thats about it...thanks again


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## El Gappo

87dtna said:


> What are the nvidia cards you have?   And what ATI cards are you comparing with?



ATM I have 8400gs 8500gt 8800gt galaxy volt mod edition and a zotac gtx260 up and running. 
I go for the 5770 or 5670 for gaming. Really have been spoiled with the edge detect and real AA  If you look at l4d2 maxed on ati and nvidia side by side it's like day and night. ( Well probably dawn and dusk but still ) The lack of lag spikes with ati is a massive plus as well but that's probably down to vram and drivers.


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## 87dtna

Well, comparing the XFX 5770 I've owned.....let me put it this way, I traded the 5770 away and kept the 8800gts 512mb instead!  I notice 0 difference in picture quality on a full 1080 monitor.

With no AA/AF, both cards peg the 125 FPS cap playing COD WAW multiplayer.  But with 8x/8x, the gts and the 5770 were all over the place from 60-100 FPS.  The EVGA GTX260 I used to have would run 8x/16x with it 100% pegged at 125fps the whole time no matter what.  All my cards I run overclocked to whatever is max stable.  gts is at 750/1100, 260 at 670/1200, and 5770 at 960/1350.


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