Hi guys,

Just about to do a little PC upgrading, and one of the biggest decisions I have to make is which CPU to go for. Of course being a home family PC it'll be used for a spot of gaming and the likes, but to be honest the main reason is to crunch more workunits!!!

PhenomII x6 1055T or Core I5-750
6GB DDR3 (will be on either choice)

Currently running a Core2Duo E8400;
3040 MIPS (whetstone) & 8760 MIPS (dhrystone) per CPU

I know there'll be a bit of variation dependant on motherboard choice, RAM, etc, however I'd like to hear from anybody that has either of these CPU's to post their CPU benchmarks from Rosetta.

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys,

Just about to do a little PC upgrading, and one of the biggest decisions I have to make is which CPU to go for. Of course being a home family PC it'll be used for a spot of gaming and the likes, but to be honest the main reason is to crunch more workunits!!!

PhenomII x6 1055T or Core I5-750
6GB DDR3 (will be on either choice)

Currently running a Core2Duo E8400;
3040 MIPS (whetstone) & 8760 MIPS (dhrystone) per CPU

I know there'll be a bit of variation dependant on motherboard choice, RAM, etc, however I'd like to hear from anybody that has either of these CPU's to post their CPU benchmarks from Rosetta.

Thanks in advance!

If it were me I would go for more cores, the x6 is 6 cores while I believe the i5 is a quad core. More cores means more future program speed. A few years ago Adobe Photoshop was slow, now it takes advantage of 2 cores and rumors are future versions will take advantage of more. Other programs are similar, so as you upgrade your non Boinc programs you will want to take advantage of as much technology as you can. Boinc can already use as many cores as you have.

Thats what I was thinking - The more cores the merrier - However if the Intel chip can outperform the PhenomII on 4 Cores against 6 then it'd make sense to stay with Intel. Hence the query about performance :)

I'd shed 100 bucks more and get the fastest AMD 6-core CPU (Phenom II X6 1090T):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849

It beats the Intel i7 930.

If you want to get better performance that this from intel, then you'd have to shed A LOT more money and get their extreme editions. But that's definitely not worth it.

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7653&pageid=7033

Oh, and when it comes to Rosetta, the more cores the better.

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It'd be nice to simply insert more cash into the equation (not withstanding my idea of a server farm for BOINC when I win the lottery); However the 1090T is in (NZ Dollars) $150 more than the 1055 - Coming in at $NZ505; And that is wholesale pricing.

With the tight budget for this, I can only go either to the 1055T or the i5-750; However it appears I'll be leaning on the 1055T as other benchmarks I've read put the 1055T ahead of the 750. (guru3d.com)

With the other application of the build being the occasional game, GPU takes care of the performance anyways!

Bit sad, seeing as when I purchased my C2D-E8400 it was streets ahead of the AMD offerings. Now the tables have turned again!

It'd be nice to simply insert more cash into the equation (not withstanding my idea of a server farm for BOINC when I win the lottery); However the 1090T is in (NZ Dollars) $150 more than the 1055 - Coming in at $NZ505; And that is wholesale pricing.

With the tight budget for this, I can only go either to the 1055T or the i5-750; However it appears I'll be leaning on the 1055T as other benchmarks I've read put the 1055T ahead of the 750. (guru3d.com)

With the other application of the build being the occasional game, GPU takes care of the performance anyways!

Bit sad, seeing as when I purchased my C2D-E8400 it was streets ahead of the AMD offerings. Now the tables have turned again!

If you buy only one brand or the other you will be sad about half the time. When Intel is better AMD is figuring out how to be better, then when AMD is better Intel is figuring out how it can be better. They flip flop and that is why most of us have both kinds of chips in our farms. As I said before...buy the most cores you can afford and you be happier, for now. The longer you wait of course the more the prices will come down and the more you can afford. You can even wait so long you do nothing at all!

Oh and I would LOVE to get a nice Cray when I win the lottery, but the electricity upgrades and constant cooling requirements would mean I would have to win twice so I could enjoy the money.

It'd be nice to simply insert more cash into the equation (not withstanding my idea of a server farm for BOINC when I win the lottery); However the 1090T is in (NZ Dollars) $150 more than the 1055 - Coming in at $NZ505; And that is wholesale pricing.

With the tight budget for this, I can only go either to the 1055T or the i5-750; However it appears I'll be leaning on the 1055T as other benchmarks I've read put the 1055T ahead of the 750. (guru3d.com)

With the other application of the build being the occasional game, GPU takes care of the performance anyways!

Bit sad, seeing as when I purchased my C2D-E8400 it was streets ahead of the AMD offerings. Now the tables have turned again!

Go for the x6 Phenom still, you can probably OC it and get 1090 performance for the price of the 1055 ;) The Phenom here beats the i5 right out of the water.

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Thanks folks for your input; Have picked up the 1055T this morning and just about to start the due process of putting it together!

Thanks folks for your input; Have picked up the 1055T this morning and just about to start the due process of putting it together!

I do not see how you would have been disappointed with either choice! Let us know when it is up and running and what OS you are going to use on it.

Up and running now;

X6-1055T
Whetstone 2318 per CPU
Dhrystone 8503 per CPU

Against the old Core2-E8400 of 3040/8760 per CPU

So technically slower than my old rig, just so happens to counterbalance with more cores.

Oh, and its Win7 Ultimate x64 w/ 4GB DDR3

Hi Harbinger.

I'd like to know the spec's/parts for your new system, i'm thinking of building

one myself, only using the 1090T.

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Up and running now;

X6-1055T
Whetstone 2318 per CPU
Dhrystone 8503 per CPU

Against the old Core2-E8400 of 3040/8760 per CPU

So technically slower than my old rig, just so happens to counterbalance with more cores.

Oh, and its Win7 Ultimate x64 w/ 4GB DDR3

Those are really inaccurate benchmarks. Don't base a CPU's performance based on them.

Edit: You can try some mild OC'ing. That CPU should give you +200-300MHz, easy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the only difference between your CPU and the 1090 is that the 1090 is clocked faster.

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Up and running now;

X6-1055T
Whetstone 2318 per CPU
Dhrystone 8503 per CPU

Against the old Core2-E8400 of 3040/8760 per CPU

So technically slower than my old rig, just so happens to counterbalance with more cores.

Oh, and its Win7 Ultimate x64 w/ 4GB DDR3

Very nice!!! Now let it settle down some before you go making lots of changes, let it kind of 'burn in', so it has a routine. That way any changes you make will be against a known point instead of a moving point. What kind of video card did you put in it? If you put one in there you could end up crunching with it too depending on the model. You could also setup a virtual machine and crunch within it when the Project FreeHal gets up and running again. It is having pains right now and is down more than it is up but when it is up if you give the VM 1 gig of ram it will run 25 FreeHal units and you will get about another 4,000 or so credits per day from it. FreeHal runs in memory only and uses almost no cpu time to crunch. 64 bit Win7 has VM built in and you can run an XP machine easily within the OS. It is a little tricky in the beginning setting it up but once you do it is easy and fairly free. Win7 does not need 4 gig unless you do something strange, so giving the VM 1 gig of the 4 gig you have, which is exactly what I do, is painless. When FreeHal is up and running normally I can do 50 units at once, 25 in the real machine and 25 in the virtual machine, that is in addition to other projects I run on both the cpu and gpu.

Hi P.P.L

Specs are:

Gigabyte GA-890XA-UD3 AM3 motherboard
2x 2GB DDR3-1333 A-Data RAM modules
Gigabyte built ATI-HD5770 video card
1TB Western Digital Black Edition

Currently using stock standard cooler fan, and to be shortly replaced as Rosetta powering through the CPU makes it work rather hard.

I've read about the overclockability and find that power consumption goes up quite significantly for an extra ~500mhz.

Unfortunately with the ATI card it won't crunch work units, however I picked this due to the price/performance ratio against the Geforce 260 based cards - Lower power consumption and better FPS in games when they occasionally get played.

Hi P.P.L

Specs are:

Gigabyte GA-890XA-UD3 AM3 motherboard
2x 2GB DDR3-1333 A-Data RAM modules
Gigabyte built ATI-HD5770 video card
1TB Western Digital Black Edition

Currently using stock standard cooler fan, and to be shortly replaced as Rosetta powering through the CPU makes it work rather hard.

I've read about the overclockability and find that power consumption goes up quite significantly for an extra ~500mhz.

Unfortunately with the ATI card it won't crunch work units, however I picked this due to the price/performance ratio against the Geforce 260 based cards - Lower power consumption and better FPS in games when they occasionally get played.

I believe the 5770 CAN crunch for Collatz, DNETC and even Seti, this link http://developer.amd.com/gpu/ATIStreamSDK/Pages/default.aspx#two from DNETC shows the ATI 5770 will crunch just fine. And with 800 stream processing units your credits will fly up the charts! Because the ATI 57XX series is not Dual Precision it will not work on MilkyWay though.

Now if you crunch with it you will have to stop when you play games, it will not do both and still give you any kind of a chance in your shoot-em-up games.

Not to sound too pius about it, but the DnetC, MilkyWay@Home and Collatz projects aren't my cup of tea; - I ran Dnet for 3+ years and only stopped because I feel my CPU time is better served helping humanity find cures to Cancer and diseases than cracking cryptography (hence going for Rosetta).

But thank you for informing me that there are projects out there to use the ATI cards! - Will have to keep my eye out for worthwhile projects when they become available for the ATI technology.

Not to sound too pius about it, but the DnetC, MilkyWay@Home and Collatz projects aren't my cup of tea; - I ran Dnet for 3+ years and only stopped because I feel my CPU time is better served helping humanity find cures to Cancer and diseases than cracking cryptography (hence going for Rosetta).

But thank you for informing me that there are projects out there to use the ATI cards! - Will have to keep my eye out for worthwhile projects when they become available for the ATI technology.

The problem is that for the gpu cards there is not currently a disease curing project yet. There has been talk about it here at Rosetta but Rosetta does not lend itself well to the differences between cpu and gpu precision. Cpu's are VERY precise while gpu's are only sort of precise, by comparison. And when you get out towards the 10th decimal point, one number can mean a whole lot 10 calculations later! And a hundred calculations later, you are not even in the same ballpark!!

Not to sound too pius about it, but the DnetC, MilkyWay@Home and Collatz projects aren't my cup of tea; - I ran Dnet for 3+ years and only stopped because I feel my CPU time is better served helping humanity find cures to Cancer and diseases than cracking cryptography (hence going for Rosetta).

But thank you for informing me that there are projects out there to use the ATI cards! - Will have to keep my eye out for worthwhile projects when they become available for the ATI technology.

The problem is that for the gpu cards there is not currently a disease curing project yet. There has been talk about it here at Rosetta but Rosetta does not lend itself well to the differences between cpu and gpu precision. Cpu's are VERY precise while gpu's are only sort of precise, by comparison. And when you get out towards the 10th decimal point, one number can mean a whole lot 10 calculations later! And a hundred calculations later, you are not even in the same ballpark!!

The three are the only ones available as noted with GPU Grid and SaH (for AP tasks) on deck with ATI applications in alpha or Beta testing ... I have also heard rumors of one for Aqua as well (OpenCL) ... Einstein has said they are working on an OpenCL version of their application as well, though their CUDA application is nothing to write home about ...

There are a couple reasons to add you GPU to those projects even if you are not that sold on the science (I would put them as MW, Collatz, and DNETC in order of scientific utility) and that is to build the use numbers more ... not to mention your own CS score ... :)

Hi Harbinger.

I got this board the other day, getting the other parts shortly.


GA-890GPA-UD3H

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Hi Harbinger.

I got this board the other day, getting the other parts shortly.


GA-890GPA-UD3H

Looks like a VERY good start!!