recommended MB for phenom?

[apaige]

Redeeman: first, you're comparing a 3.2 GHz CPU to a 2.7 GHz CPU. That's a 4x500 MHz difference. Second, something must be wrong on the guy's Phenom setup, because pbzip2 completes in 25.4 seconds on my Phenom 9600 (2.3 GHz). That's over twice as fast on a CPU that's slower by 4x400 MHz, and less than 5 seconds slower than the 3.2 GHz Q9450 with a difference of 4x900 MHz.

Since the pbzip2 test relies a lot on memory bandwidth, I wonder if ganged/unganged mode has something to do with the performance discrepancies.

Edit: my bad, I was still using the old 45 MB wav file (concatenated 8 times). But even with the new 82 MB file (times 8), pbzip2 completes in 38.4 seconds on my Phenom.

[Kano]

Yes maybe better OC the Phenom too or try the Q9450 at stock speed (2666), you just need to know that you can not OC to more than 8*400=3200 (default fsb is 333) with standard DDR2-800. The limit with DDR2-1066 is 8*533.3=4266. As my 65nm E6600 can easyly go up to 3200 with stock cooler (maybe I get one better one some time) I don't think that 3200 is a real limit for the Q9450...

[Melcar]

Yes maybe better OC the Phenom too or try the Q9450 at stock speed (2666), you just need to know that you can not OC to more than 8*400=3200 (default fsb is 333) with standard DDR2-800. The limit with DDR2-1066 is 8*533.3=4266. As my 65nm E6600 can easyly go up to 3200 with stock cooler (maybe I get one better one some time) I don't think that 3200 is a real limit for the Q9450...

A decent DDR2-800 set could match DDR2-1000 speeds easy, and I've seen some pushing DDR2-1066. If going for an AMD system and plan to overclock, one could do with DDR2-800 memory. On an Intel system it's worth it to go DDR2-1066, simply because you could very easily run the RAM/fsb 1:1 which will really boost performance (as opposed to running 1:1 on an AM2/AM2+ machine).