Athlon II X4 620 or Phenom II 550BE ???

Hello,

I am planning to build a real budget pc for my home in this week. It will be mainly used for the following purpose.

1. Gaming
2. Browsing
3. Desktop Processing
4. HTPC
5. Download rig, 24x7 operation
6. Photoshop
7. VMware
8. Graphics rendering (learning only)
9. Video editing

To meet all my requirements I have shortlisted the following config. I seek your valuable opinion on this and suggest me a good
Config under Rs. 35000 INR ($700).

Athlon II X4 620 or Phenom II 550 BE
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H
2 GB Transcend DDR3
Iball gamer cabinet
Gigabyte Superb 460w PSU
Microsoft Keyboard/mouse kit
Altec Lansing VS4121
Graphics Card - ATI HD 4xxx series (will purchase later)

Parts already bought :
LG 22" Monitor TV with HDMI
Seagate 320 GB SATA
Sony DVD writer
Pixel view TV Tuner - USB

I am in dilemma that whether I buy the phenom II 550 BE and then unlock the hidden cores to quad core and over clock to 3.7GHz to get the 6mb L3 cache for better gaming performance or grab the Athlon II x4 620 2.6ghz without L3 cache for its quad core feature.

My questions are :

If I go for phenom II with unlocking the cores will that be equal to quad core proccy and whether the motherboard I mentioned above will be suitable for unlocking the cores. If not please suggest me a good mobo (except ASUS) with ATI HD 4200 IGP and HDMI port. What is the disadvantage of unlocking the cores and over clocking ? And what PSU and how many watts are required to meet those criteria ?

If I go for Athlon II X4 620 will that provide better gaming performance and meet my other requirements especially HTPC ?


I am really confused on selecting between these two cpu.What should I go for . Please help me.

Thanks in advance.

You could buy phenom 2 550 and unlock the cores and that would be equivalent to a quad core processor almost the same as phenom 2 955. The only caveat is, it might not unlock as the cores could actually be bad. With a good batch, chances would be high though.
For gaming cache is very important, therefore p2 550 might be a better choice. For vmware quad core would be a better option as you would be able to run more virtual machines. Power consumption of A2 620 would be better compared to a p2 550 unlocked, so athlon might be better for 24/7 operation, p2 550 without unlock would be consume less power though.
gigabyte mobo would be able to unlock 550 without any problem.
If you can't get a good batch, I would personally prefer A2 620 overclocked to 3.5GHZ .

You'll go broke with a 24x7 rig running at those clockspeeds, unlocked or not.

My personal experience (I own both the CPUs you are asking about) is that the 550BE has the edge in gaming. For practically everything else, the 620 is a better CPU (including power consumption in a rig that stays for long periods near idle conditions). Multitasking is much smoother, and it handles the excessive demands of Windows7 just fine, whereas the 550BE would get a little flustered when you switched rapidly between applications.

Of course, the 550BE with two cores unlocked would beat it handily, I suppose, but I never went there myself. The 550BE is waiting for a motherboard to assume the role of a gaming system, the 620 is doing duty in the 24x7 rig.

thanks haraakiri,

BTW what do u mean by batch here ? u mean a new version of bios update ? any novice can unlock or OC the cpu if the mobo supports or it shud be done by an expert ?

Afaik, You can not unlock every 550BE, their are only specific batches of 550BE, which you can unlock. So you will be playing a gamble. or search if you can get those specific batch's proccy.

Here’s the thumb rule that I use. If you want future proofing and good performance even after some months, go for the Athlon II X4 620. If not, if you need raw performance today and will upgrade later, then go for the Phenom II X2 550BE.

^^^+1 ...go for Athlon II X4 620..