Posted on 28 April 2010. Tags: amd cpus, amd phenom, black edition, consumption figures, core amd, cpu sockets, drives intel, dual core cpu, home server, imminent release, impending release, Norco, phenom II, phenom II x4 955, phenom II x4 955 be, phenom II x4 965, picopsu, power consumption, seagate momentus, server v2, test systems, WHS, x25, x4
After using one of the the lowest power AMD CPUs around, the Sempron 140 Sargas (single core) in a WHS, I decided to go to the other extreme and try a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. With the release of six core AMD CPU’s, and the existence of the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, the Phenom II X4 BE chip is not the highest end AMD CPU out there. On the other hand, WHS is currently based on the older 32-bit Windows Server 2003 kernel, so it runs on dual core CPU’s just fine. The impending release of Windows Home Server V2 VAIL means that 64-bit will be the new requirement and a bit more power will be needed for future WHS systems. A quad core is overkill but a six core CPU is basically a waste for WHS. Luckily, with the Phenom II X4 955 BE’s unlocked multiplier, we can emulate a Phenom II X4 965 BE through a very mild overclock, and some other AMD CPUs as well. The following is a quick review of what I encountered with the Phenom II X4 955 BE, and how I managed to get the Phenom II X4 955 to boot using the PicoPSU (to get comparable idle power consumption figures).
Phenom II X4 955 Boxed
Posted in Server CPUs
Posted on 19 April 2010. Tags: amd phenom, amd sempron, amd systems, benchmarks, cardboard box, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, corsair dominator, home server, micro atx, motherboard, nvidia geforce, q6600, Review, seagate momentus, socket am3, WHS, Windows Home Server
Although I am a big Intel CPU fan right now, I do run AMD systems also. Case and point, this weekend I bought an AMD Phenom II x4 955 + USB 3.0 and SATA 3 motherboard, and I built an AMD Sempron 140 based Windows Home Server (WHS). I decided to do a few benchmarks so that I could compare the Sempron 140 Sargas against the Intel i3-530 and i5-650. I did run into one problem, I didn’t have a spare case lying around, so I made one out of a
Corsair Dominator GT (DDR3 1600 C7) box. Yes, this is a WHS in a cardboard box.
Sempron 140 WHS - In a Corsair Cardboard Box
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Posted in Server CPUs
