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if your looking at a AMD Phenom 9500 or 9600
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:39 pm
by renovation
Though both the 9500 and the 9600 appear to be widely available now, AMD recently owned up to a bug in the first generation of its Phenom and Barcelona chips that can cause systems to lock up when running certain rare software workloads at clock speeds greater than 2.4 GHz. A BIOS upgrade is available as a work-around, but according to enthusiast Web site "The Tech Report," the work-around slows performance by up to 10%. The faster Phenom processors that the company is preparing for release in the first quarter of 2008 should have this error corrected.
lot more info here -
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9054898&source=NLT_PM&nlid=8
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:40 pm
by NubyCanuby_OFC
Also you need a new BIOS update for Phenom to work. If it's before November it won't work.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/26/ ... herboards/
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:41 pm
by GuardianAsher
Actually, this bug has been public for quite some time. I first read about it in late Nov/early Dec. But still, it could be a deal-breaker...
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:54 pm
by b-man1
the article states that the bug only appears under rare conditions and when running >2.4GHz...which is overclocking the chips in question. the 2.4GHz+ were not released as of the article and they said it would be corrected in those.
so, if you don't overclock it isn't an issue...and to me that's not really fair to call it a bug if the chip runs perfectly at the stated/sold GHz.
.02
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:10 pm
by Justlookin
b-man1 wrote:the article states that the bug only appears under rare conditions and when running >2.4GHz...which is overclocking the chips in question. the 2.4GHz+ were not released as of the article and they said it would be corrected in those.
so, if you don't overclock it isn't an issue...and to me that's not really fair to call it a bug if the chip runs perfectly at the stated/sold GHz.
.02
Not a wiz on putes anymore, but what you just said really makes sense...LOL
I used to build my own rigs back in the 3.1 and win 95 days..... I'm ancient on this new stuff....LOL
I used to buy all the state of the art stuff and by the time I plugged the last part into my new box, it seemed I was already out of date...Go Figure....LOL
Not being a huge gamer, I decided to just start buying the new boxes with the most current stuff in them. I at least got 6 months out of a system that way before I was obsolite....LOL
On the fun side though everyone on PCA... I just love watching you guys built new putes every 6 months or so.....

:lol :lol
I love the humor of that here. For me, but maybe not for you....LOL
Carry on gents and keep up the good work. If anyone ever gets a model built that can do 20 years let me know. I'll buy one from ya!!