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3000+ or 3200+?

E

Emultra

Golden Member
These are my option, any above this are uneconomical.

There's a price difference of approximately $57 between the 3000+ and the 3200+ where I live.

Is it worth it? Does the 3200+ have any overclocking abilities beyond the 3000+ that makes the price worthwhile?

Any other perks? Because otherswise, I'm saving the cash.
 
a 10x multiplier rather than a 9x. It's worth it to me and of your going to go with one of the new nForce boards then you better get the bigger mult. because many are hitting clock barriers especially with the Asus. If you have the money to spend then don't skimp on the CPU! Then again i used to be an Intel guy so owning anything that runs less than 2.0 GHz was just to tough to swallow!
 
Then 3200+ it is.

I don't know if I can find an OEM pack, though. And I want good cooling. Any advice on that?
 
i would suggest the xp-90 or xp-120 for the cooler. personal preferance though, the 7700 and 120 run about the same temps.
 
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
Make sure that you get the 90nm Winchester one, as the newcastle is not nearly as good for ocing.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the Newcastle is a S754 chip that won't work on the A8N-SLI
 
Hehe, it's quite cold here right now. But then comes the summer, and there's no air condition...

And yes, it's a 90nm Winchester.

Is there a temperature I should strive to be below at all times?
 
I have my Winchester 3200+ cranked up to 2628mhz with the max volts of 1.55 (1.57-1.60 actual) on good aircooling and it runs 40-42c idle and 50-54c load. IMO as long as you stay under 60c your fine. These chips don't shut down to protect themselves until 70c. I've seen people running them as high as 68c but I wouldn't.
 
If i were you I would get the 3000+ because they all top out at the same clock speed when OCed, I have seen way more 3000+ OCed to 2.6+ than 3200+. Maybe you could save the 57 and invest in a better Video card or something
 
Originally posted by: Emultra
What's the benefit of getting an extra multiplier?
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it eases the oc stress on your mb cause your fsb isnt as high. use the stock cooler. it works up to 2.6-2.7 ghz mostly.
 
Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
Make sure that you get the 90nm Winchester one, as the newcastle is not nearly as good for ocing.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the Newcastle is a S754 chip that won't work on the A8N-SLI
Click to expand...

What ever one you pick make sure it is the 90nm Winchester. I also have the Zelman 7700 Cu all copper and they are efficient and very quiet. they have many different flavors so make sure that you check it out if you do decide to get a new heat sink/fan. Also, if your getting the Asus (this may be true of the DFI and Gigabyte as well) be prepared to replace the Active chipset cooler. The active cooler on the Asus is very noise and i hear they burn out! I'm not sure about that since i replaced mine about 2 days after i got the board. Zalmen offers a passive heat sink chipset cooler that may have turned to including myself!
 
Originally posted by: Emultra
Is it worth it? Does the 3200+ have any overclocking abilities beyond the 3000+ that makes the price worthwhile?
Click to expand...

My 10 cents: No. You will never notice it. Save the money for the next processor that destroys the A64 in everything rather than is 10% faster in a few apps.

OC the 3000+ as far as you can, and be happy.

 
Asus, Chaintech, and DFI all have nforce4 boards that overclock well. I have mine up to 283MHz (i'm not going further right now cause I'd have to up vcore, and i have stock cooling), and DFI boards can supposedly hit 318MHz and above. All it needs to support is a 300MHz FSB to hit the max of 2.7GHz with the 3000+. Still, with lower overclocks (2.3-2.4GHz), the 10x multi is nice cause you can buy cheap RAM and run your FSB slower. I'd go 3000+, but there are reasons for both chips.
 
Originally posted by: gobucks
Asus, Chaintech, and DFI all have nforce4 boards that overclock well. I have mine up to 283MHz (i'm not going further right now cause I'd have to up vcore, and i have stock cooling), and DFI boards can supposedly hit 318MHz and above. All it needs to support is a 300MHz FSB to hit the max of 2.7GHz with the 3000+. Still, with lower overclocks (2.3-2.4GHz), the 10x multi is nice cause you can buy cheap RAM and run your FSB slower. I'd go 3000+, but there are reasons for both chips.
Click to expand...

You can always use cheap ram even if your fsb is at 300, you can run your ram at 200 mhz. Anandtech performance tests have proven that the difference between running memory at DDR533 and DDR400 is 1-2% in gaming (when cpu speed is kept the same). And dividers don't have any perofrmance hit in athlon64, therefore I'd say that paying $150 extra for high end memory is not worth it. All you need is cheap ram that has decent timings at stock speed (for example, kingston hyperX can do 2-3-2-6 at DDR400) but doesn't need to be able to run at DDR500 and above. And you don't need special cooler as most a64 run well below 60C (which is fine) even at high overclocks of 2600-2700 mhz with the stock cooler, and getting a better cooler doesn't change your overclock limitation (but it does reduce the temps by 3-5 degrees). Given the fact that retail A64 costs only $5 more than OEM and has longer warranty, it's better to get the retail version and just use the stock cooler. Regarding 3200+, I think it has a slightly better chance to overclock, but you still have good chance with 3000+, so I don't think the 3200+ premium is worth it.

For example, look at the sig of the guy above me: he got a 3000+ probably for $150 or so, but then he got PC4000 ram for probably $300. Does it make sense to spend more on RAM than on your cpu and motherboard combined ? probably not, but let's see what he gains from it: he runs the memory at 283 mhz (DDR566) at 3-3-3-10 2T. But he could get cheap memory for $100 and run it with a divider at around 210 mhz 2.5-3-3-8 1T and get very close performance in gaming (within 1-2%), or even better because of the lower latencies. So maybe he could have spent that extra wasted cash on a decent drive, like a raptor 74GB sata/150, and a audigy2 zs which reduces cpu usage in gaming thus increasing frame rates by at least 5%, or better yet, spend an extra $100 on a better video card and get x800xl 256MB which will give you almost double performance in some games, especially at high resolutions.

So you see, some people are hung up on some ideas, and usually that ends up costing them a lot of money and giving much lower perofrmance......
 
Originally posted by: Emultra
Maybe I should wait with overclocking until I get a brand cooler.
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no the retail cooler will easily handle yoyur chip up to it's max oc.(remember they are the same coolers on the fx and 4000+)
 
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