AM2 Windsor F3 Overclocking on mATX

[lopri]

For my new HTPC (well, first time trying indeed) I decided to give it a shot on AM2 platform. From Intel side, the mobo choices were quite limited and lacking. I wanted HDMI or at least a DVI on mATX, with some decent overclocking potential. Intel-branded mATX boards might be stable, but they're severely lacking when it comes to features and overclocking. On the other hand, nForce-based AM2 mATX boards were quite mature. Also the recent review on AT made me very curious about the last breath of these AMD's 90nm CPUs.

The money spent so far is pretty petty even considering many price-cuts we've enjoyed. All I've purchased for now is the CPU (X2 3800+, F3 Windsor) and the motherboard (Biostar 7050-M2)

X2 3800+ ($65 with free Call of Juarez game) + Biostar 7050 ($80) - PayPal discount ($20) = $125.

So I got the CPU, mobo and the game for 25. The rest of stuff are what I've had from various impulse buys, and also quite cheap and generic stuff.

HSF: Socket 939 Opteron stock HSF (w/ 4 heat-pipes)
RAM: Promos IC based DDR2-667 (4x1GB) - Throughout the testing, vDIMM was consistent @2.05V
PSU: Antec TruePower II 550W (20-pin antique)
HDD: WD 100GB (IDE)

First up is Windows XP.

3.0GHz @1.33V Load
3.0GHz @1.36V Idle

Update (w/ Thermalright Ultra-120)
3.0GHz @1.31V Load
3.0GHz @1.33V Idle

Since the machine will be used for HTPC, I installed Windows Vista and continued testing. I was able to lower the vCore slightly. (-0.025V) Processor sub-score is 5.5, and memory score 5.9.

3.0GHz w/ 4GB RAM Vista Performance Rating

Switched the HSF from stock Socket 939 Opteron heat sink (4 heat pipes) to Thermalright Ultra-120 and OCCT passed at 3.2GHz @1.49V!

X2 3800+ F3 Windsor @3.2GHz/1.49V

Installed a 8600 GT (thus disabling on-board 7050 video) and ran the Vista Performance Rating again. For whatever reason, the 32-bit OS recognizes 3.5GB of RAM with a discrete graphics card?!

3.2GHz w/ 4GB RAM Vista Performance Rating

Now I started testing the board's HTT limit. The board boots fine at 9x333 currently. Will see how far it can go. It's an amazing feat for an mATX board, to say the least.

All in all, I am more than impressed by the overclocking potential of the latest AM2 stepping. While the rig is not inside a case yet, the thermal characteristic is also excellent. With Socket 939 stock Opteron HSF (4 heat pipes), it (@3.0GHz) idles at ~30C and loads ~40C. Same for 3.2GHz with Ultra 120. All this on an mATX board. The on-board video has no problem handling Vista Aero @1920x1200, and 720P HD conents. (But 1080P gave some stutters)

I am thinking of this case from Antec for the case to house this rig. But for now, I should say the Windsor F3 is a heck of an overclocker and a very good candidate for a budget/HTPC build.

 

[zach0624]

I hate you, I can't get my 5600+ above 3.2ghz and payed $160 for just it. nice oc.

 

[MarcVenice]

Wow that's some SWEET performance for 125$, I very much doubt Intel can beat that right now.

Wish my mobo and/or cpu would go past 2.6ghz

 

[bryanW1995]

don't feel bad marc, I got 3.5 out of my system...of course, I paid $825 for all the upgrades...that's awesome lopri!

 

[lopri]

Even nicer (actually the nicest, for me at least) thing about this setup is that you don't need a discreet video card. (and even supports 2 displays!!) Granted, with current drivers 1080P isn't really smooth, but it handles 720P really well - pictures are clear and frame rate is smooth. With its native HDMI port, it's a perfect fit for my 2 year old plasma TV (720P). It's very recent that mATX boards with DVI/HDMI ports start to show up on Intel platform, and those boards are going for $120~150. (Or you need a separate add-in board that takes up PEG slot for DVI/HDMI output) And we all know how Intel's "Extreme Graphics" perform.

Also, it kinda brought me a reminiscence - only a couple years ago (when X2's first came out), folks were getting 2.7~2.8GHz max OC on high-end boards, with expensive CPUs. And that was with 1.5V-ish vCore. lol. And believe it or not, the manufacturing process (now and then) is the same 90nm. I guess by now AMD = the master of 90nm process. (Heh.. only if they were that good with 65nm..) It's one of the reasons why I feel comfortable giving ~0.15V extra vCore on this CPU for 3.0GHz. My X2 3800+'s default vCore is 1.18V, and extra ~0.2V only brings it up to 1.40V-ish. That's a very comfortable voltage level for these 90nm CPUs, especially looking at the extremely low temperatures.

I think I'm going to have some more fun with overclocking before I actually put things together in the case. Right now I'm testing memory configuration, and once again feel the strength of high-quality memory-controller built-in the A64 CPUs. I find various MC's on Intel/NV chipsets are pretty limited and fragile, compared to A64's strong and efficient IMC, and it shows. Will post a follow-up later.

 

[DrMrLordX]

That's a sweet chip. My X2-3600+ was able to reach similar speeds, but it took better cooling and more vcore to get there. 3.2 ghz took maybe 1.575v which is just too much, though that was under Windows. I could probably get it stable under Linux with less vcore. As it stands, it can do maybe 2.6 ghz stable in Windows at stock vcore, while in Linux, it's good for around 2.8 ghz. Go figure.

I have to wonder whether or not I should take AMD's latest 90nm improvements to be a good sign or not, considering the fact that they should have moved over to 65nm completely by now. Not that I have anything against Windsor cores, mind you . . . the performance of your Windsor is slightly better than my Brisbane, clock per clock, if only due to l2 performance. Maybe K10 should have been released on the 90nm process.

And I totally agree about the memory controller! Watching the cycle latency on my Brisbane scale perfectly with fixed CPU multipliers, memory ratio, and memory timings from 1.8 ghz all the way up to 3.2 ghz was great. I am confident that DDR3 will open up a whole new world of low-latency memory fun for AM2+ processors, whenever AMD gets around to supporting it.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: zach0624
I hate you, I can't get my 5600+ above 3.2ghz and payed $160 for just it. nice oc.

If you look at this database, you might notice that recently the best % OCs come from the lower speed CPUs, and even the absolute speed reached can be very high for the 3600/3800 (I only looked through Athlon 64 X2s).

 

[lopri]

More on the memory controller side:

These are Promos IC-based DDR2-667 1GB sticks, which I could never stabilize on any Intel platform (975X, P965, 680i) with 4GB configuration at any frequency/timing/voltages (including stock/overclocked) With a slight bump on CPU voltage (again, remember that A64 has memory controller on-board), does perfectly stable DDR2-1000.

http://img508.imageshack.us/my...?image=mem1000bbx2.png

 

[lopri]

vDIMM=2.15V, btw. I estimate the performance level of this A64 (512KB L2) @3.0GHz is comparable to that of E6600 at its stock frequency (2.40GHz).

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: lopri
vDIMM=2.15V, btw. I estimate the performance level of this A64 (512KB L2) @3.0GHz is comparable to that of E6600 at its stock frequency (2.40GHz).

congrads on a great result! but I think it's probably is equal to a E6700 at 3Ghz.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: nyker96

Originally posted by: lopri
vDIMM=2.15V, btw. I estimate the performance level of this A64 (512KB L2) @3.0GHz is comparable to that of E6600 at its stock frequency (2.40GHz).

congrads on a great result! but I think it's probably is equal to a E6700 at 3Ghz.

No. Lopri is right. C2D is roughly 25% faster per clock cycle than A64 so 3ghz = 2.4 C2D is an accurate estimate.

Nice OC btw! Last X2 3800+ 90nm system I put together for a friend in 2006 crapped out at 2.5ghz but his mATX's mobo's top cpu voltage was only 1.400V.

 

[lopri]

My board's HTT limit is (interestingly) exactly 333 HTT. @334, it sometimes boots or sometimes doesn't. I compared the performance difference between 10x300 and 9x333 with a couple different memory configurations, and 10x300 is superior on this board. (with most memory sub-timings left auto) So it looks like 10x300 is going to be the sweet spot, memory being either 750MHz/CL4 or 1000MHz/CL5. The latter gives much better scores in synthetic benches, but for 'real world' apps the difference seems near zero. Will test a little more under Vista.

 

[lopri]

FYI, I briefly searched currently available AM2 X2 3800+ steppings. (Not the batch week #'s)

There are 4 of them

As you can see, they're not just steppings, but actually 4 different SKUs. And:

1. 
   ADA3800CUBOX
   ADO3800CUBOX
   ADD3800CUBOX
   ADO3800CZBOX<-- This is what you want to get!

It's the only F3 stepping SKU. It's OOS @the Egg right now but you can still find them elsewhere for $60~70. If you're lucky you might get the CCB8F batch (which does 3.2~3.4GHz instead of 3.0~3.2GHz) that's rejected from 5600+, 6000+, etc. Mine is from batch CCBVF.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Very nice performance for little $. My cheapest rig is $55 (AR and Paypal) Abit IP35-E and $70 E4300. Bought E4300/ECS combo at Fry's for $100, and sold MB for $30. Final cost is $125 plus tax and $6 shipping.

Current @ 3.46GHz. CPU will do 3.58GHz with 1.5Vcore.

 

[lopri]

Could anyone explain why I am seeing 3.5GB of system RAM with discrete GPU but 3.25GB with on-board GPU? Both in XP 32-bit and Vista 32-bit.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: lopri
Could anyone explain why I am seeing 3.5GB of system RAM with discrete GPU but 3.25GB with on-board GPU? Both in XP 32-bit and Vista 32-bit.

I dunno, vista should show 4 GB, but so you know, that is the max vista 32bit will use.

 

[zanejohnson]

Originally posted by: lopri
Could anyone explain why I am seeing 3.5GB of system RAM with discrete GPU but 3.25GB with on-board GPU? Both in XP 32-bit and Vista 32-bit.

onboard memory allocated for the vid card when it isnt disabled?

 

[Univac]

Originally posted by: lopri
<snip>
It's the only F3 stepping SKU. It's OOS @the Egg right now but you can still find them elsewhere for $60~70. If you're lucky you might get the CCB8F batch (which does 3.2~3.4GHz instead of 3.0~3.2GHz) that's rejected from 5600+, 6000+, etc. Mine is from batch CCBVF.

Where is a good place to find info on the different batches??

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Univac
Where is a good place to find info on the different batches??

Here is one.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=151746

Personally I believe all the 3800+ CZ's are 5600+/6000+ rejects (half the L2). Whether you'll get CCB8F or CCBVF is a matter of luck unless you can see the CPU before making a purchase, I think.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: lopri
Could anyone explain why I am seeing 3.5GB of system RAM with discrete GPU but 3.25GB with on-board GPU? Both in XP 32-bit and Vista 32-bit.

 

[Univac]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: lopri
Could anyone explain why I am seeing 3.5GB of system RAM with discrete GPU but 3.25GB with on-board GPU? Both in XP 32-bit and Vista 32-bit.

Thanks for the link for the batch's!

If I understand the question right...

What you are seeing is "Shared Video Memory"

When you are using the built in video adapter, it takes some of the system memory and uses it for texture memory etc.

So it won't be available for system use and hence windows only sees whats left.

A lot of the time you can go into the bios and change how much is used.

 

[lopri]

Out of curiosity I borrowed a 8800 GTX which has 768MB of frame buffer. The system still recoqnizes 3.50GB of system RAM..

http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3500gtxwj1.png

 

[lopri]

Anyone has an answer to the above issue? I thought Windows (XP after SP2 and Vista) 32-bit had an artificial limit of 3.25GB, whether 0.75GB of address space is used or not. (MS's implementation) It's gotta do with the BIOS, I assume? (bank-interleaving or something like that?) It's my first experience with an mATX board and I'm curious what's going on underneath.