AMD 3500 Issues + Upgrade to 3800x2?

[TheVirus]

Hola! Como estas? Nihongo ga wakarimasu ka?

Right now I have an AMD 64 3500+, it was the first one to come out so it's a NewCastle so it's .13u.

I'm having some performance issues with random things, and I'm curious if it's worth it to upgrade to an AMD x2 3800. Here are my specs:

Asus A8V Deluxe
2GB PC3200 XMS Corsair
40gb Seagate boot/300gb SATA Maxtor with 16mb cache for data.
BFG 6800 GT OC
Koolance PC2-720SL Case (Watercooled).
Thermaltake 480w Silent Pure Power PSU (<3)

My system seems to hate to overclock, doesn't feel stable and I'm guessing it's due to the .13u instead of the .09u on the new chips. Here are some issues:

Unraring causes video playback to stutter and stall and causes some system slowdowns (VLC).
Gaming ranges from good to great to WTF! Guess it depends on the time of day...
Downloading/Uploading at 100mbit (or ~ 8-10Megabytes/sec) causes severe system slowdowns, almost unusable. I transfer video files from one PC to another across the campus LAN and it just bogs me down. Doesn't matter what application.

I guess I'm trying to do too many things at once and the CPU can't keep up. I ordered a new NIC because the one I have now randomly disconnects me, changed cables and all, still happens. I've also been told that onboard LAN hogs resources so that might fix some issues.

Bottom Line:

Should I upgrade to the 3800x2? Also is there any point in the 4200? It's just 2.2GHz vs 2.0GHz, no cache increase that I see, and since the 3800 can overclock, it doesn't seem worth it to get a 4200.

Last thing, and if this is against any rules please edit it out or tell me to and I will. If I get this new CPU, is it possible to RMA my current CPU to AMD and receive a newer core in return, as far as I know the NewCastle isn't being made anymore and I could sell (ebay) the 3500 Venice/SanDiego for a better price.

Thanks, you guys are my hero.

 

[TheVirus]

Oh, and if it's not worth getting a new CPU, should I ditch this horrid motherboard?

 

[Shimmishim]

yes!!! ditch the mobo...

i think you're better off with a new mobo/videocard combo than getting an X2.

edit:

mobo: dfi ultra-d or nf4-d (both can be modded very easily to sli-d)... ultra has 2 LAN ports while nf4-d only has 1.

dfi expert is being released soon.
dfi crossfire is available but butt expensive.

either way... the a8v is a crappy board...

 

[F1shF4t]

Sad i have the same mobo, and i do have to say it a POS. Well its rock stable, but for some reasons it dont have vcore and multiplyer settings and it maxes out at 250HTT...and it sometimes refuses to boot saying overclock failure, then i turn it off and back and its fine and prime stable 48 hours. i guess i'm stuck with it while i have my gfx card.

Get a new board there is a good chance that is the problem. If you want to still keep yourr gfx card, you can look into the asrock dual sata2, the one with both agp and pci express.

 

[TheVirus]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
yes!!! ditch the mobo...

i think you're better off with a new mobo/videocard combo than getting an X2.

edit:

mobo: dfi ultra-d or nf4-d (both can be modded very easily to sli-d)... ultra has 2 LAN ports while nf4-d only has 1.

dfi expert is being released soon.
dfi crossfire is available but butt expensive.

either way... the a8v is a crappy board...

There's no reason for me to get PCI/E, it's pointless. The video card isn't the bottleneck and SLI is a complete waste of money. I was thinking about getting the MSI Neo F and tossing this board.

Thanks though.

 

[Shimmishim]

if you want to stick with agp, then go with the asrock board which has pci-e/agp.

i hear that board is solid.

or else get the msi neo2 plat but i hear it has lots of vcore fluctuation.

 

[TheVirus]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
if you want to stick with agp, then go with the asrock board which has pci-e/agp.

i hear that board is solid.

or else get the msi neo2 plat but i hear it has lots of vcore fluctuation.

That As Rock seems to have varied reviews, either it works or it doesnt, pretty cheap though.

 

[hooflung]

That As Rock seems to have varied reviews, either it works or it doesnt, pretty cheap though.

It works... period. Its when you want to use it like an enthusiest motherboard things get a bit iffy. For 71 dollars shipped, its pretty moot asking it to do anything other than what it is built to do.

 

[Bull Dog]

It you must keep AGP, DFI does make a S939 AGP board.

 

[Gogar]

Serious, just another board isn't going to do anything for performance. The memory controller is built into the cpu and performance doesn't really depend on the board anymore.
All the things you described which involve doing multiple things at the same time are indeed solved with a dual core processor.
The only other reason your system might feel bogged down is when you are doing two very disk intensive things so that your storage subsystem becomes the bottleneck.
Personally i haven't really experienced much differences between onboard lan and nics.
Hope this helps.

 

[theMan]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Sad i have the same mobo, and i do have to say it a POS. Well its rock stable, but for some reasons it dont have vcore and multiplyer settings and it maxes out at 250HTT...and it sometimes refuses to boot saying overclock failure, then i turn it off and back and its fine and prime stable 48 hours. i guess i'm stuck with it while i have my gfx card.

Get a new board there is a good chance that is the problem. If you want to still keep yourr gfx card, you can look into the asrock dual sata2, the one with both agp and pci express.

that is untrue, it has vcore and multi settings. go to Advanced>frequencies or whatever it says>voltages and multis>set to manual.

also, it for me, and everyone else ive seen, max out at 300mhz htt. you have to use the correct settings!!!

Use bios 1014!


OP, keep this sweet board, i dont know what all the people here have against this board. sure, now, via sucks at making chipsets, but back then, the k8t800pro chipset killed the nf3 chipset. i dont know where people are getting these opinions from.

 

[TheVirus]

Already bought the ASRock, it'll be here Weds. I hate the Asus board, if I try to overclock it works, and then the next reboot it'll just give me a black screen. There's also no way to keep the memory 1:1.

That said, I already have my new NIC card and there has been an increase in performance while uploading at high speeds. There are still stalls but I can atleast watch a movie/TV show without any issues. The PC still stalls while switching applications, but the video playback is fine.

I'll flip a coin about buying the 3800X2 because I think it's a decent upgrade and the price keeps dropping almost daily.

Thanks.

 

[TheVirus]

ASRock arrived today. Had to reinstall windows Anyway, mobo is working great, a hell of a lot better than the Asus. OCing is rock solid and memory timings are perfect. It seems the prices of the AMD X2's are dropping almost daily. Think I'll wait a week or so before purchasing, hopefully they'll fall under 300.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: Bull Dog
It you must keep AGP, DFI does make a S939 AGP board.

I believe DFI's 939 boards are all PCI-e, but they do have a DFI 754 which is AGP. If there is such a thing as DFI 939 AGP please point a link...

 

[TheVirus]

Got the X2 3800 today and am very disappointed by the board's lack of vcore options. I basically cannot overclock at all. The board is great, and I'll have to do the vcore mod to do anything above a 200mhz overclock.

How lame... I do not recommend this board to any overclocker until ASRock releases a bios that unlocks the vcore.