AMD 3500+ system

[jjet67]

Dear gurus.

I'm trying to order systems below.
1. ANTEC Life Style Series Black Case With 380W Power Supply, Model "SONATA"
2. Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, MODEL 6Y080M0, OEM Drive Only
3. Kingston HyperX Series 184-Pin 512MB(256MBx2) Low Latency DDR PC-3200 (timing 2-2-2-5-1)
4. MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
5. AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 512K, L2 Cache, Socket 939 Windows Compatible 64-bit Processor - Retail
6. Any AGP video card (cheap one of course)
7. CDRW (Lite-on)
My question is that 1) is 380W enough for overclocking; and 2) Any suggestions for memory?

This is for the research purpose. I'm not planning to play a game on this machine. I'm usually running a number crunching program with MATLAB (such as optimization, random number generation stuff).
I'm quite tight with budget. In fact, a company will buy it for me regards my research (so free computer for me).
Any suggestions regards specification above would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

P.S. I have other option to get Dell 3.2Ghz. If I overclock AMD 3500+, would it be way better?

JJET67

 

[obeseotron]

AMD all the way. With the setup you have shown a 20% overclock shouldn't be to hard, you may not be able to run at 2-2-2-5 at DDR480 though. An Intel based system may be faster in some encoding programs, but that's largely due to special Intel specific optimizations, the results are much closer in Xvid, probably the best and most useful codec. Office stuff is competitive, not that it matters much, and AMD wins by huge margins in all other stressful programs, most importantly games. If you play games reguarly there is absolutely no reason to get an Intel system. AMD's are also better for compliling code and other random things that most people probably won't ever do.

 

[nick1985]

dump that 512 "fast" RAM, and get 2 of these

 

[jjet67]

I'm not familiar with all memory timing stuff. You mean corsair valueram would be bettern than Hyperx? Could you give me specific reason?
Thanks.

 

[ts3433]

He's saying that a gig of value RAM is better than half a gig of bling RAM, that's all. If you're not OCing a lot or don't mind a divider, the tight timings mean jack diddly sh!t on the A64. If you are OCing a lot, check out some of that TCCD Patriot in jpeyton's thread.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: jjet67
I'm not familiar with all memory timing stuff. You mean corsair valueram would be bettern than Hyperx? Could you give me specific reason?
Thanks.

its better because there is twice as much for the same price....

 

[Steg55]

he tight timings mean jack diddly sh!t on the A64

Er...yeh right. Its the P4s where memory latency makes no difference on account of the stupid high latencies that you get from CPU-Northbridge-RAM set ups, even more so than the old AXPs - P4s always have had high latencys. If you are running number crunching programs you want the LOWEST CPU-Memory latency. Thats what makes the A64 so good. 2,2,2,5 timings (or 2,2,2,11 which seems to be faster) make a noticable difference in terms on number throughput on an A64. If you plan on doing some overclocking stick with Corsair XL, OCZ PC3200 Rev. 2 or Mushkin PC3200 Lvl II RAM. All based on Samsung TCCD chips and will do 440Mhz at 2,2,2,11 and all the way up to 500 at slightly higher latencies.

If you are not planning on running a powerful graphics card then that 380w PSU should be plenty good enough - especially if its a Antec.

Oh - and don't get the dell. The 3500+ will beat the life out of it - with a bit of overclocking and some decent ram it will leave the dell in the dust.

Steg

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Steg55
Thats what makes the A64 so good. 2,2,2,5 timings (or 2,2,2,11 which seems to be faster) make a noticable difference in terms on number throughput on an A64.

you are wrong

 

[Steg55]

What is that showing? That at PC3200 as cas timings decrease the latency decreases?
And/or is it showing that at PC3600 (about 440Mhz?) that latency is lower dispite higher CAS timings.
This is, of course, predictable - as the clock speed of an A64 increases so does the effiency of the memory controller - this can been seen to memory benchmarking a 3000+ against a 3800+. Same HTT speed - slightly higher memory bandwidth.

Steg

 

[jjet67]

Thanks for your advices.
After all, I need to dig more research on memory thing. The reason I was going for 512 ram is that I need to give the system back to the company after I grauate. I decided to buy ram out of my pocket and don't want to spend too much. Anyway, thanks for help.

JJET67

 

[jjet67]

Originally posted by: Steg55

he tight timings mean jack diddly sh!t on the A64

Er...yeh right. Its the P4s where memory latency makes no difference on account of the stupid high latencies that you get from CPU-Northbridge-RAM set ups, even more so than the old AXPs - P4s always have had high latencys. If you are running number crunching programs you want the LOWEST CPU-Memory latency. Thats what makes the A64 so good. 2,2,2,5 timings (or 2,2,2,11 which seems to be faster) make a noticable difference in terms on number throughput on an A64. If you plan on doing some overclocking stick with Corsair XL, OCZ PC3200 Rev. 2 or Mushkin PC3200 Lvl II RAM. All based on Samsung TCCD chips and will do 440Mhz at 2,2,2,11 and all the way up to 500 at slightly higher latencies.

If you are not planning on running a powerful graphics card then that 380w PSU should be plenty good enough - especially if its a Antec.

Oh - and don't get the dell. The 3500+ will beat the life out of it - with a bit of overclocking and some decent ram it will leave the dell in the dust.

Steg

Actually, I found that the ram I listed was KINGSTON KHX3200ULK2, which you are refering to.
It must have the samsung TCCD ram on it.
JJET67

 

[obeseotron]

Timings matter more on p4 systems. p4's have higher latency in general because they use a memory controller on a northbridge as opposed to an integrated one on the Athlon 64. Tighter timings reduces a64 latency, but because it's very low to begin with it's not a big deal, whereas the p4 is more memory dependent in general because of the longer pipeline and higher clock speed. Take a look at Dual Channel vs Single Channel, if the difference on AMD64 is more than 4% I'd be surprised, but look at the performance difference between an 845 series p4 motherboard vs an 875, it's huge. The P4 simply gets more out of fast memory.