AMD A64 San Diego 3700+ or 4000+

[RealTime]

Ok I am looking into upgrading from my AMD Athlon 2800+ I am going to dip into the 64 bit pool. Like the title says I am looking at either the 3700 or 4000 with the San Diego core. I hear they run cooler then the others and are better for OCing. Opinions?

Also looking at the specs for the chips the 4000+ has 2Ghz HT but all the boards I see only have 1000MHz Hyper Transport. Am I confusing two different things?

Now on to my mobo concerns. I recently bought a great 6800GT AGP card and I want to keep using it with my upgrade so I picked this mobo with AGP support. Mobo at NewEgg.com
Now after checking the Mobo Specs at the manufactures site. It say that it has Expansion Slot 1xAGP8X/4X (1.5v only) What does that mean? Does that mean you can't OC the AGP slot itself or does it mean something else? That won't stop me from using my current card will it? What about if I upgrade my card?

Thank you in advance for all your help.

RT

 

[bigKr33]

I would get a 3700sandy, overclocks well and is an excellent performer. And that asus board should be an excellent choice, I personally have never used an asus board, but have heard nothing but great things from them.

good luck

 

[RealTime]

Can I ask why you are going with the 3700 over the 4000?

 

[DrMrLordX]

The 3700+ should, in theory, OC to the same levels that a 4000+ could reach. So, there's no reason to get the 4000+ if you plan to overclock.

As a general rule, look at all the CPUs with the same core and buy the cheapest one, since they'll all OC to the same level. The only case in which this may not be true is if the low-end CPU has a peculiarly low multiplier(9x or lower) that would require extraordinairly high HTT/FBS speeds just to max out the chip when OCing. The 3700+ has a 11x multiplier, I believe, so it should be fine on any board that can hit 250+ HTT.

 

[RallyMaster]

It overclocks better. Most people buy a 3700+ because after OCing, it usually gets past a 4000+.

 

[RealTime]

Hmmm see I would have thought that the 4000 would have been better since it has a higher starting point.

 

[loafbred]

I've never been disappointed with an Asus board, but have been with a couple of other brands. I've used two VIA chipsets, and didn't have a problem with either (an Epox with KT333a, the other an Asus with K8T800). I would probably go with the A8V as well, if I needed an AGP board. I'm not fond of Realtek sound, and would invest in an Audigy card for performance reasons, if you don't already have one. Even a SB Live model would do.

1000 MHz HTT is the standard for socket 939, and I assume the 2000 MHz you saw referred to DDR value.

As for the choice between 3700+ and 4000+, I chose 4000+ because, when I bought mine, there was little difference in price (~$30 US). I disagree with those who over-generalize by saying that all cores of a particular model are the same except for the set multiplier. Certain batches are the same, but some aren't. Some of the higher rated models are better grade. If you don't know which steppings and weeks are which, you're taking a real gamble by planning on a given overclock.

 

[RealTime]

Originally posted by: loafbred
I've never been disappointed with an Asus board, but have been with a couple of other brands. I've used two VIA chipsets, and didn't have a problem with either (an Epox with KT333a, the other an Asus with K8T800). I would probably go with the A8V as well, if I needed an AGP board. I'm not fond of Realtek sound, and would invest in an Audigy card for performance reasons, if you don't already have one. Even a SB Live model would do.

1000 MHz HTT is the standard for socket 939, and I assume the 2000 MHz you saw referred to DDR value.

As for the choice between 3700+ and 4000+, I chose 4000+ because, when I bought mine, there was little difference in price (~$30 US). I disagree with those who over-generalize by saying that all cores of a particular model are the same except for the set multiplier. Certain batches are the same, but some aren't. Some of the higher rated models are better grade. If you don't know which steppings and weeks are which, you're taking a real gamble by planning on a given overclock.

Yeah I have a Audigy 2 card I am going to use in the new system. I have never been a fan of on board sound. That is not something I really want on board anyway but very few good boards these days come without on board sound so you are stuck with it. lol

Well the 1000 HT thing was on the mobo specs as the FSB and then the 2Ghz HT was on the link for the CPU at newegg.com. Another thing I have noticed is that newegg says only the 4000 has the 2Ghz HT and then AMD says both have it. I would assume you go with AMD since they made them. I always thought newegg.com stayed on top of such info.

Yeah if it was only $30 difference then I wouldn't care but right now I am seeing $100 or more difference in price of those two chips. Not that price matters that much to me. That price isn't that crazy. Now those FX chips...WOW. lol I guess part of my concern is the conflicting info about the 2Ghz HT one says it does and then the other says it doesn't. It is kinda like choosing between two good video cards one is 128 and the other is 256. Both are good cards but you know you will get more out of the 256 in the long run. Now if you were reading that some say they both have 256 and then others say one has 128 and the other has 256. Then again I could be missing the whole 2Ghz thing completely.

Now can anyone clarify the 1.5v only thing for the AGP slot???

 

[loafbred]

Originally posted by: RealTime
Yeah if it was only $30 difference then I wouldn't care but right now I am seeing $100 or more difference in price of those two chips.

Now can anyone clarify the 1.5v only thing for the AGP slot???

After thinking about it some more, I think my memory is a little unstable... it was probably much more than $30 difference. Anyway, I paid $334.

Scroll about halfway down the page linked below, and you'll see charts explaining the old and new AGP specs.

AGP specs

 

[RealTime]

Originally posted by: loafbred

Originally posted by: RealTime
Yeah if it was only $30 difference then I wouldn't care but right now I am seeing $100 or more difference in price of those two chips.

Now can anyone clarify the 1.5v only thing for the AGP slot???

After thinking about it some more, I think my memory is a little unstable... it was probably much more than $30 difference. Anyway, I paid $334.

Scroll about halfway down the page linked below, and you'll see charts explaining the old and new AGP specs.

AGP specs

Ok so how will I know if my eVGA card will work on the 1.5v only AGP slot?

 

[Mogadon]

If you can find an MSI Neo2 platty or Neo-F anywhere, i'd get that over the ASUS board. It uses the NF3 chipset and is widely regarded as the best S939 AGP board. It has been discontinued by MSI but if you can find one somewhere you wouldn't regret it.

 

[glocksman]

Having just built my new system around the A8V, let me offer a few comments.

My goal with overclocking was to strike the balance between a high clock rate and getting the most performance out of my standard PC3200 memory.

What I did was to bump the clock rate to 241Mhz, reduce the multiplier to 10x, set the HTT speed to 800Mhz, and set the memory to use the DDR333 (5/3) divider.

Here's what my hardware runs at:

CPU Properties:
CPU Type AMD Athlon 64
CPUID CPU Name AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+
CPUID Revision 00030F72h

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 2409.87 MHz
CPU Multiplier 10.0x
CPU FSB 240.99 MHz (original: 200 MHz, overclock: 20%)
Memory Bus 200.82 MHz

CPU Cache:
L1 Code Cache 64 KB (Parity)
L1 Data Cache 64 KB (ECC)
L2 Cache 1 MB (On-Die, ECC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 63-0219-000001-00101111-110305-VIAK8T800Pro$A0277001_BIOS DATE: 11/03/05 15:32:49 VER: 08.00.09
Motherboard Name Asus A8V (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)

Chipset Properties:
Motherboard Chipset VIA K8T800Pro, AMD Hammer
Memory Timings 2.5-3-3-7 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
Command Rate (CR) 2T

SPD Memory Modules:
DIMM1: Samsung M3 68L2923CUN-CCC 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz)
DIMM2: Micron Tech. 16VDDT12864AG40BDB 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)

BIOS Properties:
System BIOS Date 11/03/05
Video BIOS Date 04/08/04
DMI BIOS Version 0219

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter ATI Radeon X800 Pro
GPU Code Name R420 (AGP 8x 1002 / 4A49, Rev 00)
GPU Clock 472 MHz (original: 475 MHz)
Memory Clock 446 MHz (original: 450 MHz)


--------[ Motherboard ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 63-0219-000001-00101111-110305-VIAK8T800Pro$A0277001_BIOS DATE: 11/03/05 15:32:49 VER: 08.00.09
Motherboard Name Asus A8V

Front Side Bus Properties:
Bus Type AMD Hammer
Real Clock 240 MHz
Effective Clock 240 MHz
HyperTransport Clock 960 MHz

Memory Bus Properties:
Bus Type Dual DDR SDRAM
Bus Width 128-bit
Real Clock 201 MHz (DDR)
Effective Clock 402 MHz
Bandwidth 6427 MB/s

Chipset Bus Properties:
Bus Type VIA V-Link
Bus Width 8-bit
Real Clock 80 MHz (ODR)
Effective Clock 640 MHz
Bandwidth 640 MB/s

Motherboard Physical Info:
CPU Sockets/Slots 1 Socket 939
Expansion Slots 5 PCI, 1 AGP
RAM Slots 4 DDR DIMM
Integrated Devices Audio, Gigabit LAN
Form Factor ATX
Motherboard Size 240 mm x 300 mm
Motherboard Chipset K8T800Pro
Extra Features Asus Intelligence, JumperFree, Q-Fan, Stepless Freq Selection

Motherboard Manufacturer:
Company Name ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Product Information http://www.asus.com/products1.aspx?l1=3
BIOS Download http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

When you set the HTT to '800MHz' instead of the default '1000Mhz' in the BIOS, what you're really doing is choosing the 4x multiplier instead of the default 5x multiplier.
The only thing you gain by overdriving the HTT is system instability, so I have no interest in going above 1000 Mhz.
Notice also that because I chose the DDR333 divider, the increased clock is running the memory at its rated 200Mhz spec.
I tried running it at 250Mhz, but the increased memory speed caused blue screens.
I probably could counter that by increasing the voltage to the memory, but the gain in speed at 250 isn't very significant anyway.
If I'd bought some super high speed DDR, I could run higher bus speeds as long as I kept the HTT speed within its 1000Mhz spec.

As it is, I essentially got a 4000+ processor for the price of the 3700+.

Well the 1000 HT thing was on the mobo specs as the FSB and then the 2Ghz HT was on the link for the CPU at newegg.com

The 2Ghz comes from using it in dual channel mode (2x1Ghz).

 

[coolpurplefan]

dude, a 2800+? If that`s a socket 754 and you already got an AGP 6800GS, why don`t you save money bu buying a socket 754 3700+ cheap at a place like eGay? Use the money you save for another gig of RAM.

 

[darkdemyze]

Originally posted by: RealTime
Hmmm see I would have thought that the 4000 would have been better since it has a higher starting point.

That's exactly why the 4000 doesn't overclock as much. If you were to OC both, they would end up aprox. the same speed. In other words you would effectively get 200MHz more of an OC out of the 3700 as you would hit a wall at the same speed for both.

 

[loafbred]

[/quote]
Ok so how will I know if my eVGA card will work on the 1.5v only AGP slot?
[/quote]

If it's AGP 2.0 compliant (the BFG 6800 Ultra I had was), then you're fine. I wasn't even aware of the 0.8v in the AGP 3.0 spec, until this thread drew my attention to it. If you can't find anything on or with your card mentioning AGP 2.0 compliance, I'd contact eVGA. I'd also start a thread in the video forum about it.

 

[cdjr]

 

[coolpurplefan]

Originally posted by: cdjr

Are there some characters there I can`t see?

 

[cdjr]

Sorry about that hit the wrong key.

 

[JoJoKuz]

I recently purchased a 3700+ sandy & mb from my friend. He had 2 mb's for me to choose from. I tried the msi k8n-sli but ran into the 240fsb limit issue. So I tried out the Asus a8n-sli and no probs. I have the 3700+ @ 2750mhz without any issues (very stable and cool) and I know it can go a bit higher than that.

 

[hclarkjr]

i would recommend that you get an X2 4200 instead of the A64 4000. i recently went from a 3700 sandy to my 4200 and do not regret it one bit. price wise at newegg -
4200 $355
A64 4000 $334
so for just a few dollars more you can get a dual core that IMHO you will be happier with down the road. i made the same choice you are considering and got a 3700 and should have gone dual core.

 

[JoJoKuz]

I agree if it was a decision between the 4000 & the 4200 I would opt for the 4200. However the 3700 is quite a bit cheaper

3700+ San Diego $212

 

[glocksman]

Exactly.
It cost $390 or so from mwave for my 3700+ PIB, the A8V mobo, and a 1 gig stick of Crucial RAM.
I sold off my old s754 3000+. the K8V-SE Deluxe mobo it was on, a ATi Radeon 9600 Pro AGP card, a 512 Meg stick of Crucial, a 120 Gig Seagate HD, and my old Truepower 380S PSU for $300 to a friend at work.
I probably could have got more out if it if I parted it out, but my friend was still using the old Celeron 900 system I built for him over six years ago.