AMD fanboy trying Intel... got some questions!

[luigionlsd]

Hey folks. Selling my A64 3200 Winchester, RAM and motherboard and looking to buy an LGA775 Pentium D setup for around $350 (RAM/board/CPU). My current setup is a GF 7600 GT with an Antec 500 watt SmartPower 2.0. Now for the questions:

1) What's the best board around $100 for some overclocking? I've been looking at Asus and Epox, and I don't need SLI.

2) Is it worth the extra $60-70 to buy the 930 over the 805 for the double L2? Also, will the 930 overclock any better/higher than 805?

3) What speed 667 DDR2 RAM do I want: PC5300 or 5400?

That should be it for now. Thanks in advance!

 

[dguy6789]

1. This board, and its premium model brother are the best Intel overclocking boards. Unfortunately, they do not fit your $100 budget. If I was buying a new machine and wanted to overclock, I would sacrifice the speed or quality of something else to be able to get one of these(Such as a slower cpu, lower capacity harddrive, ect...) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131547

2. The Pentium D 930 is a moderate bit faster than the Pentium D 805, but not by much, perhaps 5-10%. If you were to get the 930, do NOT get it because of L2 cache, as all benchmarks show that the extra L2 cache does next to nothing for performance. The Pentium D 9 series do run cooler and use less power though. The 930 may or may not overclock better. As long as you have a cooler that can handle the heat of the 805, then both should be able to hit anywhere in the range of 3.6-4Ghz. If getting a Pentium D 805 instead of a 930 means you are able to afford the mainboard above, I would recommend that.

3. There is NO difference between DDR2 PC2 5300 and PC2 5400. Both run at 667Mhz.

If you are planning on overclocking, there are some things to know. Be certain to get a good air cooler. The Pentium D 805 will generate an enourmous amount of heat once overclocked. I would recommend that you also have plenty of case fans.

 

[luigionlsd]

Thanks for a quick response. The Asus looks like a nice board, but unfortunately I do use ATA hard drives and optical drives, and it looks like people have trouble with the IDE channels. They may all be n00bs, but do you own this board, or have experience with it on ATA? If the board is great, which it looks like it is, I'd definitely consider sacrificing the 930 for getting that board. Never actually used Asus boards myself, but people seem to swear their life on their good name. Also, would I need to get a better heatsink/fan to get into the 3.6 area without it burning up? Had a Zalman on my 6800 Ultra and it helped immensely... Thanks for the help!

 

[dguy6789]

I have had two Asus boards in my time. Both for Socket A and Athlon XP. They were boards of extremely good quality. I suggested this board because of several reasons. It is supposed to be the best overclocking board for Intel processors at the moment. Everyone on various other forums also seem to recommend it. The board gets 4/5 eggs, and would probably get 5/5 if not for the IDE issue. I do have a solution to that problem though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998008

I have two of these myself and they work perfectly. I have completely rid myself of any IDE at all in my pc. Both my harddrive and optical drive are on sata now.

You will need a better heatsink than the stock one to overclock a Pentium D by any significant amount.

 

[formulav8]

I don't know, but to me a $170 mobo to put in a $120? cpu doesn't make sense.

You should just buy a X2 to put in your s939 board for about the same cost as the mobo/cpu change out and have better performance and thermals to boot. And you do not have to do reinstalls or driver change outs or anything like that. Plus you can sell your old cpu for $100 or whatever and come out much better in pretty much all area's than if you did the full mobo/cpu upgrade.


But that is just me. Just wanted to give you another option to think about.



Jason

 

[Noubourne]

Ummm, I stuck a $146 Athlon 64 3000+ Venice into a $170 DFI NF4 Ultra-D so I could overclock it to 2.6Ghz.

That's the point of the better board; you can buy a cheaper CPU and still get high end performance.

I'm personally going to move back to Intel after 5 years of AMD purchasing because of Conroe, but it baffles me to see anyone who wants to hop over to Intel for Netburst P4 heaters, especially 1 month before Conroe drops. That just makes NO sense whatsoever. /boggle.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: luigionlsd
Hey folks. Selling my A64 3200 Winchester, RAM and motherboard and looking to buy an LGA775 Pentium D setup for around $350 (RAM/board/CPU). My current setup is a GF 7600 GT with an Antec 500 watt SmartPower 2.0. Now for the questions:

1) What's the best board around $100 for some overclocking? I've been looking at Asus and Epox, and I don't need SLI.

2) Is it worth the extra $60-70 to buy the 930 over the 805 for the double L2? Also, will the 930 overclock any better/higher than 805?

3) What speed 667 DDR2 RAM do I want: PC5300 or 5400?

That should be it for now. Thanks in advance!

1. I am using the Gigabyte 8N-SLI with my 805 running it at 3.7ghz, but it's on water cooling and hits 57c. I'm not running SLI on it, but it was in the right price range.

For the 9xx series, the best boards seem to be the Asus P5WD2-premium, or P5WD2-E premium, both which cost around $200. Some other 955x and and 975x chipset boards probably work well also, those are the only ones I have seen people hitting 4ghz with though.

My P5P800-SE makes it to around 245mhz FSB with my 920. The 945 chipset boards get stuck at ~225mhz FSB, and I wasn't able to get past ~230mhz FSB on my 8N-SLI, even though the same boards get to 250mhz FSB or higher with single cores, so they don't work well for overclocking the 9xx series.


2. The cache on the 9xx serires makes very little differance, but the 9xx series runs much much cooler than the 8xx series.

3. I am using some PQI DDR-2 667mhz and it works good. Also with the 8N-SLI you don't have to worry about ram dividers, you just type in the exact speed you want to run the ram at, and thats what it runs at. Don't know if thats for all the NF4 chipset boards or not.

 

[perdomot]

I like my Asus P5P800-SE mobo since it let me reuse my DDR ram and AGP card. The mobo and an XP-90 HSF was just over $100 and it runs at 3.4 GHZ at default Vcore. Hard to beat that especially for a video encoding rig.

 

[luigionlsd]

Well, I've decided on a couple of things. I'm going to go with the 930 since it'll be better in the long run (65nm, higher L2 if that means anything, and 3.0 GHz stock - so I'm not dependent on OC performance) and a decently priced motherboard. My main gripe with the Asus P5WD2s is that there's only one IDE slot, and I use all IDE peripherals (2 hard, 2 optical drives)... which are serving me just fine for what I do. Part of the reason I want an Intel rig over upgrading my 3200 to an Opty 165 is that I just want to try Intel. Any real life war I get into of AMD vs. Intel, I always say AMD (because it is better), but for the price of a nice dual core Intel, it's about $100 more for a comparable AMD (Opty 165 vs. 930), and please correct me if I'm wrong. I've just been curious, and have not used any real Intel hardware when it was meant to be used (i.e. a P4 2.4 northwood in 2005? Come on!) or while it was a great CPU. Hopefully this clears some things up, as I don't exactly need the greatest overclocking board, but something under or near $100, and has 2 ATA channels. Thanks in advance folks... and for the help you've already given me.

 

[Noubourne]

There's gonna be a Dual Core $200 Conroe in about a month, and you're gonna be kicking yourself man. 65nm Conroe will stomp AMD performance, which stomps the Netburst heater you're about to blow your wad on.

I seriously don't get it.

 

[luigionlsd]

How soon are we talking? I don't know how much longer I can take this P4 1.6 with 256 RAM... I'd like to get the Intel stuff soon, but depending on how soon, we'll see...

 

[BladeVenom]

Once Conroes start coming out Pentiums are going to be 3rd rate processors, and they are going to have to make big price cuts to get anyone to buy them. So if you really want a Pentium D wait for the price cuts. Like Noubourne, I would much rather have the Conroe than any Pentium.

 

[luigionlsd]

Maybe I'm losing it... but is Conroe gonna be the new name for Intel processors, like Xeon is to Intel server CPUs? Anyhow, I'm starting a new job soon, and I get a laptop with it... if it's anything decent, and I'm allowed to install games, I'll probably just wait to see what happens/price drops. Also, say I bought an Epox board for 775 (the $110 board on Egg, i'm not sure the exact model #)... would I be able to use it with a Conroe CPU? Thanks!

 

[Noubourne]

They're called Core 2 Duo's, and last I heard, they're due to be released on the 23rd of July. Six weeks.

P4 Netburst is already a second-class product to the K8 chips. I agree they'll be 3rd rate when Conroe drops next month.

 

[luigionlsd]

I'm still curious if they're LGA 775, or if they'll be compatible with today's 775 motherboards... that way I can just buy a board and some cheapo CPU now for a month. Also, hopefully it doesn't flop like AM2 did... although AM2 still has some potential to go. What I'm wondering is if it's compatible with today's 775.

 

[Bobthelost]

I think that some of the current boards are compaible, but not all are. Might be worth checking the motherboard forum, a quick search there should turn up a thread on the topic.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: luigionlsd
I'm still curious if they're LGA 775, or if they'll be compatible with today's 775 motherboards... that way I can just buy a board and some cheapo CPU now for a month. Also, hopefully it doesn't flop like AM2 did... although AM2 still has some potential to go. What I'm wondering is if it's compatible with today's 775.

It is LGA775 however, there aren't many current boards that will support it. Only one I know of for sure is the Intel 975x badaxe motherboard with a certain revision(340 I think). The 965 chipset boards should be showing up shortly and they are compatible with conroe.

 

[luigionlsd]

Checked the motherboards forum earlier today, and it seems like there's just the Badaxe as of yet. People seem to not even be getting the rev 3.4 from Newegg, which is odd. I guess I'll just be waiting... got a lot of work ahead of me (new job, finishing up old one), so I won't have all that much time for play. Gives me some more time and money to toy around with/spend wisely! Thanks for the advice guys, I'll probably wait till the 965 boards show up. Also, anyone know why exactly almost every single decent board only has one IDE channel?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: luigionlsd
Checked the motherboards forum earlier today, and it seems like there's just the Badaxe as of yet. People seem to not even be getting the rev 3.4 from Newegg, which is odd. I guess I'll just be waiting... got a lot of work ahead of me (new job, finishing up old one), so I won't have all that much time for play. Gives me some more time and money to toy around with/spend wisely! Thanks for the advice guys, I'll probably wait till the 965 boards show up. Also, anyone know why exactly almost every single decent board only has one IDE channel?

Newer Intel chipsets are addining more SATA and removing IDE. Seems anything 945 chipset and newer only have a single IDE port. Some motherboards are adding extra ports via add on chips.