AMD Sempron Processor 3100+ & ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard for $80 at Outpost.com

[Zap]

Originally posted by: OhioState
same here and the funny part is in the dudes feedback most people say he ships fast

not to me he dident. Still waiting.

I'm one that left good feedback. Why? Because it seriously reached me in two weekdays from the day I ordered. I can only leave feedback from my own experience, and that's what my experience was. My thinking at this time is that he got totally overwhelmed. He had two auctions. First one he only sold about 40 or so, and that's the auction I got in on. Second one he sold out of the total 100 units just a few days into it and now the auction is gone. That's a lot of packages to ship out in three days especially if you have a day job.

Anyways, not to defend the seller, just giving my 2¢ on my own buying experience.

Originally posted by: unisprise
wd 160 49.99 ar

Honestly.. I don't have a terabyte of porn I need to back up... only 8mb buffer- a good choice for first sata drive?

That drive will be just fine. WD drives often top the performance charts. The only thing I'm a bit leery of is that Maxtor and WD typically only offer a 1 year warranty on "retail boxed" drives. That's probably because at the retail level stores like to offer rebates so the drives end up selling for a lot less, plus retail stores like to push extended warranty and that has a tough sell if the manufacturer's warranty is already long.

 

[TheRealDeal]

On a side note, I just found out through CPU-Z that my rosewill pc2700 512MB DDR is registering as PC2100 (My Kingston 512MB is registering as PC2700 fine). That really sucks. I swithed slots and even updated the BIOS. Looks like I'll be picking up a stick of Kingston 512MB PC3200 for $25 AR (Don't think this deal is posted). Anyone have the same experience with Rosewill memory?

 

[Zap]

So CPU-Z doesn't show a setting for PC2700 in the SPD? That sucks. I know it's pretty common for companies making cheap generic RAM to "upclock" their RAM and sell it at higher speeds, but I didn't think Newegg would stoop to that with their house brand.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Actually, I canceled my order. Turns out that the ram on sale had a cl=3. I figured I was better off to overclock the Rosewill RAM to 166Mhz since it was rated at a cl=2.5. I did and works fine. Even did a stress test using Prime95.

 

[Melectricus]

My Rosewill pc3200 that I bought at Newegg a few months ago registered as pc2700 on CPU-Z. Tried posting in rewiew comment on the newegg site and it never got posted.

 

[Zap]

If you don't get what you paid for, RMA.

 

[Melectricus]

I put some heat spreaders on before I checked them, never again.

 

[hiperco]

Got mine going today, after losing a battle with a Maxtor 160GB and Windows XP. For some reason it wouldn't start XP after doing the CD setup stuff ("Error Loading Operating System". Gave up after several tries, and used a 80 GB for now.

Other than the large disk problem, I'm happy so far.

 

[ew915]

will my opteron 165 heatsink fit on this ecs nforce3-a mobo? I am thinking about getting this mobo with the 3100 sempron. any pros and con vs getting a the 2800. i plan too or would overclock mildly.

 

[furballi]

It should work. I'm using the Zalman 7700Cu at the lowest speed. Idle temp is between 36 and 40C, depending on ambient room temp. This 3100 130 nm chip doesn't run any hotter than the 3000 Venice 64.

The 3100 uses an 9x multiplier so you can easy hit 2.25 GHz at the maximum 250MHz FSB overclock. I believe the 2800 has an 8x multiplier. This would translate to 2.0 GHz overclock with this board. I believe you can use Clockgen to push the FSB above 250MHz, but then you must also lower the RAM to 133 at the higher FSB speed. The lower RAM speed will cost you a tiny bit of performance. Not sure if the 2800 has cool and quiet.

My 3100 is stable at stock voltages (CPU @ 1.42 VDC, RAM @ 2.5-3-3-8, 1T, HT 3x, 166 MHz RAM divider) up to 247MHz. To run at 250MHz, I need to bump the CPU voltage +1.7% in BIOS or 1.47 VDC.

 

[Powermoloch]

my 3100 is running really cool @ 2.069GHz 33 C (Idle)

 

[furballi]

Try partitioning the 160GB HDD if you can't load WXP in one large C primary active partition.

 

[OhioState]

Just got mine and im running at

core speed 2249.7 mhz
multiplier x9.0
fsb 250.0mhz

cpu-z reads this

MMX(+) 3DNOW!(+) SSE SSE2 x86-64

paris core

im running at 1.456 v ram @ 1T 409MHz

im using the heatsink that Zap recomended (thanks zap) the factory heatsink
that comes with a 4400+ x2

one question how do i measuse the temp of the board mbm5 did not like it ?

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: OhioState
Just got mine and im running at

core speed 2249.7 mhz
multiplier x9.0
fsb 250.0mhz

cpu-z reads this

MMX(+) 3DNOW!(+) SSE SSE2 x86-64

paris core

im running at 1.456 v ram @ 1T 409MHz

im using the heatsink that Zap recomended (thanks zap) the factory heatsink
that comes with a 4400+ x2

one question how do i measuse the temp of the board mbm5 did not like it ?

pretty nice man , the paris core does wonders honestly...with lil money as we speak lol

 

[OhioState]

Update CPU-Z pics

pic

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: TheRealDeal
Page 30 of March's Maximum PC States:

Best AMD Processors for overclocking:

Sempron 3100+ : It ships at only 1.8 GHz, but enterprising overclockers have cranked this bad boy to 2.4 GHz and Beyond!

They are idiots. The best CPU, AMD or Intel, for overclcoking is by far the 144 opteron if you can find them for the $123 sugessted retail price.. yes price/performance too. It's about 10-20% faster clock for clock than a Sempty 3100 due to dual channel and 756 KB more cache *and* clocks way higher like 3Ghz air. opterons 144/146s are the new Mobile XPs as far as I'm concerned. High resale too unlike any sempron.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: TheRealDeal
Page 30 of March's Maximum PC States:

Best AMD Processors for overclocking:

Sempron 3100+ : It ships at only 1.8 GHz, but enterprising overclockers have cranked this bad boy to 2.4 GHz and Beyond!

They are idiots. The best CPU, AMD or Intel, for overclcoking is by far the 144 opteron if you can find them for the $123 sugessted retail price.. yes price/performance too. It's about 10-20% faster clock for clock than a Sempty 3100 due to dual channel and 756 KB more cache *and* clocks way higher like 3Ghz air. opterons 144/146s are the new Mobile XPs as far as I'm concerned. High resale too unlike any sempron.

march? last year's march? or this coming march....

 

[Zebo]

You know how magazines are like 3 months ahead I'm sure he means this march..don't get me wrong It's a good processor and deal - especially so with a free moboit's a no brainer!!!! - but It's behind a 3200+, 144 or even a sempron 2800 as far as bang for the buck overclocking.

 

[Powermoloch]

I'm confused..lol

 

[probzy]

i'll check it...

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Zebo
The best CPU, AMD or Intel, for overclcoking is by far the 144 opteron if you can find them for the $123 sugessted retail price..

Care to share with us where we can find one for that price or close to it without having to buy a motherboard?

 

[furballi]

The default setting for the RAM is 2T. It booted fine with 1T, but is not prime stable even with higher RAM voltage. Not sure why cause these Kingston Value RAMs ran fine up to 280MHz with a 939 board.

 

[neovan]

is the sempron 3100+ faster than XP2800+ at 2.0GHz? Is the difference noticeable?

 

[ToneLoc]

im one of the many who got this...gonna set it up with that ebay hs/f, 1gb corsair value ram, 9800 pro, wd 200gb 7200 for a decent little system...so how to overclock it? just go to the settings and change the multiplier and voltage? i havent oc'ed since my celly 300a went to 450 lol...:beer:

 

[OhioState]

Originally posted by: neovan
is the sempron 3100+ faster than XP2800+ at 2.0GHz? Is the difference noticeable?

o yes it is
i was running an athlon xp 2800+ and now the 3100+ at 2249

for example
windows loads faster , shrinking a dvd that used to take like 20 min takes 10.
I changed all the other parts as well so im sure the performance increase isnt the proc alone
but it is a big diffrence. I would not go back.