best CPU for SFF system?

[HardTech]

I have a Silverstone Sugo case, so any mATX motherboard will fit in it.

Right now, I have an X800XL PCI-E video card, but I can downgrade to a X700 AGP if need be.

I'd like the computer to be silent, cool, and fast (doesn't everybody?). Right now, it's housing an Opteron 165, which is not silent, not cool, and while it's fast, it crashes my games a lot. This isn't due to heat since it's 100% stable during everything else, I just never had the best of luck getting a stable AMD rig.

Here are the possible choices for CPU:
- Prescott chip and leave it stock
- Northwood chip and overclock it
- mobile Celeron chip and overclock it

??

I don't play the latest and greatest games, but I'd like to fire up the occasional RPG game every now and then.

 

[Buck Naked]

Originally posted by: HardTech
Here are the possible choices for CPU:
- Prescott chip and leave it stock
- Northwood chip and overclock it
- mobile Celeron chip and overclock it

Use cedar mill instead of a prescott, or maybe use a P-M.

I am working on a MATX system for a friend, and it is running a cedar mill 641.
They run very cool. I dont trust this reading, but Asus's PC probe utility reported 17C for a few secs.
After 12 hours of prime95 (2 instances) at 3.5 (stock 3.2) it reported a max temp of 51C.

Nice case :thumbsup:

You can also try to find the answer here

 

[Matthias99]

Underclock/volt the Opteron (assuming your motherboard supports it without too much difficulty). Check out Silent PC Review for more details. A Prescott or Northwood will be WAY hotter at the same level of performance, and a mobile Celeron will not perform as well.

If you can't get an Athlon64 system running stably, either you suck at teh computers, or you have a bad chip or some other bad piece of hardware (or really torqued up drivers).

 

[w00t]

how is your opteron 165 not stable? an opteron is made to be stable it's higher quality than the rest of the chips they sell. I think maybe you have some heat problems? you could get a quieter cpu cooler the processor itself makes no noise so you dont ditch it because your computer crashes sounds like you should get some zalman cpu and vga coolers those are pretty quiet and should be suffiencet enough for you. keep the X800XL there's no point of downgrading to a X700AGP. I am wondering if this is your computer overheating? or software?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118113
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118114
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118124
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118118
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118117
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118112
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118116

 

[HardTech]

it's not heat-related, I have a CNPS7700-Cu

 

[markkleb]

Here is a thought , if your having troubles with your cpu "dont oc it".

If u want to trade I have a very nice 3700+ that oc's to 2750 and is 24c at idle.