Choices on a 754pin Athlon64 chip

[Mavrick007]

I am probably going to get a 3200+ Newcastle but I would like to get a 3200+ Clawhammer DTR. If I could get the DTR to work, it would be good but I don't have access to any desktop A64 chips to flash the bios if it needs it. I haven't chosen a mobo yet either cause I'm looking for a decent one that has bolt holes for hsf.

I was wondering what's a good range on air for a 3200+ NC. Would 2.4-2.5Ghz be a good bet on most boards? I haven't seen alot of people talk about these chips except that they're about 10% slower at the same speed (ie. 2.2 Ghz NC is appoox equal to a 2.0 Ghz Clawhammer with 1meg cache), so you need to overclock them higher to get the same amount.

I have my Barton 2500+ at 3200+ now and it's going strong with my GF4. I get really decent benches or at least I used to so I was wondering if just upgrading my cpu and mobo will give the system a bit of life worth it for the money if I go with the A64. I know it will not leave me any room for future upgrades by going with a 754pin board and chip, but I will probably get a board with PCI-Ex when I'm ready for another upgrade anyway, and hence a new cpu.

I'm either going to get an Athlon64 now, or going to get a Mobile XP 2600+ and new mobo to try overclocking it higher, but I figure for the extra $100, I can get a decent A64 system.

Heh And when the 6800GT's drop a bit, I'll go for one of those too

 

[Mik3y]

if you can get a clawhammer with a cg stepping, go for it. from what i hear, the clawhammer at a very high clock speed will benefit more with 1mb L2 cache then just plain 512K. the newcastles make up for the 512K L2 cache by an increase of 200Mhz. since you can only overclock so high, i think the clawhammer will give you a little more performance boost if you have the CG stepping.

 

[Mavrick007]

Probably the only "Clawhammer" that I could find would be the DTR varient, and I'm not sure I want to take a chance on getting it to POST if the bios has to be flashed or unless it has more support for it (also considering it's OEM and can only be "replaced" and not returned if it doesn't work).

It would be great if I could get the DTR to work cause that's the one I'd like to use since it should allow better overclocking due to the core being exposed, and it's a lower voltage. All I can find now are the 1.5volt ones though.

Are all the DTRs with CG stepping now? I heard someone say that they were.

As I was saying, it's about a 10% difference in speed with the extra 512K cache, but it wouldn't help much if I can't get the DTR to work. I think it's very hard finding a regular Clawhammer with 1meg cache that is just the desktop chip now since they're phasing them out.

 

[Zebo]

Wait a couple weeks to find out if the mobile claws work in the new DFI board. This will be the best deal if they do.

Right now the best deal, is 3000AX retial for $175 from the egg, which all seem to hit 2500Mhz on Stock HSF.

 

[monkeymanxe]

Yea, my 3000+ that I picked up from newegg runs at 2.45Ghz at default voltage with the retail HS/Fan. Only thing though, it fails the stress testing on Prime 95 because it doesn't round a number at what prime 95 expected or something. Its right near the beginning. Benchmarks pretty sweet though.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: monkeymanxe
Yea, my 3000+ that I picked up from newegg runs at 2.45Ghz at default voltage with the retail HS/Fan. Only thing though, it fails the stress testing on Prime 95 because it doesn't round a number at what prime 95 expected or something. Its right near the beginning. Benchmarks pretty sweet though.

If you are failing Prime95 right at the beginning, your overclock isn't stable and your machine is likely to freeze or crash during certain periods. Try upping the voltage a little to see if that helps any.

 

[MDme]

Yeah, if your prime95 is failing then your OC is not stable. The earlier this occurs the more unstable it is and will be. voltage might help. are your temps ok? going back to your question, a clawhammer with 1mb cache gives you more performance at a given clock but i am not sure it overclocks as well as the newcastle ones.

 

[Mavrick007]

They clawhammers and newcastle's can overclock pretty much the same, but if you want a comparitive speed out of them, you need to overclock further with the NC since it has less cache and is about 10% slower than the 1meg cache Clawhammer.

Now given that, try to find a desktop clashammer now and not the mobile or DTR chip (also, be very careful about the Clawhammers with 512k cache since they have half the cache disabled and are not a good choice).

Heh I would like to use my 1 Gig of PC3200 Corsair XMS ram on a new build, such as the A64 754. What fsb and ram speed are you people getting out of your 3000+ cpus? Are you using fast ram or just using a divider on the ram/fsb setting? You must be using really high fsb to get 2.4+GHZ out of the cpu since it can do a max of 10x (so 240 or higher fsb would be needed on air which is possible cause I have seen some people get between 270-300fsb on air too, but it's still a high fsb).

 

[monkeymanxe]

The heat doesn't change when I overclock but it does rise when I up the voltage. I think I'll wait till I get a better HS/Fan to up the voltage. My board lets me go up to 1.75v I believe. All the games and whatnot run fine, and my comp hasn't crashed yet and it is on alot. Maybe I'll wait to OC to the level I'm at now until I get my new cooling.

 

[Mavrick007]

Monkeymanxe: What kind of a mobo are you running?
What multiplyers and fsb?

 

[Yanagi]

the 1mb cache clawhamemr is not 10% faster per clock. its more like a 5% figure. A64s dont really need all that cache since its much more efficient. However since most seems to overclock just as well as Newcastles I would get a clawhammer anyway.

 

[monkeymanxe]

I have a chaintech VNF3-250

Multiplier 10X
FSB is set at right now at 230Mhz for stability so it passes prime 95.

 

[Mavrick007]

Originally posted by: Yanagi
the 1mb cache clawhamemr is not 10% faster per clock. its more like a 5% figure. A64s dont really need all that cache since its much more efficient. However since most seems to overclock just as well as Newcastles I would get a clawhammer anyway.

If I bought a Clawhammer it would have to be a DTR because that's basically all I can find (either that or a disabled 1/2 cache Clawhammer, which I am not going to get).

If I get a DTR, I don't want to get stuck with the chip if I need a desktop chip to flash just so I can get it to post. I want it to POST right out of the box.

Monkeymanxe: How do you like your Chaintech mobo so far? Enough features and options?

 

[monkeymanxe]

It's alright. Some odd things here and there like when I updated to the latest bios, 200Mhz for the memory clock is no longer an option, but I can do a stable overclock of my 3000+ from 2.0Ghz to 2.3Ghz and it goes through the prime 95 torture test, so I'm happy with it.

 

[igblack]

any one use super pi??? how fast do ur amd's do that sh** up???