new Athlon rig specs & benchs

[Soulkeeper]

i finally got my system together

2500+ barton /w slk-800 and 80mm variable speed fan
dfi nf2 lanparty
1 gig 2x512mb mushkin pc3500 hi perf black level II
GF4 ti4200 128mb agp 8x
20gig maxtor 7200rpm
480watt antec true blue
50x asus cdrom drive

i'll post some benchmarks comparing different fsb speeds and/or memory speeds/timings as soon as I repair the windows partition that was damaged when the cpu fryed on my previous setup

 

[Outlawv6]

I'm interested, that's for sure

 

[Soulkeeper]

ok i got the system together then went out for dinner so now i'll start benchmarking at the following speeds, if i can hit them all

13.5x135=1822
11x166=1826
9x203=1827
8x228=1824

those should be close enough to default clock for my barton 2500+
i'll start with just 3dmark and sisoft benchs
be back later

 

[Soulkeeper]

ok here is what i got so far:

speed............3dmark2k3.......sandra mem.......sandra cpu arith
13.5x135.......1450...........2092/2023.........6798/2759
11x166..........1482...........2587/2450.........6842/2776

i tryed 9x203 but the system wouldn't load windows
it seems like anything over 200 isn't stable
i'm gonna look into this more and try the many many setting in this bios
i'll let ya guys know how it goes

 

[Soulkeeper]

my motherboard fryed on me or something

don't get a dfi lanparty board if you don't like clearing the cmos every 5 minutes

i think i left the clear cmos jumper on too long and now the system won't boot
this blows

 

[Soulkeeper]

ok i went down and took that junk back and now i have a 40 dollar cheaper asus a7n8x 2.0 delux
this board is nice

i'll post some benchs tomarrow or later tonight

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
ok i went down and took that junk back and now i have a 40 dollar cheaper asus a7n8x 2.0 delux
this board is nice

i'll post some benchs tomarrow or later tonight

I wish AnandTech would pull their head out of their anus and show some benchmarks comparing those new nForce2 Ultra 400 Apollo Space Rocket Platinum-Titanium Alloy motherboards or whatever the hell they're calling them with the popular boards like the A7N8X Deluxe, 8RDA+, and NF7-S.

 

[Excelsior]

You do know that sometimes you have to hold down the INSERT key if the machine doesnt boot up right?

 

[Soulkeeper]

nah i've never heard that but the cmos was most likely toast anyways
the keyboard lights were flashing and the system didn't get to the point where it would take keyboard messages

 

[Excelsior]

It was not necessarily toast. When I was first overclocking my Nforce rig I thought I killed the bios but then i found out about the insert key trick. It worked fine.

 

[Soulkeeper]

hmm interesting

well i still didn't like having to clear the cmos everytime the board didn't like a bios setting
and the asus board is letting me run at 215mhz fsb now

i couldn't get the dfi board stable at 200mhz nomatter what voltages or timings i used

so i guess i'm happy now

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
hmm interesting

well i still didn't like having to clear the cmos everytime the board didn't like a bios setting
and the asus board is letting me run at 215mhz fsb now

i couldn't get the dfi board stable at 200mhz nomatter what voltages or timings i used

so i guess i'm happy now

I can run my FSB at 233... I have the same motherboard you have... if you have fast enough RAM, keep raising it.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah i'm gonna reinstall windows it is giving me trouble
but yeah if i try low latencies i'm sure i could get atleast 220

 

[Soulkeeper]

bummer looks like i am gonna have to do the vdd mod to get over 200 stable
i might do this in the next few days

200x10 2-2-2-6 default voltages on everything gives me a partially stable system
it makes it about half way through 3dmark before the program crashes
i know it's not the mem or cpu cause i've tryed various voltages and timings with no change

ohh well this is only the start of my fun

 

[Lyfer]

That mushkin must have cost you an arm and a leg .

 

[Jeff7181]

I find it hard to believe that so many people have to do the VDD mod and I don't. I normally have terrible luck overclocking... and mine works perfectly at 233. One thing I've noticed though, is that my RAM doesn't like to be run between 175 Mhz and 195 Mhz. In there, it won't boot, but lower than 175, or higher than 195 and it boots fine.

 

[Soulkeeper]

hmmm odd

yeah the mushkin was like 400 bucks total

 

[MDE]

Use this BIOS. Works fine for me and gives you all sorts of options including VDD adjustments.

 

[Soulkeeper]

looks like a few people in that thread said it didn't work
does that work on the nf2 ultra 400 chipset like i got ?

 

[MDE]

Don't know... I'm on a Rev 1.04 and it works for me. I did flash using the Windows utility from Asus.

 

[Soulkeeper]

did you get an increase in fsb speed by increasing the vdd values or did it just put the options in there ??
do they have any real effect on the voltage ?

 

[MDE]

No clue, I need more cooling before I even think about adjusting the VDD, but my max FSB didn't go down, if anything went up. My RAM is also cheap crap, so that isn't helping much.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i heard that with the a7n8x you can set the jumper to 100fsb and that helps you get higher fsb speeds stable for some reason

 

[MichaelD]

Cool stuff, Soulkeeper. Thanks for being specific w/all the components. I"m thinking about a new mobo myself. Currently have a Rev 1.0 8RDA+...looking for more. Was thinking about getting a Rev 2.0 (AKA NF2 400) but open to other options.

That sucks about the new DFI board...I thought it was suppposed to be the schiznit?

 

[MDE]

Don't know about the 100MHz jumper, will try that. I got my FSB up to 220, and the VDD did nothing for speed. I'm at the same 2.31, just 10x220 instead of 11x210. I'm shocked how well this crap memory has overclocked.