P3 or Athlon with Mushkin Rev2: best for overclocking?

[TuffGuy]

i have a stick of Mushkin 128MB High Performance w/ Mosel REV2 PC133 222. should i get an athlon or a p3?

 

[Insane3D]

Either system will be fast and overclockable. I would reccomend doing some research on motherboards when you decide what CPU you are getting. Make sure you get one that is overclocking friendly with FSB adjustments, Voltage Adjustments, etc. I personally think the Athlon will overclock slightly better, but to really get the most out of it you will need to crack open the case and use a GFD. If you don't feel comfortable with that, then go with a coppermine. The coppermine only needs to have the FSB bumped to o/c, so you don't need to open the case. It boils down to what you feel comforable with. I got real lucky with my 850, it will do a 118 fsb, but the reality is most Athlons don't like over 110fsb due to the EV6 bus. It is a DDR bus so it is much more sensitive to adjustment than the coppermine. If you go P3, get a "E" code (100mhzFSB) CPU, not an "EB" (133mhzFSB) as the "E" CPU's o/c much better. Good luck...

 

[TuffGuy]

thanks. that helps. the mushkin ram is supposed to be stable at 222MHz, and i wasn't sure how the athlon would react, but you just told me that the fsb only goes to 118 due to the ev6 bus. i have a p3-667 and tyan trinity mobo. which i'm selling to a friend. i'm getting the p3-700e and the abit bf6 in return. i should be able to easily get 133*7 to get at least 933. with the mushkin i'm hoping to get between 1050 and 1120.

 

[Insane3D]

One thing to consider though is that even at 110FSB the EV6 bus is a DDR bus, which means it is effectively running a 220mhz DDR. If you do choose an Athlon, I would get a 850, it is only like $300 and overclocks well. I also reccomend the KA7-100 mobo as it is the best Athlon mobo right now IMHO...

BTW- That Mushkin Mosel is tested with Athlons and runs great...

 

[TuffGuy]

man, now i'm unsure on what to do again. you suck! j/k

the p3-1000 and abit will cost $300-$350. it seems as though the athlon 850 and the ka7-100 will cost about $400-$450. both will hit 1000. do you know how the 1GHz p3 and athlon stack up against each other? specifically, do you know how fast they can do seti units?

yeah, i know about the mushkin/athlon combo. that's why i bought mushkin and not corsair.

 

[TuffGuy]

hey, check this out:

http://www.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/athlon/thunderbird/cpuscaling_image002.gif

 

[da loser]

first off, i don't believe you have 222mhz ram , otherwise i'll buy it from you. What I believe you have is 133mhz cas2, cas2 is the timing 2-2-2. go look on arstechnica there's a good memory article if you want more info.

So the best you could expect would be a 150mhz bus at cas3, 1050. I don't think you could go much higher than that, maybe a little but not too much. Also if the p3 is cheaper by $100 go for it. You really can't beat that setup for $300. even a duron and mobo=$100+150= $250 maybe less, even if it were possible. Just get the onvia one for $220 and a used bf6. should be pretty easy for 90-100.

The reason why the regular athlon doesn't scale well is because the cache is external so you must change the multiplier to 2/5. If you can get a SlotA thunderbird for the same price go ahead, but i doubt it, might get lucky though.

also what kind of video card do you have, look at anand's article on overclocked agp buses. If your video card can't handle the oc'd bus, then it doesn't matter.

also if you have a v5500 get a p3, according to aceshardware it looks like 3dfz hasn't optimized its drivers for the athlon.

 

[Insane3D]

It depends on how you compare them. I am not sure, but I think you are more likely to hit 1ghz with the Athlon, but the cache is slower. The P3 gets beat in pure FP I believe, but either one has positives and negatives. I don't believe there would be that much difference between the two at the same clock speed. I know the Mushkin ram is probably the best out there and will work well in both set-ups. I think also that you are not guaranteed to hit 1ghz with the P3, as their architecture makes it slightly harder to get to 1ghz. I am probably biased, but I love my 850...It's up to you!

 

[TuffGuy]

i apologize. i feel like an idiot right now. i was wonderng why i have never heard for 222MHz ram. 2-2-2 sounds more reasonable. mushkin rev2 is supposed to hit 160 and rev1.5 150. either way i'm aiming at 1GHz.

also, thanks for bringing up the video card. i have the creative annihilator pro geforce ddr. do i need to get a geforce2 gts? i was thinking of just getting the geforce2 mx when it comes out due to its low power dissipation. what do you think?

yeah, the p3 and athlon each win half the benchmarks, but i think the p3 is better for gaming.

 

[Insane3D]

I have the Geforce DDR, and in my opinion, you would wasting your money upgrading to a Geforce 2. Also, the Athlon's larger L1 cache as well as as it's superior FPU performance (games) make it a better gaming CPU, IMO. I get an average framerate in UT of 85-95FPS with my Athlon and Geforce DDR at 1024x768 32bit. Good luck.

 

[TuffGuy]

really. my understanding was that the p3 is tops in gaming and the athlon in business apps. at least that's what anandtech and ars say. the athlon's cahe is bigger, but i think that it's also slower. i'm not sure about the t-bird though. i'll stick with my ddr then. it's just that the gts seems so powerful. what i really want though is the geforce2 mx when it comes out. if it retails for about $120.

 

[Insane3D]

The L1 cache is full speed, the L2 cache is the slower cache. I believe the L1 cache on a P3 is 1/2 the size of the L1 on the Athlon. Anyway, when the P3 outperforms the Athlon in a particular game, Q3 for example, it is only by 1 or 2 FPS and sometime less than that. If you are using a Geforce DDR, any game will fly with a CPU above 700mhz. When you are running games at more than 60fps, 1 FPS is not even noticeable. Like I said before, if you had two systems at the same clock speed, Athlon or P3, you probably wouldn't be able to tell any difference. It is up to you. It sounds like you want a P3, so by all means get one. The coppermines are a nice chip, I just think the Athlon is a more advanced design. It is really only held back by the slower L2 cache. I upgraded from a P3 system and I had a P2 system before that, I just like my Athlon system better. It is a hard choice, but I think the Athlon wins the "bang for the buck" title. I just heard that in September, AMD will be cutting the price of the 1ghz Athlon to $450 from almost $1000 now. I wonder if you will even be able to buy a 1ghz P3 by then.

 

[TuffGuy]

you're absolutely right, and i am still interested in the athlon, i'm just a bit concerned about the mobo support. the 200MHz fsb sound extremely tempting. do you know how they compare with seti packets? maybe i'll get a thunderbird a month or so, when i'm done playing with the p3. thanks for your help. btw, which pc133 ram do you think is better: crucial, mushkin, or mosel vitalic (memory man)?

 

[Insane3D]

I think they will all do real well, but I think the Mushkin Mosel Vitalic Revision 2 is the best though. Is the memory man Mosel the same stuff? I know Mushkin hand-picks their Mosel, not sure if memory man does that. I don't think you will have any problems with any of those... Good luck. I am waiting for the Mustang core. It will supposedly have an updated EV6 bus that runs at 266mhz DDR, and will have 512kb of full-speed L2 cache. The core is also supposed to be scalable up to 2.5ghz! I can't wait...

 

[TuffGuy]

memory man's is mosel vitalic. i think mushkin's is siemens infineon. does siemens make mosel? either way, at $177 memory man's is $23 cheaper w/ shipping. the crucial stuff is sold out for at least a week and the price is not guaranteed to stay down. crucial was the best deal. it came out to $145 with shipping. but the price is not guaranteed to stay down.

 

[tvman28]

I have had both and I like the p3 MUCH better.
The p3 overclocks much easier, get an E series.
I have a 700e@933 at default voltage and stock retail cooling,by changing bus speed from 100 to 133-one setting!
It can't get any easier than that.
Only problem, I'm not pushing the Mosel as hard as I can.
I will be changing that soon enuff, though.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

mushkin has Mosel Vitalic REv.2 ram. Its priced at $189, so the Memory Man Stuff is significatly cheaper.

One thing though, Mushkin support is awesome. The only reason I got the Crucial stuff over Mushkin Mosel is because of the $40 price difference.



Mike