Should I get this mobo/CPU combo?

[arredondo]

754 Chaintech VNF3-250 and Clawhammer 3400+ 1MB L2 cache =$322

Is that a pretty good deal for power and stability?

 

[LordPhoenix]

I'd get a 3000+. Almost same performance for less.

 

[Viper96720]

Epox EP-9NDA3+ and Winchester 3000+ for $328

 

[Childs]

Heh..$322 seems like a lot when you can get a 3000+ and a MSI K8N Neo for like $189 at Frys.

 

[arredondo]

A 3400+ Clawhammer with 1MB L2 cache benchmarks much higher than the 3000+ with half the cache. That's why it costs more. It matches and sometimes pasts the 130 nm 3500+ in all reviews.

 

[ViRGE]

Wait, why do you want to get the 1MB 3400+? The 512K Newcastles' 200mhz speed bump more than offsets the chache difference.

 

[ts3433]

Yes, the Newcastle 3400+ will outperform the Clawhammer. It may be wise, though, to consider a 90nm on 939, depending on how frequently you upgrade stuff.

 

[Chris2wire]

This was an isolated incedent...

But my VNF-250 that arrived last week with A64 3000+ was a NIGHTMARE. Absolute nightmare. Nothing was stable.

Gave up and RMA'd it. Before sending it away I figured I may as well use it to reformat my HD and prepare for my next mobo to arrive. This board couldnt even reformat the hard drive!!! It kept hanging and hanging. Finally put in my old system, fearing I may have a bad hard drive, and it reformatted it just fine.

My first taste of chaintech will be my last.

But if you check out user reviews on the Chaintech it seems to be loved...

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: ohnoesaz1
This was an isolated incident...

But my VNF-250 that arrived last week with A64 3000+ was a NIGHTMARE. Absolute nightmare. Nothing was stable.

Gave up and RMA'd it. Before sending it away I figured I may as well use it to reformat my HD and prepare for my next mobo to arrive. This board couldnt even reformat the hard drive!!! It kept hanging and hanging. Finally put in my old system, fearing I may have a bad hard drive, and it reformatted it just fine.

My first taste of chaintech will be my last.

But if you check out user reviews on the Chaintech it seems to be loved...

Newegg does not post explicitly bad reviews, in order to prevent astroturfing by the manufacturer's competitors. Take a look at the star rating, if it doesn't jive with the written reviews, then it's likely a bad product.

 

[Pollock]

Originally posted by: arredondo
A 3400+ Clawhammer with 1MB L2 cache benchmarks much higher than the 3000+ with half the cache. That's why it costs more. It matches and sometimes pasts the 130 nm 3500+ in all reviews.

That's mainly because the 3400+ Clawhammer is 200MHz faster than a 3000+ at 2GHz, not because of the extra 512KB of cache. I'm pretty sure the 3200+ Newcastle will perform pretty much the same as the 3400+ Clawhammer, and the 3400+ Newcastle will beat the Clawhammer in pretty much everything. And the Newcastles are all cheaper to boot. I'm not too sure about the 3400+ Clawhammer beating the 3500+ often because the extra cache and dual channel memory counteract each other. But the 3500+ is overpriced anyway.

 

[arredondo]

I got a 939 Asus AV8 and Winchester 90nm 3200+ instead for $350. Thanks anyway.

 

[scaryclownsarefun]

non overclockers are crazy. my friend just bought an athlon 64 2800+ (newcastle core) and the VNF3-250 motherboard and ran it up to 2.4GHz totally stable with the default Heatsink and fan. the only difforence between the 2800+ and higher priced models is the maximum multiplier. when your board can already hit 275MHz FSB then why spend a ton more for 3400?