Slot A T-Birds seem to be easily available, are these the only hope for oveclocking?

[vlad]

When you go to pricewatch.com and ask for the category AMD Thunderbird, the majority of returns says they're slot-A and not socketed. I thought this was a bit peculiar, since the slot-As are supposed to be less available, and intended for OEM manufacturers.

Also, is the only hope of really overclocking the T-bird in getting a slot one and using a gfd? I don't mean increasing the FSB bus: obviously this will work for socketed T-birds also. But as far as overclocking the T-Bird by altering multiplier etc, is this only viable on the slotted ones?

Thanks for your guys' help, I plan on building a T-Bird system for college this summer, and I want to plan for the future and ensure that I can squeeze out some extra performance.

Vlad

 

[DragonFire]

First off, there will be a lot of slot-A T-Birds because motherboard companies have at least a million Athlon boards that will be useless if AMD goes right to socket-A. In an effort to help out, AMD would produce slot-A T-birds intill those companies could move there stock over to socket-A. About the overclocking part, as far as I know any GFD for a Athlon will work with the T-bird but not 100% on that one. I do know that someone made a GFD just for the T-Bird. If I find the url to the Artical, I'll post it.

 

[Lanik]

As I've stated in other threads...I've gotten 2 different GFD's working with a Slot-A T-bird. Seems like they're just as compatible as the classics were.

 

[Insane3D]

Yeah, they will work, the cores are almost exactly the same as the "classic" Athlon...

 

[Lanik]

...???

The PCB is nearly the same, but the cores are very different-- fullspeed, on-die cache.

 

[Ulysses]

While being able to adjust the multiplier with a GFD does allow more flexibility in o'clocking, that adjustment feature may become available on some Socket A mobos eventually, since the traces for such an adjustmen are on, or can be put on, the board itself (cf. the ASUS A7V board that Tom's HW tested and the actual in-production boards).

It seems to me to make the most sense if you are getting a new system to go with the newest form factor, Socket A, and a mobo based on the newest sanctioned chipset, the VIA Apollo KT133. The Slot A format TBirds may be available now, but they are really for legacy hardware - why buy a new CPU in an outdated form factor that requires an outdated mobo design - just to help out a manufacturer?

Wait if you can until you see some comparative reviews of the TBird and some mobos at AnandTech, Tom's HW, etc., before buying.


BTW, Lanik, the term 'core' often is used not to include such related circuits as the memory cache. OTOH see: http://www.instantweb.com/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=core&action=Search
http://www.instantweb.com/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?CPU

 

[Deeko]

I ordered a SlotA Tbird back in mid june, they said they were getting them in the next day...but they sold out before they got to mine. They've had 2 more shipments of them too, still haven't gotten to me....not as readily available as it seems.

 

[Lanik]

I don't know...ordered mine last week, got it 3 days later.

You just have to check out pricewatch and call them to make sure it actually is in stock.

 

[Insane3D]

Lanik...I meant that internally, other than the L2 cache, they are almost identical in the basic core. An Athlon and a T-Bird are really the same CPU, minus cache difference. Sorry, I should have been more specific...

 

[MagnusPAH]

They are saturating SlotAs now but from what I have heard, they will not produce enough to fulfill customers with SlotAs mobos. Instead they are beginning to mass produce the SocketA Tbirds now. I have seen a few places selling them now. Soon, AMD will phase out SlotAs in favor of socketAs. They can not afford to keep the slotAs going for long because they will soon introduce the Tbirds in mass quantities and the mobos with the AMD's 760 chipset will be out in the next few months. The reason why the SlotAs are being bought so fast is because the demand is so high and the expected supply will be low. Oh well..
If I am to upgrade, I will wait for another 2 months and then get the post 1Gig Tbird and the 760 mobos. These will be optimized for the Tbird and will truly rock. In*ell will have its hands full.

 

[Lanik]

Ok, Insane3d

BTW, the original question was how are they for overclocking...

Well, I've got my 700 T-bird @ 850, 185v. It'll post and even get into windows at 900, but it's not very stable. Hopefully, in time, it will gain great stability and accept either a higher clock and/or lower voltage. They seem to be very acceptable to overclocking via a GFD, but their tolerance for FSB o'cing seems as low as the original Athlon (ie, you might get to 105 FSB but probably no further).

 

[Insane3D]

Lanik, Hmmm, you say that 105FSB is usually the limit on Athlons? I am running 118 now with now problems. I was able to boot into Windows with 120mhz, but any games would crash. I am running this speed without a GFD.. What mobo are you using, and are you using a GFD?