The mobile Athlon 64 and motherboards

[imported_infinity9]

I just used the factory rear bracket and screwed into that. Works great. One thing though, my Zalman 7000 didn't do that great cooling the A64 overclocked at all. Dropped over 20C when I installed my WC setup. I tried reseating the Zalman about 5 times to ensure it was getting good contact too. Had perfect rectangle of paste on it every time.

 

[Bar81]

That's why the Zalman isn't recommended or even approved

 

[proneax]

Originally posted by: Bar81
That's why the Zalman isn't recommended or even approved

What do you mean? It's certified for socket 754... No heatsinks are certified for dtr chips.

Has anyone seen a performance difference between the zalman and another air cooler? It can't be worse than the stock cooler....

 

[imported_jvrobert]

Just to add to this thread (took me forever to find out exactly which athlon64 mobiles work with which boards for sure)...

I successfully got a 1.4V 62W Athlon 64 Mobile 2800+ (62W) working on an AOpen AK86-L. It came up at 0.95V and 4x multiplier (800MHz), but I flashed the latet BIOS, and changed the multiplier and all is well now. Seems like a great board and chip.

I'm using it for a super-quiet HTPC so overclocking isn't my concern, however, so I can't speak to how well it will overclock. I actually have it running underclocked at 1.2V and 1.4GHz. I'm going to try 1.2V or 1.3V and 1.6GHz today, might go for a mild overclock if I can keep the loaded temp under 40C.

 

[Quino]

jvrobert you should be fine at 1.6 gigs and 1.2-1.25 volts. I have the same chip and I was able to go all the way to 2 gigs at 1.3 volts Nice little chips

 

[Bar81]

Thanks for the info jvrobert, I've updated accordingly. Also, I've received final word that the max voltage with the 1.4v mobiles on the K8S8X will remain at 1.45v as they don't have the CPU on hand to test and apparently it's a complex enough issue that they don't feel their time is properly spent without a CPU to test in house.

 

[jkresh]

Looks like i am sending back the msi, any board that works out of the box (dont have a desktop chip to flash) that has a working pci lock?

 

[Bar81]

Just take a look at the list. ASRock K8S8X, AOpen AK89 Max, Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro. That's about it confirmed. I would think the upcoming Asus K8N would have the best chance to work out of the box given their previous track record but it's looking increasingly likely that it will be well into July before we see it - no reviewer even has one yet due to alleged stability issues.

 

[Bar81]

Added a new mobo

 

[jkresh]

seems like everyboard has problems, either voltage incorrect or not sticking or mutliplier issues. I am hoping msi will get the 1.2 bios out and it will work, or maybe the epox board will, as otherwise i may just go with the aus k8n sv, but the lack of pci lock is a problem.

 

[Bar81]

Really minor stuff shouldn't deter you but I understand about being gunshy after the whole MSI fiasco. The Epox board I have no idea but I know that as of right now it does not work. If you can wait I'd definitely hold out for the Asus K8N if I were in your situation. It's the only board besides the ASRock that I would personally even consider at this point.

 

[jkresh]

If it was coming soon i would wait, but only have another 20 days then i have to send the msi back, and i dont have anything inbetween, so only way i could wait for the asus would be to send the msi back, order something next week to hold me off till the asus is ready. I would prefer to only switch motherboards twice over the summer, 3 times is getting silly.

 

[Bar81]

Since you have 20 days, might as well put up with it for at least a couple of weeks to see if the Asus or something better shows up in the meantime. If they don't then you can make the call.

 

[jkresh]

I will wait for the next bios, and hope asus gets back on track with there board. Just realy fustrated at this point.

 

[Bar81]

I hear you. Hang in there, it can only get better

 

[Bar81]

Well, looks like the Asus K8N got pushed back again to the end of July so it looks like a MSI Asus swap is out of the question unless you want to get another board inthe meanwhile.

 

[savx]

Thanks Bar81 for the great info/analysis and organization.

After spending days reading various threads trying to catch up to the A64 happenings, I'm just more confused now than was before

Here are the things I think I understand about the A64's:

K8T800 chipset has higher mem freq (800MHz), nf3 has lower freq bandwidth (600MHz) but has AGP/PCI lock (and that's good for something)

Running fsb:mem 1:1 is not necessary/greatly desired w/ A64's as it is was w/ Athlons TB, due to A64 async mem control. Therefore going w/ higher bandwidth memory isn't the best bang for the buck, and pc2700 may still be useful (I think!?!?!).

Now, instead of going on about the many things that I'm still not clear about, I'll stick to the A64 Desktop vs. Mobiles (this thread's topic):

Are there any clear evidence that Mobile and/or DTR A64 are better value (i.e. have better OC potential ala Athlon TB mobiles vs. desktop versions) than there Desktop brethrens?

From reading lots of threads, it seems people just give their opinions and no hard trends emerge (maybe its because the A64 are still relatively new). And many are still having a tough time running Mobile A64's in current 754 Mobo.

I still have many unanswered questions, but instead of going on and on... What's the story of Mobiles vs. Desktops (especially the DT NewCastle cores) ?

I'm looking to upgrade to an A64 setup soon (not in a rush), and my main concern to have a powerful yet quiet and COOL system, which I expect to find in an A64 setup vs. my current little room heater (an Athlon TB 1800+ DLT3C @ 2300MHz/1.6Vcore)

 

[jkresh]

its interesting, trying one stick of the crucial pc266 that i had in slots 2 or 3 fails, but two sticsk set to 100mhz runs fine at proper multiplier, so I think it may just be the corsair thats causing the problems. May rma that and try a different memory brand, strange as corsair is generally among the best.

 

[S4M33R]

Nice work

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: savx
Thanks Bar81 for the great info/analysis and organization.

After spending days reading various threads trying to catch up to the A64 happenings, I'm just more confused now than was before

Here are the things I think I understand about the A64's:

K8T800 chipset has higher mem freq (800MHz), nf3 has lower freq bandwidth (600MHz) but has AGP/PCI lock (and that's good for something)

Running fsb:mem 1:1 is not necessary/greatly desired w/ A64's as it is was w/ Athlons TB, due to A64 async mem control. Therefore going w/ higher bandwidth memory isn't the best bang for the buck, and pc2700 may still be useful (I think!?!?!).

Now, instead of going on about the many things that I'm still not clear about, I'll stick to the A64 Desktop vs. Mobiles (this thread's topic):

Are there any clear evidence that Mobile and/or DTR A64 are better value (i.e. have better OC potential ala Athlon TB mobiles vs. desktop versions) than there Desktop brethrens?

From reading lots of threads, it seems people just give their opinions and no hard trends emerge (maybe its because the A64 are still relatively new). And many are still having a tough time running Mobile A64's in current 754 Mobo.

I still have many unanswered questions, but instead of going on and on... What's the story of Mobiles vs. Desktops (especially the DT NewCastle cores) ?

I'm looking to upgrade to an A64 setup soon (not in a rush), and my main concern to have a powerful yet quiet and COOL system, which I expect to find in an A64 setup vs. my current little room heater (an Athlon TB 1800+ DLT3C @ 2300MHz/1.6Vcore)

There are only two reasons to choose the mobiles over a desktop chip - you want a quiet/cool system or you want to achieve maximum overclock. I myself run a quiet/low airflow setup. I'm able to achieve 2.3 Ghz at 1.45v That speed at that voltage is impossible to get on a desktop chip using aircooling. The low voltage allows me to run 10+ degrees celsius under the 1.55v minimum it would take for even the best desktop chip to hit that speed. Also, the mobile chips, if you choose properly, guarantee you the cooler running CG revision. With the desktops it's a crapshoot. Under your criteria I would go with a mobile. Depending on how high you want to overclock and what chip you get the lack of AGP/PCI lock may not be a huge issue. If you can wait until the end of this month when the Asus K8N hits that may end up being a possibility. Based upon Asus' past A64 effort, I would expect this to be the mobo with the best chance of working with mobiles properly out of the box.

On the other hand, I would say save your money and get the K8S8X. It's *still* the fastest A64 board out there and is the most stable board for the platform. If you're trying to run a quiet system I don't think you can go much beyond 2.3Ghz due to the heat. I know I'm very happy with my setup. The only thing missing for me is VDimm but running at 230 HTT versus 191.7 is at most 1-3% so I'm not missing much and I wouldn't pay the difference in price between PC 3700 and the RAM I have now (1Gig for $225); with the low timings I would be surprised if there was any difference between PC3700 at higher timings than the 2-3-2-6 I'm running.

 

[Bar81]

Answere to your other questions below:

Originally posted by: savx
Thanks Bar81 for the great info/analysis and organization.

After spending days reading various threads trying to catch up to the A64 happenings, I'm just more confused now than was before

Here are the things I think I understand about the A64's:

K8T800 chipset has higher mem freq (800MHz), nf3 has lower freq bandwidth (600MHz) but has AGP/PCI lock (and that's good for something)

What you're talking about is partially correct. The nForce3-150 boards have the 600mhz Hypertransport bus but very few have AGP/PCI lock. The newer nForce3-250 boards all have at least an 800mhz Hypertransport bus and all have AGP/PCI lock.

Running fsb:mem 1:1 is not necessary/greatly desired w/ A64's as it is was w/ Athlons TB, due to A64 async mem control. Therefore going w/ higher bandwidth memory isn't the best bang for the buck, and pc2700 may still be useful (I think!?!?!).

Yes, all memory speeds for the A64 are async. Memory speed is derived as a divisor off of CPU speed. PC2700 is fine. See here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1335370&enterthread=y


Now, instead of going on about the many things that I'm still not clear about, I'll stick to the A64 Desktop vs. Mobiles (this thread's topic):

Are there any clear evidence that Mobile and/or DTR A64 are better value (i.e. have better OC potential ala Athlon TB mobiles vs. desktop versions) than there Desktop brethrens?

From reading lots of threads, it seems people just give their opinions and no hard trends emerge (maybe its because the A64 are still relatively new). And many are still having a tough time running Mobile A64's in current 754 Mobo.

I still have many unanswered questions, but instead of going on and on... What's the story of Mobiles vs. Desktops (especially the DT NewCastle cores) ?

Since all CG revision A64s overclock to the same range 2.4-2.5Ghz the Clawhammer 1MB L2 cache cores are preferable since they offer a 5% performance advantage versus Newcastle cores. If you don't plan to overclock then getting the Newcastle core may have an advantage for certain chips. For example the Newcastle based 3200+ (2.2Ghz and 512k L2) is faster than the Clawhammer based 3200+ (2.0 Ghz and 1 MB L2) at stock speed. But overclock both to 2.4Ghz and the Clawhammer will be noticeable faster.

I'm looking to upgrade to an A64 setup soon (not in a rush), and my main concern to have a powerful yet quiet and COOL system, which I expect to find in an A64 setup vs. my current little room heater (an Athlon TB 1800+ DLT3C @ 2300MHz/1.6Vcore)

 

[jkresh]

what is the highest long term safe voltage for a dtr 3200? Trying to run at 9*275 (if i can then i will get ocz 3700, if not i will go with 3500), and prime failed rather quickly with 1.6 volts, upped to 1.65, temp is 44c (under load). I know the temp is ok, but is voltage to high for a dtr, and if not, what is?

 

[Bar81]

They're rated to 1.65v max I believe. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable higher than 1.60v for long term use but then again I intend to keep the CPU for a while. If you're upgrading within a year 1.7 or maybe even 1.75 may be okay but that's quite high. The biggest thing not to do is to push vdimm over 2.90v There have been a lot of people who pushed 3,0v+ and have dead CPUs to show for it due to the integrated mem controller in their CPU giving out.

 

[jkresh]

ok, will keep it at 1.65 and below (will try to get it stable at 1.6 at proper frequency)

 

[Bar81]

You're really pushing it on air, 2.5Ghz is all that you can expect given you get a good chip. At 1.6v I wouldn't expect anything more than 2.4Ghz and that's if you're lucky. To get higher you're gonna have to push the envelope at 1.7v and possibly even 1.75v This is from several user's reports with the 3200+ DTR chips. Also, try putting the multiplier back up at 10 and trying the speed there for initial testing. From my experience getting above above 260 HTT starts to strain most A64s and you want to eliminate that possibility from the equation. When you find a stable speed then you can drop the multi and start seeing if you can do the high HTT.