Venice core - New system, please comment

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gnusmitty

Junior Member
Apr 2, 2005
5
0
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Hello everyone,

My first post here, I hope these "what about this setup" posts aren't frowned upon, but I'm excited for the Venice core Athlon 64s due out on the 4th.

The Goods

Athlon 64 3200+ Venice ADA3200BPBOX
2x512 OCZ EL DualChannel Gold VX

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D nForce4 Ultra
XFX nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB

Thermalright Heatsink Retail XP-120
Vantec "Stealth" 120mm Case fan
Cooler Master Wave Master Case TAC-T01-E1C
Antec 480 watt NeoPower ATX 12V v2.0

Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10kRPM WD740GD

$1319.97 + CPU + Shipping =~ $1600
(Prices at newegg, I love it)

My thoughts

All I have now is a Pentium M 1.8 IBM laptop, so this is gonna be huge for me. I already have a 19" CRT and 18" LCD (only 1280x1024, that upgrade will be next). I also have a 250 GB HDD, so the new drive is just for the OS/Software.

I'm shooting low on the proc since I'm only a casual overclocker and I'm looking forward to the dual cores. NF4 SLI would be overkill for me, but I hear the first rev of the DFI has a pencil trick so if I'm lucky, another 6800GT may be on the horizon.

A couple questions

Is the RAM overkill? I like the idea of the tight latency, but could I get up to 3500+ speeds with a lower grade of OCZ RAM? Maybe go with 1.5-2 GB of cheaper RAM?

Can I get away with a cheaper but still brand name (like coolermaster) PSU. Maybe a decent 450w?

Any options besides the Western Digital WD740GD? I have heard great things, but is a 7200 with NCQ gonna be just as good?

Any other comments are appreciated, thanks for your help!

-Smitty
 
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AristoV300

Golden Member
May 29, 2004
1,380
0
0
System looks good. I wouldn't waste money on a Raptor. You are better off buying a good 7200RPM SATA drive with 8mb cache.
 
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CheesePoofs

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2004
3,163
0
0
I'd have to say the ram is overkill. Get value ram and just use a divider while overclocking. You'll loose an unnoticable amount of performance and save $100 or more.

I also thing the Raptor is a waste.

The XP-120 is a bit much also. A64's run cool, especial the 90nm ones. The stock cooling should be good enough for some mild overclocking, but the xp-90 will definately be good enough for your needs.

Aside from that looks good though.
 
overst33r

overst33r

Diamond Member
Oct 3, 2004
5,761
12
81
save some money and go for the x800xl, im sure you could use Corsair Value Ram and a divider and get the same overclock.
 
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CheesePoofs

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2004
3,163
0
0
Corsair value ram has some issues with the DFI nF4 Ultra-d. I wouldn't recommend it for your board.
 
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Ike0069

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2003
4,276
2
76
My XFX 6800Gt is great.
Value RAM would be just fine for you.
Don't count on SLI working on your board, but you most liklely would never use it anyways. Personally I do not like the layout of the DFI. Why have 2 PCI-e slots on a non-SLI board? Makes no sense to me. Then it only gives you 2 regular PCI slots. I use 3 PCI slots myself. If I want to add a Firewire card or TV capture card, I still can.
If you are looking to save money, don't get the Raptor. That's one of those "nice to have only if you have extra money" items.
 
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gnusmitty

Junior Member
Apr 2, 2005
5
0
0
Cool, very helpful comments so far. I'm gonna tone down the RAM, I got a little carried away ;-).

I'm looking at:

OCZ Enhanced Latency Series Dual Channel Kits 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200

That'll save me $83 (@ $179.99), and still get me 2-3-2-6 1T up to 2.6 volts. Hopefully without memtest errors.


I HATE hard disk load time, esp with bootup and saved games, but this looks like a good repalcement with NCQ support:

Maxtor 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model 6B160M0 $99.00


I think I'll stick with the Thermalright XP-120 in case I go dual core after this summer. It's only and extra $18 and you guys already saved me $160!

I'll check out some benchmarks for eVGA 6800 GT vs. ATI x800xl, but no need to turn this into a major video card debate.

Thanks for all the tips!
 
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Ben88

Senior member
Sep 21, 2000
515
0
0
I think that ram is still too much $ for what you are getting. Also, you should get a Seagate HDD.
 
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Melchior

Banned
Sep 16, 2004
634
0
0
No on the XFX, get a better brand. VX looks fine if you want to overclock crazy. (which you can w/ DFI + venice). If your sticking with one graphics card, I'd go for the X800XL. IF your going SLI, then the 6800GT.

I say Yes to Raptor, since increasing HD performance is important for a snappier system and since you're spending so much already.
 
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gnusmitty

Junior Member
Apr 2, 2005
5
0
0
They are supposed to ship April 4th. Who knows what availability/pricing will be.
They are supposed to clear up some memory issues (esp with 4 DIMMS), and will probably overclock a lot better:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=57291

They replace the Winchester 90nm cores in:

Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BPBOX);
Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BPBOX);
Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BPBOX).

The new 3800+ (I think) and 4000+, which are called San Diego, are on the 15th.
 
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HuddaDudda

Member
Nov 28, 2004
76
0
0
No 3800+ ?? I was going to grab a 4000+ then since hear no it wont OC as nice as a 3500+ - was told a 3500+ will Oc past an OC 4000+ on air. So I was thinking about a 3800+??? Choices choices. Trying to spend money but cant decide on a system! ARGH!

See this post -> HERE
 
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fstime

Diamond Member
Jan 18, 2004
4,382
5
81
Wrong, value ram cant compare to UTT. Put it this way, UTT at 2-2-2-5 @ 180 fsb is just as fast as value at 200 fsb.


For the vid card, get a leadtek, evga, or bfg.
 
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gnusmitty

Junior Member
Apr 2, 2005
5
0
0
OK, after reading reviews and posts, the ATI Radeon X800 XL seems like the only good choice. $100 cheaper, and HDTV out. I can live without SM3 extensions and a couple other minor features. I trust ATI drivers more anyways.

Regarding the other PCI-Ex16 slot, it's for my 8000baseT Ethernet card ;)

-S
 
The Sauce

The Sauce

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
4,741
34
91
Originally posted by: gnusmitty
OK, after reading reviews and posts, the ATI Radeon X800 XL seems like the only good choice. $100 cheaper, and HDTV out. I can live without SM3 extensions and a couple other minor features. I trust ATI drivers more anyways.
Click to expand...

Wise decision.
 
L

leedog2007

Senior member
Nov 4, 2004
396
0
0
Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
NO!!!! not XFX, eVGA is good for nVidia
Click to expand...

Anything but that, BFG is a good company to. About the ram, look at the GSkill "value ram" its got really good timings, and is a great overclocker for me.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: gnusmitty
They are supposed to ship April 4th. Who knows what availability/pricing will be.
They are supposed to clear up some memory issues (esp with 4 DIMMS), and will probably overclock a lot better:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=57291

They replace the Winchester 90nm cores in:

Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BPBOX);
Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BPBOX);
Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BPBOX).

The new 3800+ (I think) and 4000+, which are called San Diego, are on the 15th.
Click to expand...

This originated from XBIT labs:

# Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3000+ (ADA3000BPBOX);
# Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3200+ (ADA3200BPBOX);
# Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BIBOX) -> Athlon 64 3500+ (ADA3500BPBOX).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20050310212502.html
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
New Article on the Venice Core at XBITlabs

Enhanced Integrated Memory Controller

"Every time a new Athlon 64 processor core come out AMD engineers continue tuning up their integrated memory controller. Note that this is done not only for the sake of increasing the processor performance, but mostly in order to extend the compatibility of this memory controller with the different DIMM modules and their configurations. The previous 90nm Athlon 64 processor core aka Winchester had certain performance limitations when four DDR400 SDRAM modules were used. If there were four single-side DDR400 SDRAM DIMMs installed in a system with a Winchester based Athlon 64 CPU, they could only work with the 2T timing, which caused a few percent drop below the usual performance level. If there were four double-side memory modules installed, DDR400 SDRAM would not work at all and its working frequency would automatically drop down to 333MHz.

AMD engineers promised to eliminate this problem in the new Venice core and they did keep their word. Athlon 64 processors based on Venice can work with four single-side DDR400 SDRAM modules without any limitations, and if there are double-side DDR400 SDRAM DIMMs installed, they can work at 400MHz with 2T timing.

Besides wider compatibility of the Venice?s memory controller, it also got noticeably faster. Among the tweaks implemented in Venice we should definitely point out enhanced hardware data prefetch and more write combining buffers (4 instead of 2).

All these improvements should help Venice based Athlon 64 processor to outperform their counterparts based on the older core revisions but working at the same clock frequency. And the performance gain will be more noticeable if there are four memory modules installed in the system."
Click to expand...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-venice.html
 
R

rizorith

Member
Apr 21, 2004
124
0
0
Originally posted by: Ike0069
My XFX 6800Gt is great.
Value RAM would be just fine for you.
Don't count on SLI working on your board, but you most liklely would never use it anyways. Personally I do not like the layout of the DFI. Why have 2 PCI-e slots on a non-SLI board? Makes no sense to me. Then it only gives you 2 regular PCI slots. I use 3 PCI slots myself. If I want to add a Firewire card or TV capture card, I still can.
If you are looking to save money, don't get the Raptor. That's one of those "nice to have only if you have extra money" items.
Click to expand...

the DFI only has 2 pci slots??? I'm looking at a similar setup (except probably a X800XL/TX) but I need pci for sound card, nic (wireless) and tv tuner/capture card. What other good o/c motherboards are out there?

Also someone suggested the ATI X800 Raedon because it has HDTV out. What does that mean? I'm going to be getting a Dell 2005 widescreen to watch dvd's and basic cable (no HD) - will this do anything at all for me? I'll also need the tv tuner card to watch the cable.
 
S

SNM

Member
Mar 20, 2005
180
0
0
The DFI reportedly has great on-board audio from what I've heard. You probably don't need an external card. And I'll just point out that you can get USB wireless.
HDTV video out means the card can output in HDTV format (fairly high-res) instead of boring old normal tv format (~640*480). If you have an HDTV you'll get a better image quality on it.
 
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