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Winchester or NewCastle for Socket 939

Keysplayr

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Hey Ladies and Gents,

I am a long time Intel user (since the 386 days) and I now want to try out an AMD rig.
I was looking at newegg and saw the A64 newcastle/754 & 939 chips, and the A64 Winchester/939 chips.

I will be going 939 of course. I just wanted to know what the differences are between NC and Winnie.
And which has an advantage over the other if any.

thanks,

Keys
 
don't have either yet so not speaking from experience, just what I've heard.

Winnie uses a 90nm manufacturing process where newcastle is at 130nm.
Winnie runs at cooler temperatures giving OC'ing on it an edge.
 
Yeah, the winchesters are slightly better OCers, but they are really expensive now. The newcastle is also a good CPU; You may get a few less MHz on the OC and a couple more degrees, but no biggie.

Personally, I would get the 3200+ and overclock it. It is quite a bit cheaper and is a great OCer. All the winchesters top out at around the same point, so you won't be sacrificing much.
 
hmmm.. So if I dont o/c, I wont be missing out on anything at all then? Clock for clock there is no performance gain going from a Newcastle to Winchester. Is this correct?

Both have 64+64+512 cache and both seem to run on 1.5v. And both seem to have the same instruction set. So basically what I am getting out of this is, a Winchester is a Newcastle, just on a 90nm process.

I have found a winchester 3000+ on the egg for 153.99 including shipping. OEM chip.
Linky
What do you guys think?

Thanks again for your help.

Keys
 
Actually, for at least the 3000+, the Newcastle actually tops the Winchester. The Winchester clocks in at 1800MHz while the NC comes in at 2000MHz, which certainly would explain the difference. If you're looking at a 3000+, I'd go with the NC. I got both my Chaintech VNF3-250 and NC 3000+ together for $210 about a month ago, so you might be able to spend a few more $$$ on a Graphics card or an extra stick of memory, if you're so inclined. Otherwise, I'd go 3200+ or 3400+ with a Winchester.

My NC does run a tad bit warm (42C idle; 50-52C running Prime95), but that's with a cheap HS and the generic Thermal Compound that came with it.
 
Ok, I just checked out a review here on AT comparing .09u to .13u A64's. On average, even though the .09's are clocked 200MHz slower than an identically PRrated .13u chip, the .09's are getting 1% to 7% performance improvements. Anand said this was most likely due to the D0 stepping on the Winnies.
So, I guess I will be going with a Winnie 3000+.

I am also getting a Nforce 3 Ultra mobo for it. I am going to go all refurb parts from newegg. If the parts are no good, I will just keep RMA'ing till the end of time till I get a good part. No biggie and I'm in no rush.

Thanks for the help my friends.

Keys
 
Winchester. However i would wait until (short term) the new revisions come out with SSE3 and other enhancements (long-ish term) dual core. Im waiting for dual core 😎 oh yeah!

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Winchester. However i would wait until (short term) the new revisions come out with SSE3 and other enhancements (long-ish term) dual core. Im waiting for dual core 😎 oh yeah!

-Kevin
Click to expand...


It is going to take a while for dual cores to come down to affordable prices (especially $150 like the 3000+). Even then, with the latencies inherent to multiple cores, single cores are going to be faster in single threaded apps (games). It will take a while for game developers to start writing multithreaded games. I think he is better off getting a 3000+ or 3200+ winchester now, then hoping that dualies are available in s939.
 
I understand what you are saying but you are not entirely correct. Price is an issue. As for latencies the P4 might experience some but the A64 is going to use the High Speed Interconnect (already on chip just waiting for another core) and then they will share the Hypertransport bus which is still going to have a huge amount of headroom (no bottlenecks).

They will be roughly the same speed as single core only because Intel and AMD are releasing them at 3ghz and (probably) around 2ghz (not sure yet) respectively. So you will barely notice a difference. However when the games become multi threaded then we will see what kind of benefits there are.

I would advise him to upgrade now but im just saying if possible you could wait and be even more satisfied.

-Kevin
 
Wait a couple months. The 939 boards are weak unless you spend $140 on MSI and then you still have issues like sata not being locked and mem slot issues. No offense to those who own 939 boards but they all suck compared to an ASUS/ABIT Canterwood board or even NF2 boards. DFI and ASUS are coming with sweet boards. DFI in particular is making ones with server grade componets on board, Sata II NCQ, Kigrian sound, etc. And wild Overclcoking options, which you may or may not use but at least it there and built for it. Being built with overclcoking in mind means IMO it will last longer under non-OCed conditions.

Next up is AMD will have rev E Winchs in two months. Adding SSE3 and a much more refined manufacturing process running cooler and yeilding either 25% or 15% more speed I forget. Would'nt it be nice to buy a 1800Mhz chip and OC to 2800Mhz on default Vcore? Again option is there.



You buy anything other than DFI UT 250 and a "old" 754 chip now and I think AMD may leave bad taste in mouth.
 
the reson for the pr differance at lower clock speed, and the higher over all performance is do to the wider memory band 6.4 vs 3.2 on NC. I am sure you can fined 1 or 2 posts showing a NC O/C past a winne but again thats 1 or 2 feeling lucky? I would go with a Winne if price is a issue stick with the 3200+ In a way I wish I would have however I played with the O/C on mine and was Very happy 2.64 prime stable 2710 stable for everything but prime. I figure on staying at stock for now everything just flys save to O/C for new software that will or may need it.
 
Just ordered a .09 Winchester A64 3000+ today, plan to overclock a bit. If I could ever buy a motherboard, I'd let you know how it performs....
 
Originally posted by: Hurricane Andrew
Actually, for at least the 3000+, the Newcastle actually tops the Winchester. The Winchester clocks in at 1800MHz while the NC comes in at 2000MHz, which certainly would explain the difference. If you're looking at a 3000+, I'd go with the NC. I got both my Chaintech VNF3-250 and NC 3000+ together for $210 about a month ago, so you might be able to spend a few more $$$ on a Graphics card or an extra stick of memory, if you're so inclined. Otherwise, I'd go 3200+ or 3400+ with a Winchester.

My NC does run a tad bit warm (42C idle; 50-52C running Prime95), but that's with a cheap HS and the generic Thermal Compound that came with it.
Click to expand...

Correction: current winchester is at 3000, 3200 and 3500. There is no 3400 winchester.

sweet spot is with the 3200. Nice, even multi at 10x.

 
Originally posted by: Sparky19692
the reson for the pr differance at lower clock speed, and the higher over all performance is do to the wider memory band 6.4 vs 3.2 on NC. I am sure you can fined 1 or 2 posts showing a NC O/C past a winne but again thats 1 or 2 feeling lucky? I would go with a Winne if price is a issue stick with the 3200+ In a way I wish I would have however I played with the O/C on mine and was Very happy 2.64 prime stable 2710 stable for everything but prime. I figure on staying at stock for now everything just flys save to O/C for new software that will or may need it.
Click to expand...

Do you have any clue what you are talking about.

THe Winchester will OC much farther run cooler and consume less power.

The winchester is faster in part due to a faster cache IIRC.

There is NO wider memory bandwidth with the NC or WC. There is No difference.

-Kevin
 
Let it go, that was'nt even english was it?😛

Kevin you ever finish writing that proggy for us?
 
Gaming Freak.
I am fine with you criticizing my spelling ,or gramer. However you may want to know what you are saying.

Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: Shaotai
Actually, there are a few benchmarks that show the winch being 1~3% faster than the NC...
Do a search and it should show the diff... plus the winch OCs better too...
Click to expand...

Actually there are a few benchmarks NC is faster too. Which is why I provided the link which shows it all balances out over a series.
Click to expand...

I was simply stating what is out there

Second you may be right about the Cashe I did not research that before I purchased mine.

lastly I suppose AMD is now miss informing the public. Wow this may be Huge!!

NC .130nm

A high-bandwidth, low-latency integrated DDR memory controller
Supports PC3200, PC2700, PC2100 or PC1600 DDR SDRAM
Unbuffered DIMMs
72-bit DDR SDRAM memory (64-bit interface + 8-bit ECC)
Up to 3.2 GB/s memory bandwidth
ECC protection enables increased system reliability

Winne .090nm

A high-bandwidth, low-latency integrated DDR memory controller
Supports PC3200, PC2700, PC2100 or PC1600 DDR SDRAM
Unbuffered DIMMs
72-bit DDR SDRAM memory (64-bit interface + 8-bit ECC)
Up to 6.4 GB/s memory bandwidth
ECC protection enables increased system reliability

Chill out


 
Originally posted by: Sparky19692
Gaming Freak.
I am fine with you criticizing my spelling ,or gramer. However you may want to know what you are saying.

Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: Shaotai
Actually, there are a few benchmarks that show the winch being 1~3% faster than the NC...
Do a search and it should show the diff... plus the winch OCs better too...
Click to expand...

Actually there are a few benchmarks NC is faster too. Which is why I provided the link which shows it all balances out over a series.
Click to expand...

I was simply stating what is out there

Second you may be right about the Cashe I did not research that before I purchased mine.

lastly I suppose AMD is now miss informing the public. Wow this may be Huge!!

NC .130nm

A high-bandwidth, low-latency integrated DDR memory controller
Supports PC3200, PC2700, PC2100 or PC1600 DDR SDRAM
Unbuffered DIMMs
72-bit DDR SDRAM memory (64-bit interface + 8-bit ECC)
Up to 3.2 GB/s memory bandwidth
ECC protection enables increased system reliability

Winne .090nm

A high-bandwidth, low-latency integrated DDR memory controller
Supports PC3200, PC2700, PC2100 or PC1600 DDR SDRAM
Unbuffered DIMMs
72-bit DDR SDRAM memory (64-bit interface + 8-bit ECC)
Up to 6.4 GB/s memory bandwidth
ECC protection enables increased system reliability

Chill out
Click to expand...

Where did you pull that from?

They did not mess with the Memory Controller at all during the transition. The only time that would hold true is if it is a 754 NC in which case dual channel cannot be enabled and 6.4 is not possible.

-Kevin
 
There spec sheet is PDF therefore no CP I went to ZZF and CP'ed it from there.
Yes all Winnes are 128bit. NC is 64 bit or single channel both 754 and 939 pin
 
Gamingphreek is correct ! All 939 are dual channel, and all 754 are single channel.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Wait a couple months. The 939 boards are weak unless you spend $140 on MSI and then you still have issues like sata not being locked and mem slot issues. No offense to those who own 939 boards but they all suck compared to an ASUS/ABIT Canterwood board or even NF2 boards. DFI and ASUS are coming with sweet boards. DFI in particular is making ones with server grade componets on board, Sata II NCQ, Kigrian sound, etc. And wild Overclcoking options, which you may or may not use but at least it there and built for it. Being built with overclcoking in mind means IMO it will last longer under non-OCed conditions.

Next up is AMD will have rev E Winchs in two months. Adding SSE3 and a much more refined manufacturing process running cooler and yeilding either 25% or 15% more speed I forget. Would'nt it be nice to buy a 1800Mhz chip and OC to 2800Mhz on default Vcore? Again option is there.



You buy anything other than DFI UT 250 and a "old" 754 chip now and I think AMD may leave bad taste in mouth.
Click to expand...

*Drool*

Looks like I will be buying a new mobo/PSU/processor/gfx card and colling solution... even though I will be wanting a dual core a few months later...

Ugh my poor wallet. 🙁 I need a job.
 
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