Neil Smalley

Looking at getting an Asus A7m8mx Nforce 2 Motherboard, which has Dual DDR RAM. In order to get the benefits of dual DDR am I right in thinking that I need to get 4 X 512 SIMS to get 1Gb?

super_si

Thats 2GB.

Dual DDR need 2* 512MB sticks.

DDR2700 isnt it? but id get 333 or 400 just for future use.

Si

Neil Smalley

Si

Yeah, looking at getting 400mhz DDR.

Hmm 2 Gb sounds good though..

super_si

Then ask your self why?

Ive got DDR400 Corsair, works great. Just i want to run it a little quicker.

ran it at 207Mhz, still very stable but id rather have the quicker ram.

Overclockers.co.uk now bundle them in pairs

Si

J1nxy

What CPU you got Neil, as you get better performance running at the same speed as the CPU FSB.

I run an XP2700+ which has a 333 FSB so run my memory at 166 (333 DDR), have 2 XMS3500 (which should clock to about 410 for future use) 512MB Dimms CAS 2, 1 in slot 1 one in slot 3 which is the recommened dual channel mode on the NForce 2 boards.


[Edited by J1nxy - 4/21/2003 4:04:49 PM]

Neil Smalley

J1nxy

Looking at an Athlon 3000Xp with the Barton core.

J1nxy

Neil

You want to get at least PC2700 Cas 2 and 2 matched sticks. If you want to future proof the memeory then go for PC3200 or higher also Cas 2.

The Corsair XMS stuff will set you back between £90-£115 per 512MB dimm depending on speed rating. The only reason I got the PC3500 stuff was I couldnt get PC3200 Cas 2 512MB Dimms when I ordered and it was about £10 a stick difference so thought stuff it.

One thing to note, the GFX card makes a massive differnece in terms of speed if your after games, the memory differnce is only minimal. The 9700 pro runs rather nicely in the A7N8X.

BTW I wouldnt buy from www.overclockers.co.uk after sales is somewhat iffy......

Steve

Neil Smalley

Cheers J1nxy. The graphics card is easy. 9800 pro

What's the difference between 3500 and 3200 spec? I know cosair has a very good rep, but why should I pay twice as much for it?

[Edited by Neil Smalley - 4/21/2003 8:45:02 PM]

towzer

Mr Smalley,

Go and buy an array card and two drives instead, you'll see a bigger performance gain compared to memory speeds.

Phil

PS - think you'd better check the rack density and power consumption before you buy anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Towzer, do us all a favour and put your money where your mouth is

I am standing on the fence, as I have the best of both worlds

J1nxy

Neil

The PCxxxx is the speed rating, 3200 = 200 Mhz 3500 is 430ish. As you only really need 333 Mhz (PC2700) if you can get some decent ie Cas 2, PC2700 go for that, the others are good for overclocking or future proofing. Just went for the corsair stuff as it is rated very highly

Also dont forget to get a decent 350+ Watt psu as the GFX card and motherboard are somewhat power hungry.

Suggested spec of

Asus A7N8X Deluxe (Onboard sound, lan, firewire, usb 2 etc)
XP3000+
2 x 512MB Cas 2 dimms of at least PC2700
ATI 9800 Pro
Decent PSU
Hard disk of your choice, the board has serial ATA as well as a good ATA 133 controller (Serial ATA is a raid controller as well)

Sound about right???

Steve

[Edited by J1nxy - 4/21/2003 10:22:03 PM]

Andrewza

If you're going for dual DDR and want the best out of it the Corsair TwinX matched pairs are good http://www.corsairmicro.com/main/pro...024-2700ll.pdf I've got a 2x512 PC2700 set in an A7N8X

Then again I also have 2x512 PC2700 Samsung in an A7V8X and never had a problem either.

P1 Enthusiast

I wouldnt even go for the Barton 3000+, would suggest a 2100+ with SLK 900, 92mm YS-Tech fan and AS3. Will run the same speeds and be much cheaper, not to mention can use SLK900 and fan on your next rig.

Waste of cash spending that on a processor when the T-breds are clocking so well, also the Barton won't do a 200FSB, the clocked T-Bred will! So that memory is wasted on a barton except for future proofing by which time that memory will be dirt cheap anyway.

Neil Smalley

P1

Not really into overclocking. I get really confused as what to twiddle.

How easy and reliable is the above?

P1 Enthusiast

Neil, it couldnt be easier, in fact you can make it very easy.

Go to www.overclockers.co.uk - buy an SLK900, an Akasa ShinEtsu thermal pad instead of the artic silver 3, 92mm YStech fan (easily mounted on SLK900).

Get T-Bred 2100+, fit pad onto it (very easy), screw the SLK900 into your motherboard, put fan on top = done.

Go into bios on boot-up, set FSB to 200, put multiplier to 11.5ish (2300MhZ) which is faster than a Barton 3000+ and if it runs stabily your fine. If it doesnt, reboot, bring down the multiplier to 11, rinse and repeat. With that heat sink and fan it should run 2300MhZ ish which will be a monster AND with a great heatsink and fan for your next rig!

You SAVE 200 quid on the cpu alone and pay about 60 quid back in the heatsink and fan, all in all a brillant saving for the same benchmarks, as long as the chip stays lower than 55 degrees C you are sorted the overclock etc is sound.

Jye

I'd get the Barton as they are still well overclockable 'and' have a larger 512KB cache which does make a diff when the processor is swamped with info (games etc), the 3000+ will still boot at 200 + MHz fsb if needed np but the nForce boards are designed to achieve better overall speeds with the memory running synchronously as oposed to asynchronously i.e at the 333 (166) fsb speed not 200 or above.

[Edited by Jye - 4/23/2003 11:21:36 AM]

P1 Enthusiast

Jye, NO they won't. Nearly every Barton owner CANNOT get it to run 200 FSB on motherboards that will do it such as the Epox or Asus. They are not that clockable and in fact clock lower than a TBred 2100+.

I know this from being a member of both the UK and US overclocking forums, no one is having success, everyone recommends a T-Bred2100+.

A friend of mine has dual bartons in his rig, under the same cooling his dual t-breds2100+ clocked over 100 MhZ faster. The cache makes no difference to real life performance, its pretty worthless. There is no advantage whatsoever to a barton chip over a T-Bred, except for the disadvantage you pay alot more.

IF you want to pay 200 quid MORE for a chip that;

a) Wont do 200 FSB
b) Wont overclock to same levels as 2100+
c) At same cycle speeds has a 0.5% performance gain due to the cache
d) Actually produces less performance overall


.....be my guest, but i did try and give better advice to the contrary!

P1 Enthusiast

Games will never be processor bottle necked in Neil's rig, in fact they rarely are these days.

Neil i also recommend the Epox 8RDA+ board if you got for my option, its a better clocking board, very similar features to the Asus.

The chip needs a couple of days to bed in though, as with any new chip or graphics card, so keep the clocking down for the first few days then experiment to find its stable levels.

Jye

OK P1, I take your point on the Bartons, but I still say they 'can' run at 200 fsb, check out Toms Hardon

I do know there have been problems with them OC'ing as well as TB's etc, but they 'can' and will run at 200, just not with much stability.

I recon the nForce 2 will still run faster synchronously though, no matter what the chip and the newer nForce 2's will soon let the Barton run with stability at 200.

I reckon a Barton at say 15 X 166 giving 2495 mhz on an nForce set to synchronous operation will blow away earlier chips even with the 200 mhz fsb you are advocating.

Jye

--Games will never be processor bottle necked in Neil's rig, in fact they rarely are these days--

Unreal 2K3, most flight sims and GP4 are all games I play regualry which are very much CPU limited, Unreal and flight sims always have been tbo.

[Edited by Jye - 4/23/2003 11:41:11 AM]

Jye

http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/ABIT/NF7-S/page8.htm

Overclocked Barton

A few comments from the testers:

If I wasn't already happy with the 3000+'s stock performance, and I was, then I was certainly happy with its overclocking potential. With what can best be desribed as an "adequate" cooler and with no additional voltage to either the memory or CPU I was able to hit 204MHz on the FSB and in the end settled for 200MHz FSB and an 11.5 x multiplier combining to produce a rather unexpected 2.31GHz with no effort at all. With a little more juice and a while spent fine tuning I'm sure we'll be seeing 2.5GHz+ without too much heartache. If this particular CPU is indicative of general performance then we should see some nice overclocks from it.





[Edited by Jye - 4/23/2003 1:01:47 PM]

Daz34

The SLK900 will not fit an Asus A7m8mx Nforce 2 Motherboard. Better off going for an Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2.
Also am not sure about it being future proof.
Is it compatible with the Athlon64's Socket 754??

Darren

P1 Enthusiast

Hence why i suggested the Epox 8RDA+ board

Also, he wont be able to tell the difference between 2400 and 2500 MhZ in reality! Both chips are gonna do roughly the same overclock with the DIFFERENCE being 210 pounds! So why pay it?

At very worst i would say get a barton 2500 and O'clock it, again though that barton isnt worth paying for /sigh i give up!

You guys really are convinced by swanky terms for products that deliver very little performance gain or none, you really do want to pay for nothing! Oh well leave ya to it, for i the informed buyer will not be wasting my cash on that.

My 2100s are running at 2350 MhZ very stably thanks and beating your 3 gig Barton at 260 pounds (they cost me 60 quid + SLK + fan) so i spent my 200 quid on other things

Jye

--You guys really are convinced by swanky terms for products that deliver very little performance gain or none, you really do want to pay for nothing! Oh well leave ya to it, for i the informed buyer will not be wasting my cash on that--

LOL, P1 stop being such an inverted snob ffs 'we', and 'others' on the board actually do run 'lesser' CPU's with an OC.

I overclock my 2.4 to above 3000+ speeds for every day use with np's, check my 3DMark2K3 in other threads for proof of this. But so what, I would love a 3000+, its a good chip and no matter what you say 'is' well overclockable with decent cooling.

Anyhow Neil said he wasnt fussed on OC'ing and the Barton 3000+ is still the fastest off the shelf AMD CPU atm. And btw, I think your assesment of a .5% increase in speed due to the Bartons extra cache is sour grapes on your part, do a search for OC'ing Bartons and you will find thatin most apps that require the juice(games especially, even though you seem to think the CPU sits idle when playing them, LOL) that the Barton is way ahead, up to and above 25% faster.

I do agree with you on one point and one point only, that the 3000+ is overpriced for what it is, but hey if you can afford it, and Im sure Neil can, then why not?

And as a hardened OC'er please feel free to post your own 3DMark score for us all to marvel at

Jye

Oh and ps P1, I noticed you havent answered any of the previous posts with respect to nForce 2's being faster at 333 over 200, which makes OC an nForce 2 spec machine a bit of a moot point, but hey I guess you know best

Jye

http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/barton/3000plus_4.htm


Quote: If we throw up this result against the 2400+ which we should remember runs at a healthy 2.0GHz, a mere 160MHz behind the 3000+ we get an idea of the performance that's achieved by combining a 333MHz FSB with a 512k L2 cache. The 2400+ takes around 16.5% longer to complete the simulation.

Hmmm 0.5%??

P1 Enthusiast

So your point is 16.5% performance gain for 400% of the cost? Thanks for that valuable input

super_si

Jye interested in a Prometeia or know anyone after one

Im fed up, selling up all together maybe keep the 2.8 or get a barton shuttle

Si

Jye

Heheh sure P1, I can tell you with your particular brand of calculus you must win then, deffo m8

The 3000+ can be had for £280 retail with an AMD HS and fan, your setup, with the 900 and a decent fan such as a Papst (not the crappy one you recommended) costs £64.51 (chip), £52.88 (HS) £16.00 (fan) £3.00 (shim) = total of £136.39, so 136 X 400% is, let me see, ah £544, LOL is this another one of your amazing 0.5% calculations, hehe, try 100% dearer m8, GL with all your 'future' calculations

Perhaps once you finish skulking about in all those OC forums your a ‘member’ of you can answer one of my points, for instance: Is it pretty much a waste of time OC'ing the nForce2 boards asynchronously? And why?

/still awaits P1's 3DMark 2K3 score


edited to say: Hmm, Prometia, how much Si, and why are you selling?

[Edited by Jye - 4/23/2003 10:19:41 PM]

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

I would like to know too, considering that he was sure that is was bust!

I have stayed out of this argument, but I have to say that I am firmly in JYE's court on this one. I love the way that small voltage changes have not been mentioned at all in all of these super 200mhz fsb overclocks. A HELL OF A LOT OF THEM do not do that on stock volts without a really crappy multiplier. Don't believe everything you read on CPU databases/forums etc...

ALSO, you need to make sure that you get one of the latest revision 8RDA+ boards to 'Guarantee.....' 200mhz fsb, as the initial run of boards were not upto the job 99% of the time withour volt mods. The newer revision boards apparantrly address these issues.

Small voltage increases are your friend at the end of the day when efficient cooling is in place.

Cheers,

Nick