A64 3500+

[babyelf]

Hi just wondering whether any one is using the A64 3500+ now and how well does it overclock?

If i get a 3400+ and overclock it will it be faster than the 3500+

or if i get the 3500+ can i get it up to the 3800+ speed?

very little info can be found on the 3500+ overclocks so if anybody's got a link or something it'll be great

thanks alot

 

[babyelf]

bump

 

[Vette73]

OK well first the 3400+ is a 754socket (single ch mem) CPU while the 3500+ is a 939socket (double ch mem) CPU.

So they don;t compare at all.

The best thing I see, bang for your buck that is. Is to get a CG Athlon64 socket 754 chip and put it in a nForce3 250gb board and overclock.

 

[babyelf]

what do you mean they don't compare at all.. of course they compare..

i'm just asking whether after the 3400+ is overclocked will it be faster than the 3500+ overclocked.. hence my question.. how well does the 3500+ overclocks..

 

[charloscarlies]

What he's saying is the 3500 is a socket 939 chip...meaning they won't fit in the same motherboard. Considering the price of socket 939 stuff right now...I would either go with 754 or wait it out.

 

[woodscomp]

Originally posted by: charloscarlies
What he's saying is the 3500 is a socket 939 chip...meaning they won't fit in the same motherboard. Considering the price of socket 939 stuff right now...I would either go with 754 or wait it out.

Well then he took the OP question and twisted it, I thought it was straightforward, and would likle to know also.


BUMP

 

[MoobyTheGoldenCalf]

Originally posted by: babyelf
Hi just wondering whether any one is using the A64 3500+ now and how well does it overclock?

If i get a 3400+ and overclock it will it be faster than the 3500+

or if i get the 3500+ can i get it up to the 3800+ speed?

very little info can be found on the 3500+ overclocks so if anybody's got a link or something it'll be great

thanks alot

I've got a 3500 and an Asus A8V. Mine is OC'd to 3800 speed (2.4ghz) on nothing but the stock cooler. You won't have any problems reaching that speed at all.

 

[woodscomp]

Excellent, and thanks :beer:

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

So I guess the next question will be:
How well does the 3400+ overclock, and can it reach 3700+ speeds?

From what I've seen (and not having actually owned either chip) the 3400+ and 3500+ have essentially the same performance stock, and the 3700+ and 3800+ have similar performance as well. Now, I haven't heard of anything that makes the 3500+ overclock better than the 3400+ (although it has less cache, so maybe that helps), so I expect that the two would overclock similarly. I therefore expect the 3400+ to be a better value since it starts off $100 less expensive and since the Mb's are much less expensive.

However, that is all conjecture, so anyone with real data please let us know your experiences.

-D'oh!

 

[woodscomp]

Locking PCI/AGP with dual channel memory ought to warrant the extra cost for now, and if you wait a little while these 3500+ will drop in price.

Main reason I went with Intel last year was because of the great OC and stable chipsets that support it. Along with the dual channel memory these are some great boards. One time around on a Asus P4C and you would know what I mean.

 

[babyelf]

yea.. like grunt say

what can the 3500+ reach and 3400+ reach?

what i can see is u might not need dual channel now.. but dual channel is on almost every system now and for the 754 not to have them it's abit odd don't u think?

well it is offset by doubling the cache size.. but i still think dual channel is still the thing to have cause if the technology is there y not make use of it..

i'll probably wait it out until AMD launch the 90nm processors.. then the 3500+ will surely drop in prices..
i hope..
and see how well the DFI nforce3 Ultra-D LanParty works with socket 939..hopefully it's as good as the nforce2 ultra

 

[woodscomp]

Dual channel memory frees up a huge bottleneck that plagued all systems before the first Nforce launch for the XP.

 

[babyelf]

yea

that's y i'm choosing the 939 over the 754s.. no doubt the 939 don't show much of an improvement over the 754 3400+ now.. but i think for the coming year it will... can't be certain... and also it gives me more upgradability.. might need to just get a new motherboard then a new pci express graphics card..

 

[woodscomp]

Originally posted by: babyelf
yea

that's y i'm choosing the 939 over the 754s.. no doubt the 939 don't show much of an improvement over the 754 3400+ now.. but i think for the coming year it will... can't be certain... and also it gives me more upgradability.. might need to just get a new motherboard then a new pci express graphics card..

IMO that his exactly what plaques the AMD platform. Chipsets and boards are never very good until the second revision chipsets are released. Just the opposite for the Intel platform, first release and you get it all at once. Look at the i875 i865 platforms, have not changed a bit since they were introduced and still are top notch.

VIA for AMD and Nvidia both never give it all to you until the second time around and then they start rolling out a whole new platform directly after then. Usually VIA initial releases are plaqued by being to slow, not giving out it's full potential. I truly think that Intel makes a more economical setup. If you take in the fact that you don't need to upgrade as often to get what you should have had the first time around.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Uh, dual channel will add about 5% performance over the singel channel. Just compare the benchmarks between the 3500+ dual channel and the 3400+ single channel (the 3400 with 1meg L2 cache). Not much difference. The AMD's are not bandwidth starved even in single channel so dual channel is to a degree marketing. The advantage of the 3500+ is guaranteed CG stepping and future upgradability with 939 processors as this is now the platform for the next year or more. Of course new 939 motherboard revisions (Nforce 4 with dual PCI-ex graphics slots {1 at 16x and one at 8x probably} and new features are coming but they will all be socket 939. The 3500+ will get you to 3800+ speeds or a little more on good air cooling while the 3400+ will get you to 3700+ speeds and be a little slower than the overclocked 3500+ but not greatly. The other advantage of the 939 boards (perhaps) is better memory stick compatability but we will see for sure. The cost of the 939 platform is definitely spendy, it all depends on when you would upgrade next. If you have a Geforce 6800 Ultra and a 939 3500+ now it will cost more if you want to get pci-ex graphics down the road because of the motherboard limitation. If you aren't worried about the graphics card for awhile then 939 might be the way to go because you will be able to upgrade your processor without getting a new motherboard to go along with it.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: woodscomp
Dual channel memory frees up a huge bottleneck that plagued all systems before the first Nforce launch for the XP.

Single channel memory was not a "huge bottleneck" for the Athlon XP at all. It only gains around 3% from a dual-channel chipset.

IMO that his exactly what plaques the AMD platform. Chipsets and boards are never very good until the second revision chipsets are released. Just the opposite for the Intel platform, first release and you get it all at once. Look at the i875 i865 platforms, have not changed a bit since they were introduced and still are top notch.

The nForce2 platform for the Athlon XP has been incredible for well over a year now. It "has not changed a bit since they were introduced and still are top notch". If you consider a newer revision on the northbridge "change", then I'm sure the i875/i865 have "changed" just as much.

NVidia is now making amazing chipsets for AMD's platforms. They are on par with intel in my books. Look at intel's latest chipset; it was recalled not very long ago.

 

[woodscomp]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: woodscomp
Dual channel memory frees up a huge bottleneck that plagued all systems before the first Nforce launch for the XP.

Single channel memory was not a "huge bottleneck" for the Athlon XP at all. It only gains around 3% from a dual-channel chipset.

IMO that his exactly what plaques the AMD platform. Chipsets and boards are never very good until the second revision chipsets are released. Just the opposite for the Intel platform, first release and you get it all at once. Look at the i875 i865 platforms, have not changed a bit since they were introduced and still are top notch.

The nForce2 platform for the Athlon XP has been incredible for well over a year now. It "has not changed a bit since they were introduced and still are top notch". If you consider a newer revision on the northbridge "change", then I'm sure the i875/i865 have "changed" just as much.

NVidia is now making amazing chipsets for AMD's platforms. They are on par with intel in my books. Look at intel's latest chipset; it was recalled not very long ago.

True for the Nforce2 for Socket A. What happened to AMD 64 NVIDIA soultion though first time around?
Intel was recalled due to manufacturing problem. Of course you don't know anyone who got one of those boards because they were barely out of the gate.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: woodscomp
True for the Nforce2 for Socket A. What happened to AMD 64 NVIDIA soultion though first time around?

IIRC it performed nearly identically to the VIA solution which had the 800mhz HT, and A64's on that platform basically pwned anything intel made in just about everything aside from some rendering apps and most video editing apps. I never heard of any serious bugs or issues, only that they gave it the 600mhz HT instead of 800mhz (that's a design issue anyway). Surely you can't be complaining of the lack of a PCI/AGP lock. Intel has never had anything of the sort AFAIK.

Why don't you compare the upgradeability of nForce3 to the Northwood P4 platform? From what I understand, there will be a 3800+ or so released for S754. Will there ever be a 3800mhz Northwood? I highly doubt it.

Your chipset arguments are weak, sorry.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

I actually think woodscomp has a good point about the chipset (excepting the NF2, which seems to be very good).

However, the A64 chipsets do not seem to be working as well as they should (maybe an updated BIOS will fix things, but who knows a this point). If you look @ VIA, they have the K8T800 which is pretty stable, but no PCI/AGP lock or GbE (on board). Then you have the K8T800 Pro which adds the PCI/AGP lock but it doesn't work. It sounds like they now have the PCI/AGP lock working, but I'm not confident in that at this point.

In the NV side you have the MF3 150, which has a reduced HT clock, but still pretty good performance. No PCI/AGP or GbE. Then you have the NF3 250, which I feel is a great chipset, but seems to have compatibility issues with mobil chips and RAM (although maybe that is just the MB MFG's). Plus, NV eliminated what IMO was one of their best features, Soundstorm. The RAID sometimes seems to work, but other times doesn't (from reviews that tested the RAID performance if Intel, NV, Promise, etc).
EDIT: Well, I guess it works but the performance is sometimes not very impressive (but I guess that's usually the case in most desktop applications anyway - RAID not adding much performance - so maybe that really isn't much of a negative for NV).

Meanwhile, it seems like Intel has a history of very stable chipsets. While there are exceptions to both cases, my impression is that Intel has an advantage in the chipset area. Hopefully the NF4 will give AMD a chipset for the A64 that is as robust as the NF2 was for the AXP.

I will say though, that dual channel ram doesn't make much of a difference for the A64. Still, it's nice to know that it is there on the 939 stuff.

-D'oh!

 

[babyelf]

thanks for your advice guys..

i think i'll stay put until my motherboard is out..

 

[WA261]

I have my 3400 at 2.76. They oc well =)

 

[woodscomp]

I will be honest with you, dual channel memory you will not notice if you have never had it. Once you have it, you will wonder why you did not have it earlier.

True for the AMD XP setup on a Nforce2 board the dual channel added between 3-5% real world performance. However those processors are relatively slow and do not take full advantage of what dual channel memory can do. Also dual channel memory really shines on the P4 platform when the FSB is OC like hell.

Saying that the Intel 478 pin motherboards or 865 - 875 chipsets are short lived is just wrong, 478 platform has been around for a couple of years now and it reminds me of the old Intel 440BX chipset back in the day that would never die. Northwoods are produced from 2.4GHZ to 3.4GHZ. And the 3.4GHZ can safely be O/C to 4GHZ.

I was not cutting on AMD processors at all, I think AMD does a fine job of engineering them, I think AMD needs to take a more active role with chipset makers to set a standard. This would ensure quality control at all levels and I think you would be sitting with much better machines all the way around.

Although Synthetic benchmarks these are realistic in performance gains here is a link to Toms review of the 939 platform with the PCMark 2004 memory benchs. Note the difference between the single channel and dual channel.

If you think it does not make a difference then you need to exp it first hand to see for yourself.
Besides if the chipset makers did not see any gains for including it I would think they would leave it out, why spend the money reserching and making it happen for no gain in performance? For marketing hype to rip there loyal fan base? I think not.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: woodscomp
I was not cutting on AMD processors at all, I think AMD does a fine job of engineering them, I think AMD needs to take a more active role with chipset makers to set a standard. This would ensure quality control at all levels and I think you would be sitting with much better machines all the way around.

I agree that AMD should take a more active role in chipset design/production. AFAIK the only chipset they've designed since the Athlon came out was their "MP" chipset (forgot the name) for the Athlon-MP. It was, in fact, an awesome chipset. That said, it was not without flaws. I remember there was one important feature that they tried to implement but it didn't really pan out. It was either networking or USB of some sort. In any event, I'm pretty sure they give nVidia and VIA just as much information to make chipsets as intel does. The only disadvantage that they leave them with is that AMD does not design a "reference" chipset themselves.

Standards would be a good idea as it would eliminate situations such as the 600mhz HT bus on the nForce 150 chipset.

 

[AlmostInsane]

I've got a 3500+ with the Gigabyte Nforce board. I had the Asus but it is to finnicky with RAM so I returned it. The Gigabyte rocks! I highly recommend it.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: AlmostInsane
I've got a 3500+ with the Gigabyte Nforce board. I had the Asus but it is to finnicky with RAM so I returned it. The Gigabyte rocks! I highly recommend it.

How high can you overclock it? Voltages? Temps?