AM2 Crossfire?

[craeyon]

Ill give you a review of the Sapphire mobo.

a.) that extra PCI slot is crap. Once a huge ass X1900 card goes in. That PCI slot is useless...
b.) The X1900 series and the motherboard are not compatible i.e. you plug a x1900xt card in any sapphire adv board and viola! i shall not work....
c.) The board is designed so that the video card will fit in your case in such a way that it will keep grounding.
d.) please don't waste $295 on that board

End of review.
That was pro. AnandTech should hire me.

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: craeyon
Ill give you a review of the Sapphire mobo.

a.) that extra PCI slot is crap. Once a huge ass X1900 card goes in. That PCI slot is useless...
b.) The X1900 series and the motherboard are not compatible i.e. you plug a x1900xt card in any sapphire adv board and viola! i shall not work....
c.) The board is designed so that the video card will fit in your case in such a way that it will keep grounding.
d.) please don't waste $295 on that board

End of review.
That was pro. AnandTech should hire me.

LOL! OK, I'll cross that one off the Christmas list...

If you're holding off for the Abit mobo you might find this CPU tidbit interesting - link.

 

[craeyon]

brisbane core eh...

 

[mrp]

Add one more to the list of those waiting for a AM2 MB, desperately awaiting a sighting of the elusive DFI Lanparty CFX3200-M2, the only thing missing from it is ESata. I'd probably settle for a single slot solution but can't find anything the has 2 Raids for a 0 and a 5 and a decent amount of PCI slots but haven't been able to find anything yet.

 

[The Mailman]

next processor upgrade will be a quad core 7000+ or whatever

i think ill be happy with the 5000+ for a while

 

[craeyon]

This is for people looking forward to the ABIT board

"Abit's lone ATI AM2 board is the AT9-32X featuring the ATI Xpress 3200 and SB600 chipsets along two additional SATA 3Gb/s ports from a Silicon Image 3132. Pricing has not been finalized but expect it to be in the US $150~$175 range."

Found it here: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2775

So we know the estimate on the pricing as well and thats not bad for that type of board.

 

[familyman1]

Unfortunately no new boards here but if anyone wants to see some comparison of recent AM2 boards here's a review. It's a little light on detail but contains benchmarks on ECS, Sapphire Adv and ASUS AM2 crossfire mobos.

 

[The Mailman]

got 2gb of the ballistix

got all the parts i need now, just needa go to NY to pick up a few things from my PO box and im set!

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: The Mailman
got 2gb of the ballistix

got all the parts i need now, just needa go to NY to pick up a few things from my PO box and im set!

Any idea when you'll do the build? Let us know how it goes.

 

[TheJaxx]

Well,

I've waited now almost two months and I've become disheartened in the lack of motherboards dealing with crossfire. The disappointment of the ASUS m2r32. The complete shift on change of the Sapphire. Etc.

I've heard some tell me just get a single then. Others say get one the cheapies until a good one comes out.

I want to build my new rig, but I do not want to go with a SLI setup, I REALLY loathe NVidia. (besides, I own stock in AMD)

So, what board in your opinions is the best so far for a AM2 single and/or crossfire solution?

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: TheJaxx
Well,

I've waited now almost two months and I've become disheartened in the lack of motherboards dealing with crossfire. The disappointment of the ASUS m2r32. The complete shift on change of the Sapphire. Etc.

I've heard some tell me just get a single then. Others say get one the cheapies until a good one comes out.

I want to build my new rig, but I do not want to go with a SLI setup, I REALLY loathe NVidia. (besides, I own stock in AMD)

So, what board in your opinions is the best so far for a AM2 single and/or crossfire solution?

If I had to buy today I'd probably get the MSI board. The Asus might be good but it's early for that one I think. A couple of us have just decided to wait for the Abit and DFI boards to come out which we've heard is in Nov...

 

[robinsonj1583]

I got the Asus M2R32-MVP last friday. I got it to replace my MSI K9N Platinum which was nothing but trouble. This board has been great. It booted up on the first try, windows installed without a problem. I am even running Vista on a seperate partition. It has some great features for overclocking also. My favorite being CPU Parameter Recall which loads defaults if you push your overclock to hard. It is kind of quirky with memory. It would not boot up with memory over 840mhz unless I went in small steps.

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: robinsonj1583
I got the Asus M2R32-MVP last friday. I got it to replace my MSI K9N Platinum which was nothing but trouble. This board has been great. It booted up on the first try, windows installed without a problem. I am even running Vista on a seperate partition. It has some great features for overclocking also. My favorite being CPU Parameter Recall which loads defaults if you push your overclock to hard. It is kind of quirky with memory. It would not boot up with memory over 840mhz unless I went in small steps.

Thanks for the info. What memory did you use? Asus recommends the Geil but it's very $$$ if you can even find it. If you don't mind me asking, what extras came with the mobo?

 

[Heidfirst]

review of the Sapphire http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/sapphire_pcam2580/

Precis: fast board at stock but not a great overclocker.

 

[robinsonj1583]

@familyman1

I use OCZ DDR2-800 Gold Edition

 

[eSentrik]

Hey guys, I've been following this topic for some time now and would like to thank everyone. Good to know I wasn't the only one suffering lol. I finally got my setup and am experiencing some small issues. I ran 3d-mark 06 today and my score was only 5500!!! I did really poorly on the CPU test (less than 0 FPS) for some reason and all the other tests my framerate never went above 30. It seems like something is limiting my PC here. Perhaps theres some BIOS setting I accidentally set to the wrong thing. I dunno...any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Heres my rig:

AMD Athlon X2 4200+
Radeon 1900XTX 512
Asus M2R32-MVP
2x512 OCZ Dual Channel DDR 2 @800mhz
160 gb SATA Seagate Barracuda

CPU-Z info:

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6812/cpuz1lm6.jpg
http://img285.imageshack.us/img285/1610/cpuz2hi3.jpg


EDIT: in the CPU-z pic u can see only 1 core is selectable. this doesnt seem right.

 

[familyman1]

eSentrik-
Did you get the AMD dual core updates, drivers - link?

 

[eSentrik]

Nope. Didn't knwo they existed. thanks! ill report back with results.

EDIT: are you referring to the "AMD Dual-Core Optimizer" or the "AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (x86 and x64 exe) 1.3.2.16"?

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: robinsonj1583
@familyman1

I use OCZ DDR2-800 Gold Edition

OCZ works with the new Asus - good news. Thanks.

 

[eSentrik]

Ok i installed the Dual Core Optimizer and it didnt really change anything. Heres my scores:

SM2.0: 2245
HDR/SM3.0: 2496
CPU: 1609

total score = 5534

After setting the O.C. Profile in my BIOS to 15% I can now get 5718. Not bad with each core running at a speedy 2.52 ghz. It wouldnt boot at 20% and i didnt feel like manually tweaking it to get that extra 1 or 2%. I compared my results to other and im actually on par. 3dmark'06 is just a really intense benchmark. Most rigs with a dual core and single video card are in the 4000-6000 range. Crossfire or SLI delivers scores of 10000+.

 

[familyman1]

Originally posted by: eSentrik
Ok i installed the Dual Core Optimizer and it didnt really change anything. Heres my scores:

SM2.0: 2245
HDR/SM3.0: 2496
CPU: 1609

total score = 5534

After setting the O.C. Profile in my BIOS to 15% I can now get 5718. Not bad with each core running at a speedy 2.52 ghz. It wouldnt boot at 20% and i didnt feel like manually tweaking it to get that extra 1 or 2%. I compared my results to other and im actually on par. 3dmark'06 is just a really intense benchmark. Most rigs with a dual core and single video card are in the 4000-6000 range. Crossfire or SLI delivers scores of 10000+.

Sounds like everything is OK. How's the temp on the OCed CPU?

 

[familyman1]

OK, it's a bit off topic but I thought you guys might enjoy coming attractions link.

eSentric - Can you select both cores now?

 

[OBCT]

Originally posted by: eSentrikI did really poorly on the CPU test (less than 0 FPS) for some reason and all the other tests my framerate never went above 30.

Just for your information, the CPU tests always run slowly, since they stress the CPU by making it do all the calculations that the CPU usually does. On 3DMark05, I get 2fps on the CPU tests, versus upwards of 300 on some of the standard tests.

Though you might have a problem with your fps at 30 for the regular tests. I haven't run 3DMark06 yet, so I can't tell you if that's normal. Make sure your drivers are up to date, I'm running 6.8 drivers.

 

[familyman1]

I finally broke down and ordered the M2R32-MVP, 2G of Corsair twinX, 4600+ (65W) and X1900XTX. This goes with 2x320G Seagate, CD-RW/DVD ROM and DVD burner that have been sitting in my case for nearly two months... Couldn't stand it anymore. I still need to get the 1900 crossfire card but otherwise this should hold me until next year before getting the upgrade itch. I'llreport in once I get it fired up. Thanks for all the info guys.

 

[eSentrik]

My CPU idles at around 30 degrees and my motherboard is at 40. The 1900XTX idles at around 45. Not sure if these are normal temperatures. I would have thought the CPU would be warmer than the motherboard. Especially since I have a pretty nice Thermaltake Tsunami Dream case. It has a a front and side intake with a 12cm rear exhaust featuring some blue LEDs.

I still can't select both cores in CPU-Z, but as long as they are both getting used I dont mind. They should both have the same stats anyways.