amd choices

[stfrances]

I am currently working on a prescott, scratch that, "PRESSHOTT", I got it as far as 3.8 with 3:2 ratio, prime95 it for 8 hrs. no crash so it seems somewhat stable with my co2 rbx setup. At first I had 4x identical Crucial stix to run it, then I thought I could reach 4 ghz somewhat better with a pair of Corsair XL Pro stix but I was only stable with prime95 at 3.7 with 1:1 ratio. I did some forum research so that I could lower the multi at 14 but only to find out that my DO SL7E5 is stuck at 16 with my p4c800e deluxe board. Board is currently down and it won't boot up. I may have to reset the CMOS or something to that effect. Anyhow I am here to ask for advice on which a64 line to purchase for a better overclock. I have read some arguments and discussions on which one is best for overclock and it seems the 3000 or the 3200 is the top choices. I think I am ready for the amd cpu's for I have had some crash course on my p4. I plan to just purchase a cpu and a board so please any one, help me out?

 

[MDE]

I'd save a few bucks and get a 3000+. Most of the Winchester chips top out around 2.6-2.7 so it comes down to having a motherboard that can handle a high HTT speed. Right now I have my Epox 9NDA3+ running a 305HTT speed and it's stable so far. I'd recommend the board, but one minor knitpick is that SATA ports 3&4 aren't locked, so after about a 235HTT speed, anything hooked up to them won't work. I found that out the hard way as once I moved my drives to ports 1&2 I could easily hit 250+ but I had to take the NV Silencer off of my 6800GT because of how close ports 1&2 are to the AGP slot.

 

[mwmorph]

go 3200+. 3000 only has 9x multiplier which makes it hard to hit above 2.5ghz. the 3200 has a 10x multiplier and can easily make 2.7 on the stock cooler.

 

[SunSamurai]

3200 and 3000 is a differance of $70. $70 is not worth the tiny speed increase of 200Mhz. It is worth helping open a real bottlneck in a system, like speeding up a hard drive or getting more ram or a better grafix card. The 3000+ winny is the smartest buy today.

 

[superkdogg]

If you will be getting a mobo with capability to run 300+ HTT then get the 3000+ for sure. The higher multi of the 3200+ takes some pressure off the mobo, but adds $ to the pricetag. IMHO you should get the 3000+ and spend the extra $ on the best mobo you can get. PS, retail CPU cooler performs well enough to allow for excellent OC's, only buy aftermarket if you're looking to some extreme action (above ~1.55 vCore or so).

My CPU is running 2700 MHz right now. I can't recommend my mobo, the AV8 by Abit though, because the AGP lock doesn't work at very high HTT speeds. I can run everything but 3D games at my current speed, but have to lower the HTT (and CPU speed) about 10% to play games, even though prime95 and everything else without graphical demands work @ 2700 MHz.

 

[Mik3y]

i say get the 3200+ for the multiplier over the 3000+.

 

[RussianSensation]

You should give CPR to your Asus mobo first and get that up and running (reset the CMOS). There is no need to blow $200-300 on an A64 plaftform given that a user has anything above P4 3.0ghz.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
i say get the 3200+ for the multiplier over the 3000+.

I believe this was addressed...

 

[stfrances]

First of all, thank you all for the reply and suggestions. I just got home from work and I have not even cleaned myself up from the jobsite. I am a carpenter by trade and I like to build things. The prescott is my first built desktop. I have done some browsing on the net and I may be able to get a 3200+ close to the price of a 3000+. The Corsair XLPro that I have should help me a bit on the Winchester. MSI seems to be a good choice for a mobo. Anyway I'm still on the planning stages for my next system, again much "Mahalos" to everyone.

 

[nemiAMD]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
3200 and 3000 is a differance of $70. $70 is not worth the tiny speed increase of 200Mhz. It is worth helping open a real bottlneck in a system, like speeding up a hard drive or getting more ram or a better grafix card. The 3000+ winny is the smartest buy today.

I had to agree when I made my purchase:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=28&threadid=1499117

Let's hope I can do some serious overclocking.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: stfrances
First of all, thank you all for the reply and suggestions. I just got home from work and I have not even cleaned myself up from the jobsite. I am a carpenter by trade and I like to build things. The prescott is my first built desktop. I have done some browsing on the net and I may be able to get a 3200+ close to the price of a 3000+. The Corsair XLPro that I have should help me a bit on the Winchester. MSI seems to be a good choice for a mobo. Anyway I'm still on the planning stages for my next system, again much "Mahalos" to everyone.

how close? if it isnt a big deal, go with 3200+.

 

[vasdrakken]

You just need to decide where you want the bottle neck i went with a 3200+ because I didn't want to wait for a 3500+ and my CPU is my biggest bottleneck but I'm not sure till I decide to overcloak this system how much 200 MHz will effect it but it is faster than the barton I was running at 2.4GHz, so you may want to consider consider that the biggest difference is that with locked Multis 10 or 11 will give you more options trying to find the fastest stable system. I will have to recomend that you consider the A8N boards as the N4 chip has come a long way.

 

[operaman1]

Get the the 3200 Winchester. This chip is the best bang for the buck, period. The 10X multi is a great thing to have. I love my 3500, but I am a high overclocker. If you are willingto push it the 3200 is a good bet.

 

[stfrances]

most of the sites that I have visited seeems to make $45 and less of a diff between them. I have currently a Corsair twinx 1g xlpro and just about to purchase a A8N SLI Deluxe mobo for $180. I'd like your opinion and ever1's before I finalize everything, just don't want to make the same mistake with my 1'st build

 

[frogger9]

I'd agree, the 3200+ is the way to go for overclocking. 10x multiplier seems to be the sweet spot.

I actually have a 3500+ that I run at 10x260. I may as well have gone for the 3200+ and saved some money

 

[stfrances]

I was just looking at a 3500+ winchester for a little over $230, how is your overclock on it frogger9

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: Mik3y
i say get the 3200+ for the multiplier over the 3000+.

I believe this was addressed...

i believe you shouldnt post...

 

[frogger9]

I have been able to run my 3500+ at 2.5 ghz with 8.3% over vcore in the bios.

Higher than that and I haven't been able to pass prime95. Probably with some more voltage I could get to 2.6 stable, but since I'm only using the stock HSF I don't want to push it too far.

 

[fireontheway]

As an owner of a 3000 i think the 10x multiplier on the 3200 is well worth the $70.00.

 

[gobucks]

if you get a 3200+ for close to the price of a 3000+, make sure it's socket 939 and not 754. You'll be pretty pissed if it ends up not fitting in your board, lol! Seriously, though, the price premium for a 3200+ is about $50, or 33%. Considering you can hit the max (2.6-2.7GHz) for any of the chips at 290FSB, and most mobos can do that, I don't think the 33% premium is worth it. However, if you are spending $1500 on a system, and having a 10X multiplier will make you less nervous, I can hardly say that going with the 3200+ is a bad idea. I do have to say that going with anything 3500+ and above is a waste of money for an overclocker, since they won't get you any better performance, and most 130nm parts will net you even less performance, topping off around 2.5GHz.

Oh, and one last thing, running a mem divider on the A64 seems to have minimal negative impact on performance, due to the extremely fast integrated mem controller, so if your RAM is the limiting factor, go ahead and run a divider and don't worry too much about it.

 

[stfrances]

Yap, gobucks u r absolutely ryt, I did a lot of reasearch on it be4 I finalized the purchase. I already got the a8n sli deluxe, winch 939 is on the way and also for a pci-e card, already got an OS ready its a xp pro media center, just 1 help though. I downloaded the free beta 64 OS from Microsoft and plan to use that. I have not had the time to do a research on it. Do I install the OS 64 to a fresh drive or do I need to istall the xp pro then the 64 after that?

 

[Duvie]

As an owner of a 3000+ and a CAPABLE board I can run 330fsb with an 8x multi....I only need 294fsb and the board does that easy!!!!

See sig...

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: operaman1
Get the the 3200 Winchester. This chip is the best bang for the buck, period. The 10X multi is a great thing to have. I love my 3500, but I am a high overclocker. If you are willingto push it the 3200 is a good bet.

That is screwy!!!! What about the 3000+???

 

[Zebo]

AGP or PCIe?

IMO buying an AGP setup rightnow is a bit nuts unless you have a AGP card you don't want to get rid of.

 

[spaceghost21]

The DFI nForce4 Ultra would be my choice at the moment, I agree it doesn't make much sense to invest in a technology that's on it's way out.