New Castle, Winchester, Venice, San Diego, Hammer, Clawhammer

[jimmyj68]

If I think the best CPU to get now is San Diego, are there motherboards out there that work with it? I'm reading about people being unable to operate a Venice on their present motherboards. In the past I've bought Intel boards stuck in whatever chip speed I could afford and been off to the races.

1. Is it a hassle to get an AMD system up and running?

2. Why all the names and why is it not possible (at a sensible cost) to find an AMD chip that exceeds (or meets) the operating speed of my present 3.2 Prescott? And - does the operating speed really matter?

 

[theMan]

1. not any more than other systems. there is just maybe a few different problems, its just luck i guess, as it is with all builds.

2. The names are codenames for the various core revisions that have been made with the A64. The newest ones are the Venice and San Diego, and the only difference is the SD has a 1mb L2 cache, and the Venice has a 512kb cache. I would recommend the winchester, venice, or san diego cores, because they have the newer 90nm process, instead of the older 130nm process. Any skt 939 board will run a skt 939 A64, you will just need to flash to the newest BIOS.
the biggest thing you have to realize is that CORE SPEED DOES NOT MATTER!!!!. Since the A64 does more instructions per clock, and has a shorter pipeline, and better core architecture, it is able to do more per clock cycle. so the A64 3200+ which runs at 2.0 ghz will easily out perform the 3.2Ghz prescott. benchmarks show that A64's are superior at everything except video editing, and encoding. they also have a better cost-performance ratio.

 

[jimmyj68]

Yea, I've read similar stuff before, but my "hardened logic" mind says 3 is a bigger number than 2 and that is what Intel has been selling - the bigger number.

To start from scratch as an AMD user, and starting with San Diego, what is the best board out there? These forums talk a lot about Asus both good and bad. I've always had good luck with Asus for intel boards in the past. I've never used a board by the other AMD popularity contender I read about here. And by the way - over clocking is not something I'm interested in whereas what I pick-up from these threads is you always overclock your AMD/Intel cpu. The boards are now designed to enable overclocking and the buyer pays for that capability needing it or not. Are there any reputable board makers that just offer a smooth performing, stable, quality board for the non-overclocker?

 

[Markfw]

If you get a motherboard and cpu from Monarchcomputer, they flash the bios for you, so you are guaranteed to get a working combo! I like ASUS, are you going SLI ? I wouldn;t...

 

[imported_Kensai]

MSI's boards are my first pick for stability. They're extremely stable, but if you want to try overclock later, it'll let you.

 

[frx218]

2. Why all the names and why is it not possible (at a sensible cost) to find an AMD chip that exceeds (or meets) the operating speed of my present 3.2 Prescott? And - does the operating speed really matter?

Someone said it best awhile ago:

You can travel 100 miles and go 70 Mph.
or you can go 30 Miles and go 30 Mph.

Speed wont make a difference when the distance is shorter.

 

[frx218]

There are plenty of boards that are not for over clocking and have great features just do some reading and I am sure you will find something you like.

Tomshardware.com < Just had a A64 Mobo shoot out

or read around the forums

 

[frx218]

There are plenty of boards that are not for over clocking and have great features just do some reading and I am sure you will find something you like.

Tomshardware.com < Just had a A64 Mobo shoot out

or read around the forums

 

[jimmyj68]

No SLI for me - - - - -

 

[ericlala]

someone find him the site with a picture of a table showing the different amd sockets and names... i loved that picture

 

[NightCrawler]

Yea, I've read similar stuff before, but my "hardened logic" mind says 3 is a bigger number than 2 and that is what Intel has been selling - the bigger number.

A64 = 2.0 {ghz}billion x 9 = 18 billion

P4 = 3.0 {ghz}billion x 6 = 18 billion

so remember 18 billion....


PS: I recommend the Asus A8N-E with a Athlon 64 3000+{venice core} and 1 gig of memory.

 

[hippotautamus]

AMD systems are no more of a hassle to get up and running than an Intel system is - in fact, they spare you the necessity of having an air conditioner installed

And Nightcrawler, your longhorn scheme is needlessly complicated. I'm sure if you look on ebay, someone is trying to auction off a beta..

 

[mUcHiLuS]

venice core is the best you can find out at the moment, precisly if you want to overclock your system behond 2.8ghz real clock

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: jimmyj68
Yea, I've read similar stuff before, but my "hardened logic" mind says 3 is a bigger number than 2 and that is what Intel has been selling - the bigger number.

To start from scratch as an AMD user, and starting with San Diego, what is the best board out there? These forums talk a lot about Asus both good and bad. I've always had good luck with Asus for intel boards in the past. I've never used a board by the other AMD popularity contender I read about here. And by the way - over clocking is not something I'm interested in whereas what I pick-up from these threads is you always overclock your AMD/Intel cpu. The boards are now designed to enable overclocking and the buyer pays for that capability needing it or not. Are there any reputable board makers that just offer a smooth performing, stable, quality board for the non-overclocker?

The Asus A8N (any flavor) is a very stable board, overclocking or not.

The reasons almost everyone here overclocks is that if you stay here very long and do some research you will find:

1. With just a little common sense, you will not damage your hardware and you will not shorten the "useful" life of your of your hardware, period.

2. The way chips are manufactured and binned, a chip like the 3000+ at 1.8ghz is the exact same chip off the same production line as a 3500+ at 2.2ghz, it just didn't test out as high as the 3500+ or they have more demand for 3000's so they bin down chips that test out as 3500's. And the mfg sets the speed of the chips well below the actual speed that the chip can run to begin with.

3. You can buy the lowest graded chip in a core line like Venice for under $200, and easily overclock it to or beyond the performance levels of AMD's top chip the FX-55 which sells for $800+

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Originally posted by: mUcHiLuS
venice core is the best you can find out at the moment, precisly if you want to overclock your system behond 2.8ghz real clock

Well, the San Diego would be a bit better in performance, but it's more expensive.