XP 2100+ Thoroughbred?

[Nairb]

I really need to upgrade my machine right now, and I'm looking for a fairly cheap and stable solution. The prices on the Athlon 2100+ CPUs seem to be really good right now, but I'm wondering if there are any available with the thoroughbred core, as opposed to the palamino core? If so, where would I go about buying one of these .13micron cpus? I'm planning on using it with the Epox 8rda+ board.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Nairb
I really need to upgrade my machine right now, and I'm looking for a fairly cheap and stable solution. The prices on the Athlon 2100+ CPUs seem to be really good right now, but I'm wondering if there are any available with the thoroughbred core, as opposed to the palamino core? If so, where would I go about buying one of these .13micron cpus? I'm planning on using it with the Epox 8rda+ board.

Thanks,

Brian

If you're using the 8RDA+ and are willing to overclock, the best processors that would suit you are the 1700+ or the 1800+, for $52 and $66 respectively. Multipliers are being unlocked automagically on the Nforce2 boards, and the chips are overclocking very nicely.

The only Tbred lower grade chips I've seen so far are the 1700+ and 1800+, with some reports of people getting 2000+ Tbreds and 2100+ Tbreds, but those are rarer due to the fact that all of the Palomino supply of these chips haven't been sold yet because they're a higher priced chip that hasn't sold as well.

 

[Nairb]

If you're using the 8RDA+ and are willing to overclock, the best processors that would suit you are the 1700+ or the 1800+, for $52 and $66 respectively. Multipliers are being unlocked automagically on the Nforce2 boards, and the chips are overclocking very nicely.

Are you suggesting the Thoroughbred 1700+ and 1800+ models? What level of overclocking can I expect to achieve? I don't want to go extreme, but rather stable. I was planning on a slightly higher jump in speed from my 933 right now (P3) than what an 1800+ gives. I'm also looking at a P4 2.4 for $191 from NewEgg. Can someone recommend a good MB for this. I don't need bells and whistles.

Thanks again.

Brian

 

[KiltedFool]

My understanding on this from a thread on the same question last week is:
Thoroughbreds are readily available in the 1700, 1800 and 2200 flavors, getting them in the range of 1900 or 2000 is either very difficult or not possible. So for the aforementioned Epox 8RDA+, your option is to go with an 1800 Thoroughbred that OCs very well or go with a Palomino in the 1900-2000 range unless you have the scratch to leap to the 2200 Thoroughbred at ~$160. Sweet spot for those wanting to OC right now appears to be the Epox 8RDA+ with an 1800 T-bred OC'ed.

HTH
KF
Thread I started last week on the topic

 

[chizow]

It really depends on the stepping and week of the T-Bred A. I was an early adopter and jumped on the 1700+ T-bred (AIRGA week 32) and although it hasn't been a complete dud (does 1.825ghz now that I have a better OCing board and memory), it isn't nearly as good as the newer steppings (RIRGA Week 42 or later). From what I've been seeing, people are hitting 2 ghz easy with these chips.

Of course the ones we've all been waiting for that have been rumored to start appearing are the lower PR T-bred B's. These babies should hit 2.2-2.4ghz with relative ease, as the 2400+ have been doing.

Anyways, going with a 1700+ or 1800+ with a good PSU and good cooling/case airflow should allow you to keep the same multiplier (which is unlocked on Nforce2 boards ) and notch your FSB up from 133 to 166mhz as long as your RAM can handle it. This'll get you into the 1800mhz range and from there you can tweak your multi or FSB to get higher. AGP and PCI locks and memory speed ratios give you unprecedented control over your system....OCing has never been easier!!!

Chiz

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: Nairb

If you're using the 8RDA+ and are willing to overclock, the best processors that would suit you are the 1700+ or the 1800+, for $52 and $66 respectively. Multipliers are being unlocked automagically on the Nforce2 boards, and the chips are overclocking very nicely.

Are you suggesting the Thoroughbred 1700+ and 1800+ models? What level of overclocking can I expect to achieve? I don't want to go extreme, but rather stable. I was planning on a slightly higher jump in speed from my 933 right now (P3) than what an 1800+ gives. I'm also looking at a P4 2.4 for $191 from NewEgg. Can someone recommend a good MB for this. I don't need bells and whistles.

Thanks again.

Brian

If you can afford it, get the P4 2.4 and Asus P4PE, a board that gets great reviews. If stability is a concern, then don't waste your time with a t-bred XP17/1800 and overclocking. There is no guarantee there. However, anything XP1800/P24 2.0 or above is definitely going to feel like 180* difference, compared to the P3

 

[Superman9534]

i dunno. I bought an $85 chaintech 7VJL and tbred 1800 and hit 2200+ easily. I just raised the multiplier, which was already unlocked on my KT333 board. Im running now at a stable 2200+ and saved about $90.

 

[Nairb]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm going to go the P4 route this time around. I believe it will have a bit more longevity than the overclocked Athlon. Thanks for the advice though!

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: chocoruacal

If you can afford it, get the P4 2.4 and Asus P4PE, a board that gets great reviews. If stability is a concern, then don't waste your time with a t-bred XP17/1800 and overclocking. There is no guarantee there. However, anything XP1800/P24 2.0 or above is definitely going to feel like 180* difference, compared to the P3

God I hate when people post crap like this. If you know what you are doing, an Athlon XP + Nforce2 is completely as stable as I845PE + P4. And you wanna get real picky about this? Try the cold boot problems that have been made ever so famous by the I845PE chipset when overclocking. If we were talking VIA here (which has done almost a complete 180 in terms of stability over the past year), then I might tend to be slightly more agreeing.

If you know what you are doing, these new Nforce2 boards are every bit as stable as any workstation board on the market. This is IF, and only IF you know what the hell you are doing. I am so sick of people with little to know experience with these boards, especially the Nforce2, making references like this about the Athlon chipsets' stability.

Nairb, if you're going for a pretty cheap board with good overclocking capability and alotta bells and whistles, try the Albatron PX845PE Pro II which goes for $126.50 shipped and has some good features including Oboard Sound, LAN, SATA Raid.

In terms of longevity, you may be better off waiting for Springdale to come out and then upgrading to that for a P4 solution. That looks like to be the chipset of 2003.

For Athlons, the Nforce2 looks as though it will support almost all of the newer processors released by AMD for awhile, including the Barton core. Also if you go the route of the 1800+ Tbred + 8RDA+ you save about $100 which you could put towards maybe memory or a better graphics card, or towards a future upgrade down the road.

The newer 1800+ Tbreds are hitting relatively higher speeds these days than when they were first introduced. Most likely, with a decent cooler, you're looking to hit around 1.9ghz, which is roughly 2300+ speed. This is assuming you have RAM capable of more then 133mhz , and if you decide to drop the multiplier down, probably needs to be capable of around 166mhz.

 

[Nairb]

Nairb, if you're going for a pretty cheap board with good overclocking capability and alotta bells and whistles, try the Albatron PX845PE Pro II which goes for $126.50 shipped and has some good features including Oboard Sound, LAN, SATA Raid.

I firmly believe an NForce board would be just as stable. I don't mind overclocking either, my current system is a (don't laugh) P3 CuMine 700 running on the original Asus CUBX motherboard (BX Chipset) overclocked via the bus to 933 (133 bus). I have never actually run this thing at 700. I have owned it for probably two years now, and am quite satisfied with its stabiltiy. It was left on for two weeks while I was on vacation this past Christmas, with remote desktop being used every day, and it did not crash once.

As great as this system has served me, it still has some issues. First off, there's the Photoshop bug. Photoshop will simply hang the computer. It is a hardware bug. (See http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html) This was a nuisance, but since I just bought a digital camera, this is going to be a bigger problem. Second, I am a software developer and VS.NET could use a bit more pep than what this system can currently give me. Thus I concluded it was time for an upgrade.

Here's what I ended up buying.

P4 2.4B -- $191
Asus P4PE (with 1394 and Serial ATA) -- $152
Samsung 512MB 2700 DDR -- $123

The Athlon XP system (1800+) with the Epox board would have run me about $100 less. I think this was a $100 well spent. I got just about 1GHz more pure clock speed (with some room to overclock), and the ability to upgrade to a higher end HT P4 at some point. This particular MB got good reviews as well.

So thanks, and if anyone is interested in a bare-bones P3 Coppermine system for cheap, let me know!

Brian