3700+ or Opteron 146 ?

[Dutch Guy]

I know, lol, and he's a flipping IT worker at work!

You have to remember that for someone at work it's 'stability > speed' so it's hardly surprising he doesn't want to overclock it if he has to use the machine at work.

But for a work machine I would deffo get a X2 dual core CPU like the 3800+

 

[Brum Man]

You have to remember that for someone at work it's 'stability > speed' so it's hardly surprising he doesn't want to overclock it if he has to use the machine at work.

But for a work machine I would deffo get a X2 dual core CPU like the 3800+

It's going to be a computer for at home though, that's just what he does for a job during the day. He also did computer science for a degree, and there was me having to explain what GHZ meant!

Hmm, I would go for the 3800, but he has a pretty tight budget of £600 for everything, which he's already having to go £50 over to get a non-crud graphics card so couldn't really stretch the extra £50ish on top of that.

 

[quadboi]

3700 for me

 

[stvmor]

Overclock it anyway!

My SD 3700 is fine and runs perfectly stable at 2750 (1.5v) but games run pretty well the same on my son's 3200 venice at 2300 so you can mebe save a bit there? I don't think the l2 cache is very important to gaming yet! (cowers and attempts to duck the attack)

Try to Get 2Gig of ram for games.

 

[SPB]

I have a 3700 San-Diego running on a A8N32 SLI Deluxe.

I had it stable at 2750 @ 1.4125 on stock cooling. But it hit 44 degress under load so ive taken it back.

Now runs 2640 @ 1.4 perfectly well. Stepping KAB2E like the others. Cant comment on the opty's as i have never had one. But I cant complain about what Ive got.

 

[booyaka]

running 3700+ @ 2.7ghz stable. (stock cooler and volts) great clocker - got a Artic pro freezer 64 waiting at home to be installed tonight so will be going for a 2.8 + tonight.

 

[Big.Wayne]

You have to remember that for someone at work it's 'stability > speed' so it's hardly surprising he doesn't want to overclock it if he has to use the machine at work.

That's an interesting comment Dutch Guy. Do you feel that the terms Overclocked is synominous with Unstable?

 

[mj3zero]

Just to update this, I went for the Opty 146. Received a CACJE 0406 and it is currently running at 260*10 on stock volts (1.46v). Prime stable for 12 hours. Load temperature is 37'c using the AC64 Pro cooler.

I am a bit perplexed as to what to try next as the Asus BIOS is not exactly intuitive My memory is not high end - it's 2 year old Cas3 pc3200 Crucial. 200 is its maximum, so I need to work out how to set the correct divider on the A8n32

A quick play about with various apps felt a good bit snappier than the retired P4 2.6 so I am a very happy camper.

mj

 

[Big.Wayne]

Just to update this, I went for the Opty 146. Received a CACJE 0406 and it is currently running at 260*10 on stock volts (1.46v). Prime stable for 12 hours. Load temperature is 37'c using the AC64 Pro cooler.

I don't think 1.46vCore is stock volts? also you may wish to try a 24 hour dual prime, if it passes this then you can be totally confident. I seen prime fail lots in the 12-17hour mark.

Your memory should be fine, put it on a divider and see how u get on. You shoud have a setting like 333MHz or 266MHz, try them. It will be on 400MHz by default. A bit confusing at first but google for *A64MemFreq11* that will get you sorted!

 

[Soul Rider]

I don't think 1.46vCore is stock volts? also you may wish to try a 24 hour dual prime

Isn't the 146 a single core chip? You can't run dual prime on that can you?

 

[mj3zero]

I don't think 1.46vCore is stock volts? also you may wish to try a 24 hour dual prime, if it passes this then you can be totally confident. I seen prime fail lots in the 12-17hour mark.

Your memory should be fine, put it on a divider and see how u get on. You shoud have a setting like 333MHz or 266MHz, try them. It will be on 400MHz by default. A bit confusing at first but google for *A64MemFreq11* that will get you sorted!

Thanks Wayne, I just left the voltage on auto and for some reason it's running at 1.46. The 146 (mine anyway) is a 1.4v part , so I guess the a8n32 overvolts by default. Still running Prime right now and will do until I want to turn the rig off

Re; the dividers - man what a difference 2 years makes - it's all gobbeldygook Right now I believe the divider is set to auto, which is giving a memory speed of 173.3 mhz according to CPU-Z. Obviously I'd like it closer to it's rated max of 200. Looking to maybe drop the multiplier to 9x and go for a higher fsb closer to 300 I guess. But I'll wait a day or two and see how it holds up.

cheers
mj

 

[stvmor]

My memory is not high end - it's 2 year old Cas3 pc3200 Crucial. 200 is its maximum, so I need to work out how to set the correct divider on the A8n32
mj

I have had 2Gig of this Crucial running at 250, 3,3,3,6,2T stable on my a8n premium so there's mebe some room for improvement there

 

[mj3zero]

I have had 2Gig of this Crucial running at 250, 3,3,3,6,2T stable on my a8n premium so there's mebe some room for improvement there

Hmmm, nice one. I never really got a chance to try this memory at a higher speed with my P4 rig as the cpu needed a big hike in volts to go over 250fsb and I was using a 5/4 divider. I never once thought about trying 1/1 because I assumed Crucial was not that good.

Any tips on testing for a memory setups maximum ceiling ?

cheers
mj

 

[Big.Wayne]

Isn't the 146 a single core chip? You can't run dual prime on that can you?

 

[stvmor]

I have to admit that my usual 'test' of stability is to run BF2. If it doesn't crash during the 1st couple of minutes action it's a good bet my PC is stable.

Important, please note that I also have a 120 fan blowing onto my memory.

Also, I think Crucial memory doesn't like 'high' voltages so I would stick close to it's rated vdimm. I think this is 2.5-2.6 volts but i would think you can get away with 2.8v with a fan?