thoroughbred vs barton

cheradenine

I've been looking around for a new cpu to put on an abit nforce2 board and reasoned that if I could clock something like the barton xp2500 up an extra 200mhz or so it would be unneccesary to spend the extra on a faster 2800-3000xp processor (I have my current xp2000 steadily overclocked about 200mhz). However with all the new 2500's being multiplier locked my options would appear to be limited.

I was wondering if i'd have more luck picking up an older thoroughbred-b 2600xp cpu for a similar price, and if this would unlike the barton be unlocked. While I realise it has half the cache, given the benchmarks i've seen comparing the two it seems the difference that makes would easily be made up if the cpu overclocked well in addition to the native extra clockspeed the thoroughbred has over the barton. Does anyone know wether the thoroughbred is locked at 2600 levels and how it overclocks?

(I realise the alternative is ignoring the multiplier and simply pushing the fsb way up, but I think i'd have to go in for a heftily priced ram upgrade to keep up with that)

joePC

All multiplyers are lock on the bartons and if you intend to overclock only 200Mhz then you wont need to adjust the multiplyer.......Your MB should unlock your barton for you I know the ASUS A7N8X does.

I would stick with the barton core.

Thanks joePC

Samba

Aye go for the barton Core I have the xp2600 myself, I have managed to get it up to 185Mhz with air cooling, round about 2.45 gig mark, I am confident it would go further, only I have a pathetic 300 w PSU.

Col_Loki

If you mean up the FSB to 200mhz then the Xp2500+ would be running at 2.2ghz or Xp3200+.

Its quite possible, make sure your board supports 400mhz FSB (ie 200x2), your ram also (unless you want to use dividers), and you have some good cooling (ie preferably not stock).

You will probably have to up the Vcore to get it stable etc, the bartons are good overclockers and even with the multi lock its possible to overclock it very high.

cheradenine

Thanks for the advice, my one worry really is the ram, I think my cooling is fine even under increased voltage, it's just that i'd be using corsair xms 2700 in it rather than the 400mhz ddr3000, will using the divider eat into how far the system can be overclocked? My main worry about the fixed multiplier was that it would mean raising the fsb a lot and my ram probably wouldnt be able to keep up.

Woden

well you have decent ram it may go to 200mhz with an increase of vdimm and with some loosening of the timings you could try something like 3-4-4-8 or 3-4-4-11 don't increase the vdimm over 2.8V its guranteed to that i think