athlon 64 advice

tuxy

ok im considering getting an athlon 64 and would like some advice

now i always push my systems as far as they will go with overclocking so i would do the same with this system
it would be great if i could hear from someone that has overclocked a a64

a athlon 64 3200+ is within my price range it offers fiarly good bang for buck dosnt it?
it will be cooled by a Zalman CNPS 7000A Cu

motherboard : i was thinking of the Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP nForce3 150 i hear the pci/agp locks work on this one
and you can push the fsp high using something like clockgen, but im not sure so if there is a better board for overclocking let me know

memory: ddr 500 i guess? this is the thing i know least about i know i will need good memory for overclocking its pricey atm
i realy cant afford to spend more than 300 euro on 1 gb of ram
what should i get?

Mutant_Fruit

Corasir ram is supposedly quite good for overclocking.

But you'd be better off getting 512mb of faster stuff if you want to push it as far as it'll go. Its possible (i'm not sure how likely though...) that that ram could hold you back in your overclocking. Do a bit of research into how far other people have pushed their A64's, and get ram that can go that high normally.

neokenzo

Well I've only got my cpu to go up to 2.25Ghz. The main problem is that it doesnt have a pci/agp lock. I've seen though some pushing it up to 2.6 to 2.8Ghz. Depends on your other hardware.
As far as the K8NNXP, AFAIK only some of them have pci/agp lock. It depends on how lucky you are. If I were you, I'll wait till the nforce3 250 comes out and get those. They definitely have a pci/agp lock. They'll probably come out early June. So far, the MSI looks promising. The Gigabyte is good but seems that they have put more cheaper parts for their nforce3 250 boards.
As for the ram, well it depends on how much your cpu can go. You probably wont need DDR500. Get a PC3500 would be suffice IMO.

Mutant_Fruit

i was under the impression AMD's performed better when the ram was in-sync with the CPU. Maybe that's different with the A64, i don't know. But if it is true for the A64, then he'll need DDR500 at least, as i've seen fsb's reaching 240, which double pumps to 480.

neokenzo

Like I said it depends on how high he can get it up to. No point buying DDR500 ram if the system cant get that high. Also it depends which ram he gets. He may be able to push certain ram higher.

tuxy

maybe best to wait then
i enjoy overclocking
i have my 2400 pentium 4 @ 3167
so i think i would be disapointed with overclocking results from the a64 atm

neokenzo

Yeah but even with the very little you are able to overclock, its still fast enough.

BloodBath

I've been hearing the amd systems run better with slower memory with fast timings as they are not as memory dependant as the Intels.

Go to the amd64 section of www.extremeoverclocking.com

There are a lot of people there who can help you.



BloodBath

Mutant_Fruit

with the A64, a 10% overclock means a 10% speed boost, at least in the benchmark i saw.

Col_Loki

a athlon 64 3200+ is within my price range it offers fiarly good bang for buck dosnt it?

The 3200+ performs very simularly to the 3000+ , the only difference being 1mb cache compared with 512kb. The 3200+ arent a whole lot more expensive.......

Have a look at these two links for a very good read on AMD64 overclocking.....
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=287888
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=295328

the "DTR" or desktop replacement versions of the AMD64 have the newest stepping and are said to overclock better than previous stepping (detailed in thread above).
Basic jist, he actually has the PCI/AGP lock working....... 250mhz FSB x 10 -> 2.5ghz.

motherboard : i was thinking of the Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP nForce3 150 i hear the pci/agp locks work on this one

I read something about people using clockgen to get great FSB overclocks with the AMD64. Basically they set the FSB to 201mhz in the BIOS (enables the PCI/AGP lock), and ramp up the speeds with clockgen....... worth lookin into. Motherboards are also discussed alot in thread above .

memory: ddr 500 i guess? this is the thing i know least about i know i will need good memory for overclocking its pricey atm

Id go with 1gb of ADATA Ram if you want high FSB with memory 1:1, they are rated for 250mhz but will do much higher from what ive seen........ there also nice and cheap . For tight timings its good to get a performance brand, but when thinkin about high bandwidth make isint as much of a factor. I wouldnt pay for corsair/ocz etc when you could get almost 2gb or ADATA for the price.

i was under the impression AMD's performed better when the ram was in-sync with the CPU. Maybe that's different with the A64

The A64 is different, if you have a high FSB and use dividers to set the Ram speed the performance doesent suffer. Different on the XP's......

The AMD64's seem to be getting very high FSB without problems, so 280-300mhz 1:1 with memory......... that'd make ya smile , just down to memory.

Bloodbath, i think tighter timings were better on the P4 and the AMD64 over increased bandwidth .......... had a lot of posts on this subject a week or so ago. I think once you go over 260mhz the timings dont make as much of a difference and bandwidth seems to make a big difference (from what ive heard, my system struggled to get to 245mhz) where 250mhz with loose timings doesent perform aswell as 200mhz with tight ones . I posted a good few links etc......... will dig up the thread.

neokenzo

I think tighter timings are not important with the A64 as it has integrated memory. Just look at the new OCZ EB's. I think the highest CAS they have is 2.5 but they perform just as fast for the 64's.

Azza

Yes looking at a gig of that OCZ PC 3700 EB probaly overclock to 500mhz. Looks the part. But with air cooling I reckon you can get cheaper Pc 3200 which clock to maybe 433mhz with tight timings. I don't think there is much point going for higher bandwidth unless your doing serious overclocking which is what I intend to do(i.e non aircooled ). Its super expensive though.

Col_Loki

But the lovely thing about the A64's is the lower multi's are unlocked . Which means no matter what you can get high FSB, it use the 7 or 8 multi and pop the FSB right up to take agvantage of the memory!!

neokenzo

Does the higher FSB means that its faster? Even if the overall speed is slower? For example, I've seen someone running at 300++ FSB but at a lower multi and lower HTT and the overall speed is like around 1.9Ghz.

Col_Loki

Well being technical the AMD64 doesent have FSB per say, as the memory controller is on the CPU die....... it has HTT.

Generally higher HTT and increased memory speed is better over raw CPU speed. Ie Running 300mhz HTT with memory 1:1 and multi or 7 would out perform one with HTT at 200mhz memory 1:1 and multi of 10.5.

Im not sure at which level or how much extra performance as its hard to put a figure on.