Help! 3700 San Diego or Opteron 148 I can't decide :s

[rhythmeister]

Well folks, I'm gonna pass on Ket's 3200 Venice (which benchs as an FX 53 at 2.37GHz) to a friend's bro in a pc I'm building but I can't decide between:

• http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270045596565&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=017

OR:

• http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=160043370681&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=006

Help! I think the Opty may have the edge as the 3700 is a San Diego (and I believe the Venice is preferable over that) but I'm not sure what the core is so what do you folks reckon?

 

[Tatty_Two]

The Sandy is a better core and more overclockable than the Venice generally and it comes with the 1MB L2 Cache. The Opty is a very good chip also but with the right cooling both can with some careful tweaking hit 3Gig, check the price comparison between the Opty 148 and the San Diego 4000+ because most 4000's these days can potentially hit 3.2Gig. And if kets old Venice is actually my old Venice I got it to 2.7Gig!!!

 

[rhythmeister]

Hey Tatty, u missing this cpu? lol Great piece of kit, just a shame I can't figure out that page of ram settings in this DFI board The thing that bothers me about the 3700 is that he says it runs at 2.4GHz but I can't find another San Diego core of that speed which is a 3700, only a 4000

I've heard bad things about Fastmemoryman as well when it comes to cpu's.

Would it be a safer bet spending an extra tenner on the Opty then? Will it run fine in this board or in a 6100 939 based board? I don't want to assume anything

 

[Tatty_Two]

Hey Tatty, u missing this cpu? lol Great piece of kit, just a shame I can't figure out that page of ram settings in this DFI board :s The thing that bothers me about the 3700 is that he says it runs at 2.4GHz but I can't find another San Diego core of that speed which is a 3700, only a 4000

I've heard bad things about Fastmemoryman as well when it comes to cpu's.

Would it be a safer bet spending an extra tenner on the Opty then? Will it run fine in this board or in a 6100 939 based board? I don't want to assume anything

No he dont, it says 2.2Gig on the link you provided? Personally if you can afford it I wouold go for the 4000+, followed by the Opty followed by the 3700, TBH all decent chips and my personal opinion only of course, I have owned the 3700 and an Opty 146 so can speak from some personal experience, this 4000+ runs sooooo fast with such little voltage heat will never be a problem even with only half decent aftermarket cooling.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I can find you a 4000+ for £70 at Microdirect or you can pick up a brand new non e bay 3700 for £51, and no not missing the CPU not when I got this CPU for £69 and it does 3.2 Gig all day!!!!

 

[rhythmeister]

Hmmm, the plot thickens! He says at the end of the auction page in BIG letters that it runs at 2.4GHz. I sent him a question about it to get the OPN from it so that may shed sum light on it... Would the 4000 be a better overclocker than that Opty 148?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Hmmm, the plot thickens! He says at the end of the auction page in BIG letters that it runs at 2.4GHz. I sent him a question about it to get the OPN from it so that may shed sum light on it... Would the 4000 be a better overclocker than that Opty 148?

well I think a 148 will do about 3.2Gig also but the things is its really easy with the 4000+ and its cheaper, both are VERY similar chips, the Opty's have always had a lot of enthusiast support because providing you get decent stepping you are almost guaranteed a good overclock with the right tweaks/cooling, the 4000+ however can now match them for cheaper.

You should be thinking about good cooling to go with either as well and that will add to the price so may sway your decision anyways.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I see what you mean at the bottom of the ad....the only Athlon 3700+'s running at 2400 are the old socket 754 Clawhammers but his title ad says socket 939 so he either needs to learn a bit about puters or he needs to sort his kit out! But why by off him if you can get one from Microdirect as cheap?

 

[rhythmeister]

Cheers Tatty, this cpu I'm using right now under a 3800 stock cooler with AS5 is indeed yr old one! Needed a bit of pin str8ening with my new credit card lol. It's running really well, can I ask what you got the fsb upto on it? I assume it's my ram pissing about when I try and get the speed cranked up and I'm fed up with resetting cmos and tons of settings everytime it freaks out if I set stuff too high :shadedshu

I may go for that 4000 from micro direct, smashing deal when you look at fleabay prices

Thinking about this for cooling, basically a cheaper Zalman 7000:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=396695

or maybe:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=396321


or even:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=383040

Oh, what's the Venus core like in the following link?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-AMD-Opteron-148-Venus-2-2GHz-Socket-939-Processor_W0QQitemZ320042045817QQihZ011QQcategoryZ80142QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem

 

[technicks]

http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/377/__11.jpg

I think you should go for the 3700 Sandy. I got it for a half year now and i think it is a great cpu for the price. Overclocks like hell on air (2.8) and if you have a water cooled setup it will go past 3.0 ghz.

 

[rhythmeister]

If they want to stroke me for £20 delivery maybe I could poopal you the dough and you could send it to me? Juat a thought!

 

[Tatty_Two]

Cheers Tatty, this cpu I'm using right now under a 3800 stock cooler with AS5 is indeed yr old one! Needed a bit of pin str8ening with my new credit card lol. It's running really well, can I ask what you got the fsb upto on it? I assume it's my ram pissing about when I try and get the speed cranked up and I'm fed up with resetting cmos and tons of settings everytime it freaks out if I set stuff too high :shadedshu

I may go for that 4000 from micro direct, smashing deal when you look at fleabay prices

Thinking about this for cooling, basically a cheaper Zalman 7000:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=396695

or maybe:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=396321

I have a brand new boxed Akaska thats reviewed better than the Zalman or the Artic freezer 64 pro I could let you have for a song!

I sold it to Ket as it had bent pins and I couldnt be arsed to straighten them all but I got 10 x 270 out of her on 1.55V so look at your voltage. What memory divider you got? I had crap memory then so if i remember rightly I had to set the memory divider to 133 and at a FSB of 270 that gave me around 420MHZ I think, cant be arsed to do the maths now I'm knackered. If you are fed up of rebooting/clearing CMOS download "SysTool" from this site, you can try changing your FSB and memory timings throught that "on the fly" in windows without BIOS, sometimes it can be less succesful that way, but it works for many, you can then confirm its done by checking CPU-Z, also available here in the download section if you dont already have it.
What it wont do however is allow you to adjust your voltage through it so you need to go into the BIOS to increase that beforehand or you will get the BSOD if not enuff volts going thru her. With a little work that Venice will take you to decent speeds and you may not want to upgrade, you could then invest in a graphics card or something. If you raise your volts be careful on the cooling side as your cooler wont handle too much, to be safe, once the cpu has settled down it should be idling under 40C if not reduce volts a little and drop the FSB a bit until it does, once you have decent cooling you can play more!

 

[rhythmeister]

Damn, why do I always make my brain work hard in the evenings?! I was just gonna pass this cpu on2 the guy I'm building a pc 4, get him a 6100 939 oc'er and see what gave me best results then hang onto it!

Settings are as follows at the mo, maybe I should drop the ram down more and fsb up, I'm at stock volts everywhere and cpu sits at 37-38 Deg' C at desktop. Air from case fan is cold!

 

[rhythmeister]

Well, I can't get this board to even post if I go above 240 fsb, even with the ram down to <ddr400 (it's ddr 434). Can't post with cpu multiplier of <9, can't get post above 220MHz if I use that multi

I'm using the most uptodate Rebel's haven bios as well, maybe I should go back to stock?

 

[AshenSugar]

ah the joy of asus and dfi enthusist boards , i delt with enough of them to know how picky they can be and that because of that i didnt want one PITA realy lol

 

[rhythmeister]

Right, I'm gonna get one of the Foxconn 6100 939's from fleabay and try this cpu in it! The mate's bro can have this board and cpu and I'll get me a 4000 when I gets the moneys from him, he'll love this machine even if I can only get 2.37GHz...

 

[Tatty_Two]

You need to increase your voltage, thats why you cannot get any more FSB!

 

[rhythmeister]

That easy eh? Let the games begin! Cpu upto 1.425 now, back to 235MHz bus with ram at 2, 3, 3, 8, 11 timings, ram at 2.8V. I'll still try and get that 4000+ tho, is there any chance I could poopal you the money to send me it tatty? Would £5 from me convince you to be the best internet buddy ever?!

 

[Tatty_Two]

What the cooler? It is an Akaska Evo 33 and cost me £25 excluding delivery, boxed, never used and only had it 3 weeks! Here is a link to a review where it was up against several of the best Athlon 64 coolers and beat the lot it's got heatpipes, copper the lot, I bought it because I thought by Freezer pro bracket was on the blink but it turned out it was just a screw and I couldnt be arsed to change it over so just kept it as it is, it even beat the Freezer Pro if you look:

http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/labs/71521/akasa-ak913.html

 

[rhythmeister]

No, the AMD 4000+ from microdirect-they'll hit me with a £15 surcharge cos I live in N. Ireland which is still in the UK but they don't appear to use royal mail to deliver

That cooler looks nice but I'm using the case in my sig' link still and prob won't change from it 'til I can afford a nice Silverstone case I was thinking of one of the Zalman's or NorthQ coolers, I think they cool much better than this stock cooler

 

[Tatty_Two]

No, the AMD 4000+ from microdirect-they'll hit me with a £15 surcharge cos I live in N. Ireland which is still in the UK but they don't appear to use royal mail to deliver

That cooler looks nice but I'm using the case in my sig' link still and prob won't change from it 'til I can afford a nice Silverstone case I was thinking of one of the Zalman's or NorthQ coolers, I think they cool much better than this stock cooler

They will.....but not as good as the Evo 33!!!

 

[rhythmeister]

Here she is!

http://www.northq.com/img/pics/nq3314_01_640.jpg

http://www.northq.com/img/pics/nq3314_02_640.jpg

Oh, oh have you seen the Silverstone Sugo? Mmm, may have to get one of those!

 

[Tatty_Two]

Here she is!

http://www.northq.com/img/pics/nq3314_01_640.jpg

http://www.northq.com/img/pics/nq3314_02_640.jpg

Oh, oh have you seen the Silverstone Sugo? Mmm, may have to get one of those!

Nice are you still going for the 3800x2 and the Epox sli?

 

[rhythmeister]

Waiting on the 3800, cost me £12 to get an £85 postal order made up tho GRRR! Should be here by fri at the latest, ooh the wait!

Going 4 one of the Foxconn's mobo-wise, the one with the SATA II support and 6150/ 430 chipset is meant to oc wuite well. I'll see what runs fastest with the Venice in it but I'll not get too far with the dividers and pc3500 I reckon...need sum more cash from yr man to complete the build but gonna sell him the X-QPack case with 600W EXCoo psu and the rest of the gear in my specs then get sum pc4000 and an X850XT/ X1900 of sum description MMM