Project: The Ultimate AGP System (PC-A05FNB/HD3850)

[ian]

Erm BD movie watching or anything that has been encoded to other file formats can be watched on even a x1950 Pro AGP with the said above specs. Im not sure on my First rig because i dont own a BD Drive

FullHD movies are my passion and I know for sure that any hardware on DDRI causes slight frames losses every 5-10secs (according to buffer size set in codec). Even with Core2Duo. I'm speaking about films which weight above 16GB and when you watch them on big screen it is distinct and annoying. It describes the problem of big latency of DDRI.

Of course buffer size may be adjusted to minimum to have small and stable portions of data transferred and reduced latency. Despite, you'll have delays with processors video decoding -> less but more frequent fps losses.

Talking about high res video the bottleneck appears everything except VGA

 

[TRWOV]

I've watched BDs on a 865 board and they play just fine. 775i65G + Pentium Dual Core E5800 @ 3.6Ghz + 2GB OCZ DDR400 CL2 RAM + HD4670 AGP (my old HTPC):

 

[natr0n]

agp systems need to stick to windows xp 32bit. anything else is a highway to nowhere imo.

 

[TRWOV]

Not necessarily. VIA and Intel chipsets work fine in W7 64bit. Nvidia left its users in the dust with no upgraded drivers. I've used W7 64bit on a 865 board (Conroe865PE) for about 2 years with 0 issues. My old HTPC ran on W7 64bit too..

 

[xBruce88x]

I had pretty good luck with my AsRock 4CoreDual-VSTA. It had a VIA chipset. I remember I even ran it with a PentiumD, and agp card and a pci-e card at the same time with a couple of voodooIIs in SLI. When I first built the system I was running an ATI 9600XT with the PentiumD 2.8ghz and 1GB ram. I'm pretty sure I ran it with windows vista. I remember I first played CnC3 on it with the 9600xt and then upgrading to an 8600GT in the pcie slot and after that playing Lost Planet in dx10 mode. so i'm pretty sure I had vista to be able to play that game in dx10... I also remember having to deal with the constant driver shut downs until nvidia finally got a decent driver lol.

If my grandmother still has the rig (I changed it around a bit for her to use, also switched it over to a pentium dual-core e5300) I might borrow it and throw in an agp card and see how it works... though it may be quite some time before i'm able to do that... I might just get another 4coredual-vsta.

 

[natr0n]

Not necessarily. VIA and Intel chipsets work fine in W7 64bit. Nvidia left its users in the dust with no upgraded drivers. I've used W7 64bit on a 865 board (Conroe865PE) for about 2 years with 0 issues. My old HTPC ran on W7 64bit too..

Indeed. One of my systems is an nforce 3 ultra with a 1950 agp card lol. So, that's why I gave up on anything else other than xp at the time.

 

[McM4r]

hi i'm a new user of TPU i from perú (so srry for my por english) and i'm very happy to see a lot of agp enthusiast in these days, well me and my friend also bougth a am2nf3-vsta and have a 965 and 970 phenom II x4 but we have problems with the HT link because they run at 800mhz and not a 1000mhz so i'm very thankful if someone can help us with the BIOS CONFIG (me and my friend have a ddr2 1066) we have some doubts!
1.the am2nf3-vsta have the agp/pci lock to keep the frequencies in 33/66 respectively?
2.i see in the asrock webpage the máximum tdp supported for this mobo is 125watts so If i raise the frequency to 250 break the 125w barrier and thats is safely for the mobo and the MOSFETS?
3.the stock aluminum heatsink of the northbridge can hold up the high bus speed of 250mhz or we need replace it?

pls heeeelp! thanks and Greetings! and keep on it!

PD. my other rig is an MSI K9MM-V+athlon 64x2 6000+ HIS HD4670 + 4gb Kingston low value

 

[TRWOV]

I think you can set the HT link in the bios, look into "chipset settings" and change HT Link to 1000Mhz.

View attachment 46146

Asrock boards have locked AGP/PCI clocks so overclock to you hearth's content. It wouldn't hurt to spend a little on some VRM heatsinks, like these: http://www.enzotechnology.com/mos-c1.htm

Better cooling for the NB would be a good idea. Put a 40mm fan over it or get a cooper heatsink.

 

[McM4r]

thanks for your response TRWOV, but the am2nf3-vsta have until 800 HT link in the bios, i can select 200 400 600 or 800, 1000 don't let me choose if i increase the bus speed to 250 my phenom II x4 consume more than 125watts? other rare thing i see is in the cpu-z the power comsuption (TDP) says 65watts

 

[TRWOV]

count me in with the fun, just bought an AM2NF3-VSTA Let's see how it rolls.

McM4r, once I get my board I'll be able to help you.

 

[McM4r]

count me in with the fun, just bought an AM2NF3-VSTA Let's see how it rolls.

McM4r, once I get my board I'll be able to help you.

thanks a lot man! i'll be waiting, i just recent purchase this heatsink for my chipset looks very nice http://www.f13pc.pt/imagens/produtos/THERMALRIGHT_HR_05_SLI5.jpg
what happened with the project of jayzilla?

 

[Jstn7477]

count me in with the fun, just bought an AM2NF3-VSTA Let's see how it rolls.

McM4r, once I get my board I'll be able to help you.

I still have mine running with my 3850, Phenom II X4 940BE, 4GB Mushkin DDR2-1066 and XP x86. It doesn't like its base clock increased to around 230ish, so BE chips work better it (and multiplier and voltage controls are unlocked too, when they were locked with my Phenom 9750). Sadly I hate XP and AMD's drivers for it as games work fine but general desktop stuff seems "laggy" and I often see various windows take a second to completely draw. I have a 4CoreDual-SATA2 as well but I only have a 2GHz Xeon quad or 3GHz duals, both of which are vastly inferior to the 940BE.

I really wish ASRock had built an AM2 board using the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset as I had several 939 boards with X2 processors that were perfect for Windows 7 but the CPUs were utterly sluggish for the 3850 AGP.

 

[McM4r]

I still have mine running with my 3850, Phenom II X4 940BE, 4GB Mushkin DDR2-1066 and XP x86. It doesn't like its base clock increased to around 230ish, so BE chips work better it (and multiplier and voltage controls are unlocked too, when they were locked with my Phenom 9750). Sadly I hate XP and AMD's drivers for it as games work fine but general desktop stuff seems "laggy" and I often see various windows take a second to completely draw. I have a 4CoreDual-SATA2 as well but I only have a 2GHz Xeon quad or 3GHz duals, both of which are vastly inferior to the 940BE.

I really wish ASRock had built an AM2 board using the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset as I had several 939 boards with X2 processors that were perfect for Windows 7 but the CPUs were utterly sluggish for the 3850 AGP.

hi man u also have an am2nf3vsta? wich is the speed of your ht link? because the only way can see for have a 1000mhz is increase the bus speed to 250 mhz .-.

 

[Jstn7477]

Yes, default is 800. Remember that these chipsets used to be mostly paired with socket 754 processors so that may offer some reasoning behind the HT speed. My board doesn't run reliably at >230MHz HTT, even with 3X HT speed.

TRWOV, I looked at the picture of your 775i65G and noticed what looks like a failing capacitor under the bottom right NB heatsink clip (the middle black jacketed one between the other tow above the AGP slot). Am I right or is it some sort of illusion?

 

[McM4r]

i mentioned the 250 mhz and the 1000 HT link because i see this in a chinese page

 

[WebsterXC]

Just joined TPU, so I haven't read through this build log, but I noticed in the OP you were going to fully watercool this.

I used to quadfire 3870's before I got rid of them. Performance PC's is selling HD3870 waterblocks for $5 a piece. I believe it's compatible with 3850, you just can't use the black acetal piece that attaches to the waterblock.

Link (Copper/Plexi):http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=22870

 

[TRWOV]

WOW, that sure is a find. I might snag one too

 

[McM4r]

hey guys pls i have a doubt, who is better mobo for an agp based system, the am2nf3vsta or the ALiveDual-eSATA2?? i see the last one with SATA II and HT link of 1000mhz here is the specifications http://www.asrock.com/mb/NVIDIA/ALiveDual-eSATA2/

 

[TRWOV]

both have the nforce 3 so neither

 

[McM4r]

so the NVIDIA® M1695 Chipset only works with pci-express and sata II rigth?

PD.thanks TRWOV btw i sent to u a message u can speak spanish also ?

 

[TRWOV]

Not here. This is an English forum.


BTW, both boards are fine if you stick to XP 32bit but XP is horrid for modern games and hardware.

The ALiveDual-eSATA2 has a full length PCIe 4x slot so you could upgrade later to a PCIe card; something like an HD7750 would work fine in that slot with little or no bottlenecking. The SATA2 ports don't matter a lot unless you intent to use an SSD.

 

[Mr.EVIL]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[master_rigbuilder]

Jayzilla where are you I have several questions to you?! Are logging on here in techpower until this day? I also want to build the best AGP system unit using Conroe 865PE, AM2NF3-VSTA, 775i65PE, P4C800-E Deluxe, P4P800-E Deluxe and P5P800 SE.

 

[Yarkan]

Hey guys... i'm impressed about these projects, even with discontinued hardware. I personally look to find and reach a maximum capacity of a hardware can give. My finished (discontinued hardware) project is an C2Duo 2.4Ghz - 2GB RAM DDR 1 400Mhz in DC - Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 AGP 512MB 256 bits - 2 HDs, one Samsung PATA UDMA 5 80 GB where the W7 32 bits are installed and one Wester Digital 160GB SATA where the games are installed... all working on a ASUS P5PE-VM. This is the best i can get on my shit country (BR). I was looking for these ASRock MB because have more 'compatible' resources, but most of these models are released only in North america and Europe. My Mb was designed for P4 processors 775. but the Asus enginners discovering that the chipset can run Conroe on this model, so, they developed and released an bios update that enables Conroe processors. If i got more 2GB my system will follow the actual hardware perfis. Gigabyte have models that could accept Conroe processor with 4 GB RAM, but they want money with their new boards.

So... My system run well, i've got a lot of actual games running good, not aways in High or Ultra but i'm satisfied. My next system will be fully updated. Even the money won't falls from the sky, and Dilma legally steals everything comes to me, i'll play on my old, and good PC

 

[Jesse Ricard]

Here is my Ultimate agp build I know old thread but still not many other ultimate agp builds. I too find it interesting to see how far agp could have gone.
system specs: Intel Pentium extreme 840 @3.8ghz, Asus p5p800-vm mainboard, 4x1gb Samsung ddr400 cl3, EVGA geforce 7800gs-co agp @460/1350, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160gb sata 1 hdd, Thermaltake tr2-430np 430Watt psu, Coolermaster v8 heatsync, Antec Sonata 1 case
so far scores 6842 on 3dmark 05 1360x768
will run some other benchmarks like 3dmark 03 soon also have some games to test like Fallout3, Half life2, GTA SA, and Grid.