A slew of odd-ball questions...

[bombasschicken]

Just built up a new system (look in my sig) and all sorts of questions started comming to me..

im new to intel so give me a break.. i found a misprint in a Fry's ad here in las vegas that got me a Pentium D 820 and an ECS 945P-A for $140 including tax.. haha so i had to take it.. this will be replacing my A64 3200+.. this IS an upgrade right?

first what the hell is up with intel's chip name designation? i mean i see that some chips have diff numbers for their names but have the same specs.. maybe i just didnt look into them enough but they look the same.. so im really confused here.. (remember i was an amd guy)

second the new board i got came with 1gb 4.4.4.12 DDR2 ram.. compared to the numbers on regular DDR these numbers are high.. is this how DDR2 ram is suppose to be? Is this fast?

third.. i use Speedfan and the website is not very clear. My temp3 sensor says 114c. What is the temp3 sensor? is this just a bug? 114c is really frekin hot but nothing inside feels that hot..

forth.. its an intel board that supports 2 pci-e video cards in a sorta crossfire sorta kinda intel mode.. i have 2 x800 cards.. one is from ati the other is from HIS.. can i use these in the corssfire mode??

fifth.. i also have a gforce 7600gs.. is this better than the x800? or vise versa??


I think thats all the questions i have for now.. any help?? thanks...

 

[Muso]

second the new board i got came with 1gb 4.4.4.12 DDR2 ram.. compared to the numbers on regular DDR these numbers are high.. is this how DDR2 ram is suppose to be? Is this fast?

Those aren't the lowest timings available, and are closer to value ram timings. The stick included with the motherboard is probably generic or value ram. We can't tell if it's fast or not, because you didn't post the speed of the ram.

third.. i use Speedfan and the website is not very clear. My temp3 sensor says 114c. What is the temp3 sensor? is this just a bug? 114c is really frekin hot but nothing inside feels that hot..

Speedfan could be reading the temperature sensor wrong. I'm not sure if that CPU has a built in temperature sensor, or if Speedfan is reading from the motherboards in-socket sensor. However, that temperature should not be read from either sensor, as it is much higher than the maximum temperature that CPU can operate at. You might have mistaken Celsius for Fahrenheit.

forth.. its an intel board that supports 2 pci-e video cards in a sorta crossfire sorta kinda intel mode.. i have 2 x800 cards.. one is from ati the other is from HIS.. can i use these in the corssfire mode??

If one card is a crossfire master card, you should be able to use them in the crossfire configuration as long as your chipset supports it. I've just read the 845 supports Crossfire, but I'm not sure about the budget version, the 945p.

fifth.. i also have a gforce 7600gs.. is this better than the x800? or vise versa??

That depends on what X800 you have. It is better than an X800XL card, but not quite as powerful as the X800XT card. It does support shader model 3, which the X800 series of cards do not support.

 

[1Tanker]

third.. i use Speedfan and the website is not very clear. My temp3 sensor says 114c. What is the temp3 sensor? is this just a bug? 114c is really frekin hot but nothing inside feels that hot..

Don't fret. Temp 3 for me in Speedfan is 127C. I don't think so!

 

[fishmahn]

Pentium D 820 [...] replacing my A64 3200+.. this IS an upgrade right?

Sortof... It gets you into dual core territory, but at a slower single-threaded speed. PD820 = 2.8ghz x2 cores; A64 3200+ is as fast/faster than a 3.2ghz, but its only single core.

first what the hell is up with intel's chip name designation?

Intel changed the naming convention when they gave up the ghz war. The different numbers with similar specs are different - there's something not in the spec that's different, maybe 64-bit support, or 65nm process, etc. Kindof like looking at the AMD offerings - how many different 3200+'s were there?

fifth.. i also have a gforce 7600gs.. is this better than the x800? or vise versa??

Hmmm... good question, I would think the x800's better, but I'm not a video guy - better ask them.

I think the others were already answered, so I got lazy. Oh, re: RAM: DDR2 is higher latency than DDR, so that's not horrible, but its not the DDR2 equivelant of 2-2-2-5 DDR. What's the speed rating?

Mike.

 

[bombasschicken]

I think the others were already answered, so I got lazy. Oh, re: RAM: DDR2 is higher latency than DDR, so that's not horrible, but its not the DDR2 equivelant of 2-2-2-5 DDR. What's the speed rating?

533mhz... 4200 right? i guess i should pick up another stick and go into the dual channel territory.. that should speed it up..

ive looked around and i see "low latency DDR2" at 4's... and they are like OCZ gold series..