AM2 upgrade

crompers

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ok when i built my pc i didnt have enough money for an X2 and i knew c2d would be coming out and the prices of processors would drop yada yada.

so i bought a 3500+ and overclocked it to see me through till about.........now!

as you can see from my sig bang for buck is the name of the game and i am certainly not going to be purchasing a 6000+ anytime soon!

so i was looking at the 4200+ which can be had over here for £70-80 which seems like an excellent deal. i am not afraid of overclocking and would hope to push this part to around 2.5ghz (i know there would be headroom for more but for stability and thermal reasons i'll keep it to this)

am i going to see a performance boost from this upgrade? also has this been one of the chips to see a die decrease recently? are there any low power models?

thanks
 

rodney_ws

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ok when i built my pc i didnt have enough money for an X2 and i knew c2d would be coming out and the prices of processors would drop yada yada.

so i bought a 3500+ and overclocked it to see me through till about.........now!

as you can see from my sig bang for buck is the name of the game and i am certainly not going to be purchasing a 6000+ anytime soon!

so i was looking at the 4200+ which can be had over here for £70-80 which seems like an excellent deal. i am not afraid of overclocking and would hope to push this part to around 2.5ghz (i know there would be headroom for more but for stability and thermal reasons i'll keep it to this)

am i going to see a performance boost from this upgrade? also has this been one of the chips to see a die decrease recently? are there any low power models?

thanks
If you're not afraid of OC'n, why not consider an X2-3600 or X2-3800? 2.5 GHz sounds reasonable for both of those.

My 2.2 GHz 4400+ easily sailed to 2.6 GHz... I did have some thermal issues, but my case was HORRIBLE at the time. Perfectly stable for nearly 2 years now.

As far as any noticeable performance improvements... something tells me you already knew the answer to that question. It really depends on the applications you're running... if both processors are equally clocked and no applications you use utilize a dual core processor, the performance gain will be minimal. If you want to run background applications and game at the same time... obviously, the X2 will trample your current processor. Looking down the road practically all next-gen games are going to benefit from dual-core setups I would wager... hell, didn't Quake 4 have a patch that allowed it to take advantage of that second core?
 

miribus

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You never know what cpu you are going to get.
The specific cpu may not overclock much at all despite any legendary status.
You should take that into consideration before you go start too low. If you do, and you get a bad overclocker you might only be able to push 10 or 20% without having to really ramp up the voltage.

For not a great deal more I think starting with the higher clock is a better idea. You might not notice a total framerate increase but you should notice many games run much smoother, especially if you typicall run with a lot of stuff in the background. Multithreaded apps, including games, should be more common soon enough that it can't hurt to go dual core anyway, although you could probably wait even a bit longer if you wanted to.

I'm just saying, if you're considering starting with a slower processor, don't automatically assume you're going to get a 50% increase in oc just because others do. Consider that you might end up having to really ramp up the voltage (therefore have a costlier cooling solution) as well.
 

miribus

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I got an Opty 2.2ghz (175) to 2.5 ghz, only after upping the voltage from 1.35 to 1.5

I got an Opty 2.0ghz (170) to 2.7ghz without touching the voltage at all on the exact same setup.

While you can look at the cpu to see what stepping it is, to get a good idea how far it will go, this is usually only after you purchased it, and will likely not be able to return it.

The point is, if I got the 170, with the same stepping as the 175, I'd be lucky to get 2.3ghz, whereas starting from a higher point, maybe I get 2.5ghz.

You never really know how oc'able the cpu you are specifically going to get is, especially if it's older. Just saying it's something to consider when buying if you have your heart set on a really really high OC, or if you'd be happy with any extra performance you could get out of.. say a 3600+ x2
 

miribus

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died? died died?
Died as in not stable at that speed?
Boots but not stable at all?
Usually I find they'll kick around for a bit longer back at stock speeds
if they weaken at the higher overclock
Like my Celery 300A :p
 

m25

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My Opty 175 was not stable at or above 2.7GHz...
But it did run 2.6GHz error free for 1.5 yrs watercooled till it died. :(
8O
Did you return it (because it should have been within warranty)?!

P.S: What voltage was it set to and what were the temps?
 

m25

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He just tells them it was not OC-ed, tell them it simply died out.

to RichPLS: What was the voltage you used to keep it?
 

RichPLS

Champion
No, I still have it, OEM opty's are one year.

Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum Case (w/TR-3B Black Thermometer/Fan Controller 3.5” bay and a L.I.S.2 (5.5” bay USB LCD Fan Controller))
Opteron 175 (OC’d 2x 2.64 GHz, 2MB cache, Socket 939, .09 micron, E6 stepping, OSA175DAA6CD)
ThermalTake BigWater 745 liquid cooling system complete kit
Asus A8R32-MVP Motherboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 3200 CrossFire, socket 939, SATA2)
HiS X1800XT Graphics Card (625 MHz/700 MHz OC core/1500 Mhz/1600 MHz OC mem, Dual DL-DVI VIVO 512 MB PCIe)
ATI TV Theater 550 PRO Tuner (PCI TV and FM Tuner)
4x 512MB Corsair Micro Xpert DDR RAM (2.5-3-3-8-2T (spd 2-2-2-5-1T) TwinXP 1024-3200XL)
2x 74gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives RAID-0 (WD740GD RAID0 150gig Boot Drive)
2x 250gig Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drives (WD2500KS storage and data)
Plextor 716AL Black 16x DVD/CD Burner (IDE slot loading type)
Antec TP-II 550 Power Supply (550 Watt ATX12V v2.0 PSU)
Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Monitor (UltraSharp Wide Aspect Flat Panel Display)
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan
Case Fans (PanaFlo 120mm intake, Adda 120mm exhaust blower, PanaFlo 120mm internal circulatory Fan, PanaFlo 92mm exhaust and PanaFlo 80mm Fan)

I ran voltage the max, which was 1.45volts, plus 0.1 overvolting. It registered using AsusProbe at around 1.46volts tho... temps rarely got over 45C at load. Idled around 37C.
 

m25

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Ahaaa, it was am OEM, that's why! Sorry for you man. It is really strange because today's chips are so damn strong and your voltage was still so near max stock specs and your temps so good :roll:
 

m25

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It was a NewEgg oem chip... they should be the same quality... not drastic.
The best thing I can think of is call it bad luck; it was most probably a defective chip and would have been blown even on stock speed after a couple of years maybe. I know on high (not extreme) OCs the max stable frequency starts to drop after 6months-1yr but this just does not make sense; people still have 4-5year OCed AthlonXPs and P4s nowadays.
 

miribus

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Processors are made on giant silicon wafers and are generally sold at whatever they will clock at with stability.
If these are made on higher grade silicon (for example silicon that newer chips are made on) they may overclock extremely well and last seemingly forever.
If not, you might not get much past stock, and if you do it may not last long.
The steppings are recorded and inscribed on the IHS.
The problem is, unless you run a pc company, or are very clever, you don't know what you are going to get until you buy the cpu.
 

mationman

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Seeming as your from the uk you want to buy from Ebuyer.com or Overclockers.co.uk there the cheapest around i've found. Can't really help on anything else too much just the wallet :D
 

crompers

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I say wait until at least the 9th, the 5200 drops to a mere $169, which is an amazing price for it, or wait for a k10 upgrade like I am. I currently am running a 90nm x2 4000 (the 2mb cache version) and am waiting on hte k10 cpus before I upgrade, since I already have a top end mobo (crosshair)

to be honest im gonna be happy with an x2 for now, i dont buy tech as soon as it hits the shelves i like to let others test it out for me first! (came a cropper with this one on netburst)

I think i will buy the chip that is rated at 2.2 and try to push it a little further

just my 2 cents but i think there is much less chance of getting 2.5ghz out of a chip that has clearly been speed binned at 1.8ghz since it is the same core
 

racingman24

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I think like miribus and rodney_ws, is you are not afraid to oc and you really wants, use 3600+ brisbane core, logainsofhades have one oc to 2.8 GHz and he use Artic Freezer 64 Pro and that cooler is not the best or expensive one, in newegg cost $29.99 u.s, but I don't know how much cost in UK, but 3600+ in 2.5 or 2.6 GHz is very reasonable. But remember oc, depend on very variables, so end results vary from oc to oc (memory timing, cpu, motherboard, cooling solutions etc.)
 

racingman24

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No man, the thing is I'm new here and I read about the price cut, but because my work and studies I don't have too much time. but thanks I search later.This days are free for me and spend time here.
 

miribus

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I'm not underestimating anything.
What I'm saying is don't assume you will get an easy clocker, or even remotely the same result every time.
If you buy a 3600+ to specifically overclock it to 3ghz, and get it there, congrats. Even if many people do it, it's still not a guarantee.
My philosophy is typically based more on how fast you want, and are willing to pay for it, than how far it might overclock. Once I've purchased it, I OC to see what else I can get out of it.
Some chips overclock very poorly, not as huge of a problem if you start with a higher base clock, it really sucks if you start with a lower base clock.
However, if you either know the risk ahead of time and are willing to deal with it anyway, or are just looking for a good and very inexpensive tip that you'd love to (but aren't banking completely on) overclocking, then fine.

If you had prior knowledge, of at least the stepping, before you could buy the cpu and you knew it would overclock well, then by all means, go ahead, but I would imagine few of us are in that position.

All that being said, I've found that even the worst of overclockers should get 20% more, granted with some work on the core voltage, but nothing that can't be done on air cooling.

Look at the prices on newegg now, the $ difference between the 3600, 3800 and 4200 is so minimal, but the difference of a base of 100 to 500
more may be worth the piece of mind.

and the price drop link, one of many:
http://www.hardwaregeeks.com/comments.php?shownews=4465