barton vs thoroughbred

AMD's PR rating is definitely dubious when compared to newer intel chips, but it's going to be correct when comparing XP chips, or they'd be a joke. So the 2700+ will be faster for almost everything, but the Barton's larger cache will probably put it in the lead for a few specialist tasks.

That said though, I personally wouldn't buy any XP chip faster than the 2500+. It'll almost certainly overclock at least as far as the 2700+, but at the same clock will outperform it due to the cache. Plus of course it's cheaper :smile: .

Most people find they can get at least 2.2Ghz out of either core. A very few people (who have obviously sold their souls to the devil   ) manage as much as 2.6Ghz. That'll apply pretty much equally to either chip really, but as I said above, the Barton is the better overclocker's choice.

Of course overclocking results depend a lot on the motherboard being used - which motherboard do you have (or plan to get)

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I currently Have the Asus a7v8x.

I tried overclocking the 2700 and only got about a 300hmz in crease before my system wouldn't boot into windows. My main problem with over clocking is that i only have pc2700 hyperx kingston memory (i think). With the 2500 I have not tested yet but i should be able to get 2.2 according to everyone else.

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

hmm.. Your board uses a VIA chipset, and they don't allow you to lock the PCI/AGP bus. Not sure how much you know about this so I'll try and do a quick explanation:

All the PCI cards in a system sit on a bus which runs at 33Mhz (there's no performance advantage in running any faster) and the AGP (graphics) slot has it's own special bus which runs at 2x the PCI speed, i.e. 66Mhz.

The traditional method for the motherboard to know which speed to run these at(to avoid have 2 clock generators on the board) was to use a certain ratio of the CPU FSB - e.g. if the CPU FSB is 133, the 1/4 of that gives you the 33Mhz, or if it's 166, then 1/5. You board supports both 1/4 and 1/5 dividers, as it can run at a FSB of 133 or 166, but because of the whole divider thing, increasing your FSB beyond 166 (which you'll need to do to overclock) will also increase your PCI and AGP speed, i.e.:

@166FSB - 1/5 = 33Mhz (AGP 66)
@170FSB - 1/5 = 34Mhz (AGP 68)
@180FSB - 1/5 = 36Mhz (AGP 72)
@200FSB - 1/5 = 40Mhz.

Usually a small oc of the PCI bus will be tolerated though, up to ~37Mhz in most cases (sometimes more), and assuming you can get that high you'll end up with ~185FSB.

Also with that motherboard, IIRC it doesn't automatically unlock the CPU multiplier so you'll be stuck with a Mutli of 11x, so if we assume you get 185FSB you'll only be able to get ~2.03Ghz (185x11) without making physical modifications to the CPU to set higher multipliers.

nforce2 based motherboards, however, basically give you free reign over this stuff, so are <i>much</i> better for overclocking.

So to sum up - you'll be able to overclock, but it'll be your motherboard that limits how far, rather than the CPU itself.

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the kt400 chipset unlocks the cpu also. I can set it at any multiplier with no problem. I currently have my 2700 over clocked to 2340. Thats a 173 mhz gain. Anything after that the system wont boot and is instable. Normally i would increase the vcore voltage but when i do my system freezes, even when its lower then auto and when its the same and auto. Asus bug i guess. Also my ram is kingston pc2700, so maybe thats my stability problem. Any suggestions?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

I thought only the nforce2 unlocked multis.. ah well, I'm only human.*shrugs* Thanks for the correction.

As for suggestions, assuming you've already tried increasing your RAM timings, about the only thing to help the RAM along would be to increase the RAM voltage. I'm not sure if your BIOS allows this, but give it a go if it does.

What settings are you actually using? 180FSB x 13? You could try a lower FSB and higher multiplier, or vice versa.

VCore:
What CPU cooler are you using? What sort of temperatures do you have when it's working? increasing the CPU Vcore has a <i>much</i> larger effect on heat than increasing the clock speed.

Remember of course that the fastest stock athlon XP only runs at 2.2Ghz anyway, so 2.3Ghz is pretty respectable if you ask me. my XP1700+ won't go beyond 2.25Ghz :frown: no matter how high I set Vcore (well, up to 1.9V, but I'm not willing to go above that)

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my 2600+/333FSB (T-bred)on a KT333, can go only up to around 185FSB, which is 2318Mhz, it won't crash in windows, won't crash when playing game, but graphic would be corrupt sometimes
most stable and fast speed is 180FSB, which makes it run at 180FSBx12.5=2250Mhz (2800+ i believe?)
I couldn't change the multis, it's locked..
all of this is based on default voltage and PC2700

ok, i tried upping the vcore as high as 1.90 and tried the ram voltage as high as 2.75 and having my ram timings at their lowest. All with not Luck. The fastest i can get with my 2700 is 2340mhz. Not bad, but not that good either.

In doing my tests i tried 180fsb x 14.
i also tried 133fsb x 17.5.
both are very stable and i have no problems with. But anything more and i get apps that close and freezing.

My temps are pretty high, usually 45 no load and they have gone all the way up to 60 with load. I just bought the aero 7+ and some arctic silver 5 so that will fix that.

Any other suggestions?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

You know whats funny about locked clock speeds...since the days of the socket 7 the floppy and usb frequencies have been locked...why it took so long for agp and pci to become locked the world may never know...

BTW even on a bus locked system there is only 1 clock generator. The bus is locked by using a multiplyer from the 12-13mhz (can't think of the exact #) refrence signal (a quartz crystal onboard). Thus each output is seprate. The old style way of driving the agp/pci bus was by dividing the mem/fsb frequency (which was multiplyed from the x-tal frequency) not multiplying the always constant refrence input from the onboard quartz x-tal.


If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy

for some reason i cant over clock the 2500. I change the multiplier but no MHz change. So i guess my MB can only unlock thoroughbreds.

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

ok, i changed my fsb and my max stable over clock is 1980. Thats a 158 mhz increase. So according to my figures the 2700 is faster and better the overclock. Is their any mods that i can do to the cpu that will allow me to change the multiplier?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

nope the new bartons are multiplyer locked...

what graphics card are you using?

What pci cards are you using?

What fsb do both cpus cap out at?

Have you increased vcore?

Temps?


If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy

Thanks for the Lock/Unlock correction buddy..

I thought the New bartons being locked was just a myth? or are they still unlocked, but on nforce2 mobos only?

He has tried increasing Vcore, & RAM voltage, so it doesn't look too much like either the CPU or the RAM is holding him back...

<b>songuku:</b>
Looks like you're running into the PCI/AGP bus speed problem there. :frown: . As PIII_Man says, which cards are you using? some are more tolerant than others.

and As PIII also says, what sort of temperatures are we looking at here? It's possible that's your problem...

There are I think a couple of ways to fiddle with the multipliers by either connecting pins under the CPU or messing with the bridges on the top surface of the chip. Unfortunately, I'm not the man to ask about that.. Try searching the overclocking forums for 'unlocking Barton' or something.

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both CPUs cap at 180 fsb.
My video card is the Radeon 9500
pci cards are -
sound blast audigy
tv view (tv turner card)
Promise 150 tx2plus

I have a 550 watt ps too in case thats the problem. And my temps for the 2700 are idle 50 load 60+. for the 2500. Idle 45 load 50.

Some else is funny. When i over clock the 2500 my CPU benchmarks are actually slower, when i overclocked clocked the 2700 they were faster. any ideas?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

[-peep-] [-peep-] [-peep-] [-peep-] [-peep-]

Your gpu IS holding you back thats the exact same agp speed my 9500 caps out at...

Try increasing the agp voltage if possible...if not get an nvidia card...


If it isn't a P6 then it isn't a procesor
110% BX fanboy

I just tried the 3 most popular Barton unlocking mods and none of them work for me. The first one was cutting the third l3 and the 5th l3 wires on the chip. That did work. In fact i spent 6 hours trying to figure out why, and ended up with two actually holes on my 2500. The last two were where you stick wires in your socket and it bridges certain pins. they don't work either. But some thing interesting is that before when ever i would change my multiplier in bios my computer could boot fine and just change it back to what it was supposed to be. But now when i change it to a lower number my computer wont post. Interesting. Any ideas?

PS. I have to give back either the 2500 Barton or the 2700 on Saturday. Which should i keep ?

PSS. Why do you suppose that i can only up the multiplier to 15 no matter what the fsb is?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by songoku on 11/28/03 03:58 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

bump

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

Given the fact you can change the multis on the t-bred, and therefore get more speed out of it, I guess that'll have to be the choice. If you had an Nforce2 mobo it'd have to be the barton...

Why do you need a multiplier greater than 15 anyway? that gets you up to ~2.5Ghz w/ 166FSB as it is...


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