3600 or 820 - Page 2

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A warning on overclocking: I'm having dismal results on a M2A-VM board (690G chipset, very limited BIOS). I'm getting 10% maximum stable overclock. I don't blame the CPU, certainly, and I'm sure the chipset is capable of much more. I really hope future BIOS updates will fix this problem.

Now, the board isn't being marketed to overclockers. It's for a cheap, integrated PC or media centre, and it's great for that. I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it too.

Is there any chances your relative might upgrade his cpu in the future? If not, it's true that the X2-3600 will perform better.

On the other hand, if he tells you that he wants his platform to be upgrade in 2 years from now, there is effectively a better performances to be had offcially,since we don't know anything official yet from Barcelona performances and compatibility (just like Penryn).

From what I read tough, I'd say go with the AMD chip... altough it pains me to say so .

We all can agree that high-end goes to C2D/Q. If you're hardcore, this is where it's at. If you're looking for a sensible computer that does everything you need, the X2s are still awesome. For the majority of buyers who are looking at <$150 on the CPU, consider what their options are today compared to just one year ago. Even the cheapest Pentium D was more than $150 back then. You'd be getting a low-end single-core part. Now you're getting a mid-range X2, a former king-of-the-hill.

I hate to break it to you, but that won't improve by much or at all, because integrated gfx boards are never good ocers, just because most mobo companies don't bother to put in much effort since they're directed at the low end market and for people with budgets

In that case for a htpc, then that is a great motherboard, not sure if you really should be overclocking the cpu that much for that purpose though, for htpc, you may want it at stock anyways for stability

Wow, looks like that x2 3600 with a 690g mobo by amd really is a great deal (just wondering, what's the difference between 690g and 690v, perhaps teh v version is an overclockers version of the board)

That's nice to know

And btw, do you mind fixing the code in your link? You put the [/url] in the wrong spot The only reason why I say this is because it causes the page to be resized

Thanks for fixing that, it was starting to bother me with the higher load times and what not, perhaps I'll take the link on my sig

Under Linux... well, I can't always say what problems are due to Linux and what might not be, because I ran XP on the machine for all of 20 minutes.

If I have a single PCI card installed, the ability to overclock drops to zero (without I'm stable at 10% or 220MHz). Tracking this down, it seems the PCI frequency isn't locked, so when you overclock the HT, you overclock the PCI and it goest out of spec. This may be an issue with all AMD690G chipsets or it might just be the ASUS M2A-VM board. I've read that people have managed to increase their overclocking once XP is running with some overclocking programs.

DVI: I picked a model with DVI out, as opposed to the HDMI out, because I want the computer to be useful with both a standard monitor and my TV. I'd already bought a rather expensive DVI-HDMI cable that I'd used with a different PC hooked to the TV, so I was inclined to stick wtih DVI. I've had problems using DVI with Linux. First, I can't get native resolution, 1360x768, to work. I can use 1280x720. The TV isn't stretching the pixels, so it looks very sharp, but the image is little smaller than it could be. Secondly, if I turned the TV off and then on again, it wouldn't reacquire the signal, and I'd have to restart X to get picture back. I also had the issue where the TV would go to sleep after 20 minutes of no user input. This was in spite of turning off the screensaver and power saving features. The problem, I believe, is in some handshake protocol over the DVI-HDMI cable. It's all really quite annoying because I can't seem to configure things to ignore the handshake and just do what I say.

For now, I'm using the VGA connection to the TV. To tell you the truth, I can't see the diffrence in picture quality. I've read that newer LCD screens are much better with picture quality from the analogue sources, with reduced jitter and better contrast/sharpness/colour. I do want to go back to using the digital interface, but I'm waiting for a driver update to fix the problem.

I wasn't able to get my sound card working, but I think I've found the solution to that problem. Now I'm faced with using an Audigy soundcard or overclocking, due to the PCI problem. I've chosen overclocking, as the signal/noise ratio of the onboard sound is very good. I don't do any sound recording to the poor s/n ratio for this isn't an issue for me.

That's about it in terms of issues with Linux. I'm using Ubuntu Feisty (beta version until tomorrow). Feisty made getting the right video drivers a lot simpler, but I still had to manually enter a modeline into xorg.conf to get the wxga resolutions.

The computer is used for media playback, downloads, and folding@home. I plan to turn it into the main display for the digital photo album as well, but that's a pretty simple function.

First thing first. Intel never stop anybody testing there hardware after the official launch, just like AMD. Were you expecting them to let neutral (with of course some AMD unknown in it) poeple test there upcoming cpu? It's good enough that they show it in working condition 6 month prior to the release of there cpu while AMD hasn't shown anything yet less then 4 months from Barcelona release. So, real neutral poeple will thest these (I hope great) cpu when release... but it's still entertaining to see numbers so long before the actual is in mass prodution, which bode well for Intel.

Second, I never said that PENRYN was gonna crush Barcelona. Quite the opposite in fact. I said that WE don't know anything concrete about the real world performances of these 2 upcoming cpu.

What I was complaining about is:
1: That article mentionning C2D is basicaly crap in real world apps... I mean, Come on!!!! Did you work on a C2D PC to start with? I guess not, 'cause you wouldn't have take any time posting that link before.

2: About AMD fanboy still saying that C2D is just no better then AMD's X2 cpus. While C2D advantage isn't quite as big as the one the X2 had over PentiumD back then, it's big enough to be a no-brainer for anybody looking for a high-end system. For low-end, AMD will keep the upper hand until Intel pulls in it's "CoreCeleron". Which is why I told our poster here to go with the 3600+ if he's friend doesn't plan to upgrade.

I hope you understand me... and no hard feeling I hope. Being french speaking, I might sound rougher then I really want to sometime, having learned my english on the street.