AMD 939 Upgrades.

[InKursion]

Hey.

I'm considering upgrading an AMD 64 Venice 3200+ processor to an AMD 64 3700+ San Diego processor- with an ASUS A8N-E motherboard. This is my first experience of entirely refitting an entire AMD processor on my ASUS- although I am told it is one of the less-technical replacements when you know what you're doing .

Simple questions really;

Will the 3700+ San Diego core operate on the same power-supply, cooling and motherboard set-up as the smaller Venice 3200+? Are there any power-consumption, cooling or other motherboard changes that need to be made here that I should know about?

Also, any advice for a first time processor-replacement? Bearing in mind I don't want to short my new chip or compelely overheat/overload my system! Thanks in advance for taking your time to answer these questions,- I'll order right away as soon as my hopes are affirmed!

 

[El Jimben]

It's pretty easy to do but I'm wondering if it's really worth it? Although you'd be getting a chip which is probably a good overclocker, if you only intended to use it at stock speeds, you'd only be getting a 200MHz increase and a slightly larger L2 cache for your money.

If you intended to keep your current setup (eg ram, motherboard etc) for a while, I would suggest getting a dual core 939 chip such as the x2 3800 to give your system a bit more longevity, as future software/games will likely use both cores.

In terms of swapping CPUs, power requirements & cooling should be unchanged although you might want to consider getting a new cooler, as the standard one is a little noisy and could be better and keeping your CPU cool. You need to make sure you have some TIM (thermal interface material) for your new chip, something like Arctic Silver 5 will do the trick. You'd need to put a small layer on the chip to aid heat transfer between it and the heatsink.

 

[just Scott]

Installing a CPU is easy. It just drops in. Only thing you need to remember is to not force the chip in at all, just drop it onto the pins.

 

[InKursion]

The installation part was the easiest in my mind- I have done it before on other systems but this is a first for me on my current motherboard so I just want to take all the precautions.

My main worries were things such as cooling and the power-supply. Although I'm assuming that there is no greater demand for cooling/power between the individual 939 cores.

Background info: I am doubling my RAM capacity and possibly adding a better sound-card to take some of the load off the processor. I would consider OCUK's X2 939 processor but its 'Sold Out', and I'm an impulsive Xmas shopper .

Would you massively recommend the dual-core 939 AMD processor over the Diego? I realise it outperforms considerably, but would the difference in performance be 'that' much more noticable from a 3200->dual-core939 upgrade over a 3200->3700 upgrade?

Thanks for your answers.

 

[deadeyedic30]

Or if you can find one the Opteron Dual cores.

 

[InKursion]

So this raises a further question:

Would a socket 939 dual-core processor require any extra heating or power-supply installments than I currently have? Aside from the heatsink, I have an Artic Cooling case that is very good as maintaining a 'nice' temperature, with an adequate amount of case/mobo fans.

 

[malcolm]

So this raises a further question:

Would a socket 939 dual-core processor require any extra heating or power-supply installments than I currently have? Aside from the heatsink, I have an Artic Cooling case that is very good as maintaining a 'nice' temperature, with an adequate amount of case/mobo fans.

The thermal output of the dual core cpu's is a little higher than the single core parts, but not massively so. Your 'Venice' 3200 has a Max TDP of 67 or 89 watts, the X2's are either 89 or 110 watts, the higher watts are for the higher speed and large cache chips. Unless you are running close to the limit of your existing supply the move to dual core shouldn't be a problem.

I went for a 550 watt supply for my Opteron 165 system, but then it is running a fairly meaty (X1800) gfx card too.

My experience of the dual core AMD 64 over a single is that the system does feel more responsive, even with lots of windows open, but then that system has 2GBytes RAM whereas my single core system has half that. It is nice to be able to carry on using the system though even when the Anti Virus check is going on!

Your biggest problem is going to be finding a S939 dual core chip. It seems that AMD has been using all the wafers it produces to make AM2 chips, and hard luck all the S939 loyalists out there!

I've decided to save my pennies and wait until I can do the Core2 Duo bit later next year.