AMD Skt 939 CPU Knockout

galadial · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:21

cokebottles said:
Hey.

I am also planning an upgrade, and wont be doing so again for the next couple of years. My personal decision is to go dual core, and I will be buying the X2 3800+. Together with a 7800GT, should be fine for gaming. Going dual core gives you all the possible benifits that could come as more multi threaded applications are released, and current ones patched.

I'm planning to get the same spec. in March - specifically to play Oblivion which has been written for multi-core processors. Hopefully the 7800GT will be able to run it with most if not all the bells and whistles.

DizzyEgg · 8 Feb 2006 at 23:18

Well I will be gettin this system in march too, lets hope its not out of date by then.

so you think an icemat would be better than the titan i am getting? i have never really used a mouse mat since opticals have been out, been using just the desk, lol

Hesky82 · 9 Feb 2006 at 00:03

I've not tried the titan so I cant comment on that, the nearest Ive got is the everglide dkt mat, the icemat 2nd edition is simply better when paired up with the ch.

galadial · 10 Feb 2006 at 15:14

Anyone know if there would be much/any differnce between an Athlon 2500XP mobile at 12x183 (2.2GHz) and a Athlon 64 SD 3700+?

Minstadave · 10 Feb 2006 at 16:58

galadial said:
Anyone know if there would be much/any differnce between an Athlon 2500XP mobile at 12x183 (2.2GHz) and a Athlon 64 SD 3700+?

The San Diego is a lot more powerful clock for clock due to the extra cache, integrated memory controller and better architecture (SSE2/SSE3 etc...).

Plus the SD will clock nicely too

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 00:19

A while ago I went from an xp-m 2600+ running at 2.6ghz to a poor overclocking winnie A64 3200+ the difference was pretty damn drastic even with 300 less mhz the winnie played games so much better and pretty much everything flew.
a sandy 3700+ would be quicker than my old winnie even b4 you start to overclock! compared to a 2.2ghz athlon xp it would be like night and day

wyatt gates · 11 Feb 2006 at 00:43

I had 3700 SD before i got my cheap fx57 from MM

and the 3700 is great cpu it runs cool and due the extra cache it plays games very well and it is not that slow at encoding.so if you are not into overclocking it is pretty nippy out of the box

Ak!ta · 11 Feb 2006 at 00:46

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q...50/index.x?pg=1

Enough Said !!!

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 00:48

wyatt gates said:
I had 3700 SD before i got my cheap fx57 from MM and the 3700 is great cpu it runs cool and due the extra cache it plays games very well and it is not that slow at encoding.so if you are not into overclocking it is pretty nippy out of the box

but if you are the latest batch of 3700+'s are killer overclockers!! a few guys on here have them running fx57 speeds on stock volts! the latest kab3e stepping is the one to look out for.

Ak!ta · 11 Feb 2006 at 00:56

The Opteron 150, which is clocked at 2.4 Ghz, is essentially a Deluxe AMD 4000+ San Diego, with a much stronger memory controller. It clocked very easily on Air to 2.8 Ghz, which is the same as an AMD FX-57. AMD Fastest Chip (and fastest in the world*). * Except for the Opteron 150 wich beats it in nearly all tests, and can easilY be clocked a lot faster with other forms of cooling, this is with just AIR !!!

On Watercooling or Phase Change cooling you would get even more out of it, possible 3 Ghz or more !!!

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 01:10

Ak!ta said:
The Opteron 150, which is clocked at 2.4 Ghz, is essentially a Deluxe AMD 4000+ San Diego, with a much stronger memory controller. It clocked very easily on Air to 2.8 Ghz, which is the same as an AMD FX-57. AMD Fastest Chip (and fastest in the world*). * Except for the Opteron 150 wich beats it in nearly all tests, and can easilY be clocked a lot faster with other forms of cooling, this is with just AIR !!!

On Watercooling or Phase Change cooling you would get even more out of it, possible 3 Ghz or more !!!

dude I can do 3.2ghz on cheap air with my £100 146 opteron, you dont need to spend nearly 300quid on a 150 opteron.

Big.Wayne · 11 Feb 2006 at 03:16

Hesky82 said:
but if you are the latest batch of 3700+'s are killer overclockers!! a few guys on here have them running fx57 speeds on stock volts! the latest kab3e stepping is the one to look out for.

Hi,
whats the deal with the KAB3E? the last forum gossip I read was speaking of the KAB2E, lol I can't keep up!!

Agent WD40 · 11 Feb 2006 at 08:58

Big.Wayne said:
Hi,
whats the deal with the KAB3E? the last forum gossip I read was speaking of the KAB2E, lol I can't keep up!!

KAB2E is very good stepping for the 3700SDs but KAB3E knocks the spots of KAB2E. You can do 3ghz+ on air with KAB3E. But you can do about 2.8ghz+ on air with the KAB2E setppings...

Hope that helps.

Agent :cool:

FrankJH · 11 Feb 2006 at 10:30

If you want it to last two years, I would go dual core - either opty 165 or X2 3800

SD3700's are great chips , I have one ( not in use at the mo tho) but I dont think it will handle games that well in a year or so as more and more will be coming on stream with dual core in mind ( especialy with cross polination fo Xbox 360, which is BOUND to happen)

Also with an X2 you can keep your av suite etc etc workign without worrying - yet with single core if thats churning around while yur playing a game you get hit bigtime in performance terms. also an X2 3800 should easily get to 2,5Ghz - and if you use second core for the game its more like 2.8Ghz as windows and everything else is running on other core.(if you see what i mean)

Admittedly the opty 165 is £45 more than the X2 3800, so the added 512k cache for each core probably isnt worth it so against the SD you are losing this slight performance edge ( the SD has 1mb cache) but I would still go with the X2 myself.

galadial · 11 Feb 2006 at 10:52

So the killer question is go for a cheaper 3700+ SD now and upgrade to a cheaper dual core next year, or bite the bullet and get the 3800+ x2 now. As far as i see it, the 3800+ is slower than the 3700+ bu a good bit in single threaded applications, but is still good enough for most games. The advantage of the dual core is that a lot of multi-threaded apps. are on the horizon. Plus, I'm guessing if you're running anti-spyware and anti-virus programmes in the background the second core will take care of these programmes and give a relative speed boost cf to the single core 3700+ (correct me if I'm wrong on that point).
In a year's time when multithreaded apps. are the norm. dual cores will be £100 cheaper. So I guess both options would work - buy the 3700+ now and upgrade again next year, or shell out for the x2 and enjoy games like Oblivion right now!

Anyone else add to this summary?

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 12:41

Agent WD40 said:
KAB2E is very good stepping for the 3700SDs but KAB3E knocks the spots of KAB2E. You can do 3ghz+ on air with KAB3E. But you can do about 2.8ghz+ on air with the KAB2E setppings...

Hope that helps.

Agent

yeah thats spot on, thats why I feel a sandy would hold its own for quite a while.
so what did you get in the end Dizzy?? you must have decided by now

FrankJH · 11 Feb 2006 at 12:42

You also MAY find that once M2 is out, s939 may become like S754 is now - ie pretty limited availability and choice

I know s939 is meant to just become the real budget option - but you never know what AMD might chose to do

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:03

your right about availability, im sure that will happen. amd will always want to push latest skt.
but it cant be forgot that the architecture of the 939 skt cpus are far superior to that of the skt 754, and performance benchmarks show this as we all now.
The same cant be said about the m2 platform over 939, new support maybe, extra performance not really.
Also I feel that like me a lot of people have just made the big switch to 2gb’s of ram, and wouldn’t really be up for spending 300+ on some good 2gb ddr2 ram.

FrankJH · 11 Feb 2006 at 15:16

Hesky82 said:
your right about availability, im sure that will happen. amd will always want to push latest skt.
but it cant be forgot that the architecture of the 939 skt cpus are far superior to that of the skt 754, and performance benchmarks show this as we all now.
The same cant be said about the m2 platform over 939, new support maybe, extra performance not really.
Also I feel that like me a lot of people have just made the big switch to 2gb’s of ram, and wouldn’t really be up for spending 300+ on some good 2gb ddr2 ram.

I completely concur with this - also it usually takes a good 3 - 6 months for excellent stability on a new chipset / socket ( along side performance I mean)

What I was trying to say, or imply, is that AMD may well not bring out "performance " chips for s939 after m2 comes out - they may concerntrate on 2.5Ghz sort of price point for s939 and bring out higher clocked chips for M2 - so people who do want the newest chips etc HAVE to migrate.....just my 2peneth

Hesky82 · 11 Feb 2006 at 15:38

yeah there was talk of a skt 939 fx-59, which may well happen thanks to the fantastic cores available to them at present. I can see this socket getting a slight boost but after that I feel like you it will stop progressing and take its place as a budget bargain solution