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Should I see an improvement from an Athlon XP to a Opteron 146?

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Hi all,

I fancied a change and just replaced my Athlon XP2800+ Skt A mobo/cpu with an Opteron 146 and Nf3 mobo, ran a 3dmark 03 as its the one I had handy and saw a decrease in performance :eek:

What did I do wrong and how can I rectify it :(

its a SN95G5 system with 2Gb Corsair PC3200 Cas 3.0 and a BFG 6800GS OC graphics card.

Any advice would be great as I know nothing about tweaking 939 systems.


Whoop :)
 
Yes. The XP series is quite old now, so yes, if you overclock a 146 you'll get it to go even faster.
 
Latest chipset and graphics drivers installed?

3D03 isn't too good a CPU benchmark because it's designed to stress the graphics card. Even so, going from an AXP to Opteron there should be some difference. What was the AXP clocked at and is the Opty at stock? Try some other benchmarks like 3D01.

(edit) Is the 2Gb RAM as 2 sticks or 4? If it's 2, make sure you have 1T command rate set in the memory settings in BIOS.
 
I just tried overclocking the graphics card as I remember using a higher speed when I had the athlon, I lost 2600 marks lol

I scored 8482 with the Opteron @ stock 2Ghz, the ram @ stock and the graphics card @ 420/1.10ghz

Before it was Athlon @ stock 2088Mhz, the ram @ stock and graphics card @ 420/1.15Ghz (it didn't like 1.15 on the opty) with a score of 11068

The memory is 2 x 1gb, I can get timings if need be.

I don't have the memory on 1T yet as I'm new to it, what is the best way for me to OC the chip please? :)

I did it all the time on Skt A but have no clue on which settings for the Opteron range.

So far not off to a good start, gonna dump the chip in the bin and go back to Skt A !

Edit - Fresh install this morning, all drivers from Nvidia (what a pap new grfx control panel)

Cheers,


Whoop
 
Last edited:
People complain about the catalyst contol centre but its far superior too nvidias new offering.
 
I have an overclocked XP @2400 and an overclocked Opty 146 @2766. Can see the difference in benchmarks and sometimes in folding numbers but in general use, they don't really differ.
 
MikeTimbers said:
I have an overclocked XP @2400 and an overclocked Opty 146 @2766. Can see the difference in benchmarks and sometimes in folding numbers but in general use, they don't really differ.

Its ironic more than anything I guess. The age difference between the 2 chips and it just points out we haven't moved that far forward :o


Whoop
 
If anything, it shows what a good chip the AthlonXP was for its time!

In general usage the Opteron should still feel decently faster though. Benchmarks are never more than half the story.
 
I also found that for day-to-day running, the move from a 2.4ghz XP to a 2.8ghz opty 144 made little difference. It was only when I went dual core that I found that things got significantly more responsive.
 
Mattus said:
If anything, it shows what a good chip the AthlonXP was for its time!
I am still using an Athlon XP processor but I am finally going to upgrade to a 64 bit PC along with Vista when it's released next year :cool:

It has served me well over the last few years and can still handle most tasks.
 
A problem like that wouldn't have been caused by the processor - any big drop like that in performance in 3Dmark03 would be down to the graphics card... but it sounds like you've sorted it now, so it's all good. :D

Always, always, always, always, ALWAYS make sure all the pertinent chipset and graphics drivers are installed before passing judgement on a system...

As to the Athlon 64 line in general... it features an almost identical FPU (I think that's what it's called) to the XP line because the Socket A one was so ridiculously good. In fact, it could be exactly the same one.
 
the xp was an excellent chip and soo overclockable.I had mine at 2450.

A noticable increase in smoother gameplay even with the same graphics card on my opty 146, once overclocked, but not much difference at stock, between that and my old xp.


Like previous post mentioned, going dual core for raw speed really showed an increase.Well worth it.(graphics card is the most notcible speed ugrade for a game though)

Using 64 bit linux distro's is a fun way of seeing how much smoother 64 bit is over 32 when you get the hardware.

But i for one am not looking forward to a new windows;unleased "porrige like" all over the world. :p



64 bit gaming :D when its all sorted
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