barton 3000+ and promethia....

Zardon

I got a promethia and a new case, and put all my current equipment into it, atm ive got the barton 3000 running at 2850mhz, I havent had time to really hard test this to give benchies etc (or if its totally stable), but im pretty excited with the way things are looking, core is up to 2 on the cpu. here is a screenshot of my desktop (2 monitors), temps are on the left.

gibbon565

I cant really say anything, I'm too busy

Necrosis

Sweet!

Looks so weird seeing those negative temps.

dipstick

Definitely insane. wtg Z, that's the highest I've seen a Barton go. Can't wait to see some benchies

Zardon

I have been kind of busy lately but I wanted to repost in here so some of the people who have been pming asking why I chose the Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra can be answered.

Firstly, atm I have 3 motherboards here, which im testing, ill not go into too many details on the others but let me just post some findings that I have to share.

I am sure some of you have seen the mixed reviews on the Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra, some stating its quite poor, some saying its a nice all round board and some saying its excellent. quite a confusing mix up of reviews. I have also read on a few sites, hardocp I think being one of them that the reviewer couldnt get it past 176fsb without it crashing etc.

So yesterday I messed around with a 2600XP processor on the mobo with a cooltwin heatsink, some Corsair DDR XMS3200LL Low Latency ram and also some Kingmax DDR2700 CAS2.5 ram.

When using the kingmax ram I found that once I hit 177fsb on the 2600fsb (around 2215mhz) it would crash to the desktop in games and 3dmark benchies. this was running the CPU core at stock levels, mobo reading it at 1.67. even if I upped the core to 1.8 aircooled it would boot fine and appear to run fine in windows, but once loading a game it would crash to the desktop. This was with the kingmax ram at CAS 2.5, 2T, and the lowest settings. 3-3-6 (its not bad ram overall). It was stable at around 2200mhz, scoring around 15,000 in 3dmark2001se and 4950 in 3dmark2003. not a bad set of results.

Placing in the Corsair low latency ram, I went into the bios, control F1, and immediately set everything to max settings, 1T, 2-2-5, 4 way interleave, the works. cranked up the fsb to 180 and booted into windows fine. Checking the easytune 4, it was indeed sitting at 2250mhz at stock core levels around 39c idle.

Ran 3dmark2001SE got around 16,700 and 3dmark2003 around 6000 with the 9800 pro at 410 core and 380 ram. all games ran fine.

Rebooting I decided to up the core to 1.8 I raised FSB to 188, which with air cooling I certainly wouldnt want to run on a constant level, booted into windows fine at 2350mhz. ran benchies, played games, got around 17,000 in 3dmark2001. Temperatures just over 53c full load. a little high for me, but well within the tolerances of the CPU temps.

My point to a few people pming me? well the gigabyte may not have all the overclocking options of some of the boards ive tested recently, but it certainly ran alot more stable than the Nforce 2 abit board I had last week. I still firmly believe Nvidia have alot of work to do with those mobos.

Benching previously with the nforce2 board I had (on a rare occasion it worked well with the 9800 pro) indeed memory scores where higher along with benchmarks, but its interesting to note that these differences got less at higher resolutions.

I would recommend the gigabyte to anyone, looking a feature packed board at a very good price with exceptional board layout and stability. I certainly dont think getting a 2600XP to run at 2800XP+ speeds via mere front side bus overclocking and reaching a score of around 17k in 3dmark is anything to be sniffed at. but a good fan would be needed !

Ram and the quality, dont overlook it guys, in this simple test, I saw a rise of 2000 points in 3dmark2001SE.

shai

zardon say what do you think 2 sticks of ddr400 samsung can get to

generalstupid

hey zar... what is that program that tells all your info?

Necrosis

That is CoolMon. works in conjunction w/ MBM.

Zardon

coolmon in conjunction with MBM5. nice little application, glad to see its alot more stable than the last version I tried as well. it made me deinstall it, this one is running sweet though.

dipstick

That's too bad you've had bad experiences with the nf2. They really do stomp on the KT400. Good scores though; I couldn't break 16.5k with the kt400.

Zardon

whats your ram? and what settings etc where you using?

Zardon

I dont think its noticeable generally, from what ive seen anyway, also at high resolutions like 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 its even less noticeable, perhaps 1-2 percent.

I value stability alot more than 1% top end maybe on the next revision nvidia will sort out the problems they are having.

dipstick

Nevermind

Zardon

its not personal, people tend to take all this to heart. im only testing hardware and relaying my findings, if the nforce2 works great for you (I take it you have one by your comments) then thats good to hear. I know they are fast boards, as I have used one which worked pretty well with the 4600 but not well with the 9800, I could not get to the bottom of it, neither had I the time or patience to do so, as I have other options open to me. A part of the perk of owning a site like this I guess.

that fact having seen first hand and the comments regarding the nforce2 problems ive read on various forums and sites on the net would make me unable to recommend one.

dipstick

lol, sorry if it came out like that. I posted some 3dmark numbers, but I couldn't find the links for them. Sorry I edited the post like that, but I didn't want to give you numbers I couldn't prove.
When I upgraded to the nf2(8rda) from an Asus(a7v8x) I got a 1300 point increase at the same clocks and timings. Sorry I can't prove any of it though.

Zardon

hehe its cool man, I know you arent like that. I just dont want people pissed off at me for saying I dont recommend nforce2 boards. I know alot of people on DH own them and I know they bench well. I just made comments on what ive seen personally, I know alot of people who own them and have alot of great experiences, but in their current state I wouldnt own one or run one in my primary rig.

actually if anyone on DH reads this and wants an abit nforce2 drop me a PM. I cant guarantee you will get it, cause my mate has asked for it, but he is being a pain in the ass lately

Sy.

When i overclocked my pc my voltage was increased by 7.5% (cpu) and my fsb is 150. but how do i keep the temp down cos its running at 65 degrees and i have the latest cpu cooler. prometia is out of the question cos i dont have that much money.

my motheroard is a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP

with out increasing the voltage anymore i got 2325mhz

fsb 155 multiplyer of 15 but i had to turn it down due to heat probs.

shai

whats your heatsink the best is sk900 currently

Sy.

Thermaltake Volcano 11 cools upto 3400+

WyreTheWolf

Sy. you might want to look into a much more powerful cooling solution than the Volcano 11,

something like the Thermalright SLK-800, or the SLK-900... the only major problem with the SLK-900 is that it is so large that it is incompatable with some motherboards because of size restriction, and incompatable with other motherboards due to the fact that it BOLTS DIRECTLY to the motherboard. So if your motherboard does not have the holes for bolting large HSF to the CPU, or doesnt have enough room... the SLK-800 might be a better choice. Alpha makes some excellent HSFs ... just look around read some reviews, and pick something that can handle the heat that your overclocked processor is putting out.

The Thermaltake Volcano 7+ is my current favorite, it has adjustable speeds, solid copper design, clips to the ZIF socket rather than bolting... doesnt weigh a ton... and does the job.

I have a 1600+ AGOIA (1400MHz@1946MHz) voltage is 2.05 volts on a volt modded MSI KT3 Ultra2 - R motherboard.

Ambient : 28*C
System: 30*C
Processor: 38*C

Processor has been under full load (100% usage) for about 6 hours running F@H.

Fan speed is set to medium.

Good luck

shai

correct volcano(any kind) doesnt par up to a huge slk900
anyway i know it works fine with the new epox boards

Sy.

thanks for the help u lot i'll do some research

tparker

Reading the Pro's and Cons of Nvidia NForce 2 i can elaborate a little because of my expierence with both Boards NForce KT400.Problems i ran into was from a First revision Asus A7N8X it would not let me get Windows updates when i went to Microsoft's website the site would say no new updates and i had just loaded a fresh copy of XP Pro with Service pack1.The videocard was a Radeon 9700 Pro .When i booted the Pc it would get to Desktop and would not finish loading.Another problem with some boards was they had faulty batteries.I built a new Asus A7N8X this past weekend with revision 3 mobo and everything worked like a charm.I think it was a problem with voltage in South Bridge but have no proof.If you are having problems with a NForce board from Asus download and install the latest Bios 1002a .If you have a Radeon 9700 Pro set the voltage of the AGP up higher and don't use the Cd with drivers sent with the board download straight from Nvidia website that isa if you have a Dsl or Cable connection i believe that it was a 25 meg download. I have a Asus A7V8X KT 400 board also and have compared them the Nforce is faster but not by much i have heard of people getting 7 to 10 percent increase but i only saw 1 percent .I have had zero problems with Via chipsets they are fast and stable .Via is coming out with a KT600 version soon they are going to bypass the KT400a that was slated to be released.If i had to pick or die i would buy the Nforce but it would have to be a revision 1008.If anyone is curious to what revision you have the 1004 is revision 1 1006 is revision 2 and 1008 is revision 3.If a person isn't a Techie and was building a new System i would pick the Via KT400 Board I am very happy with mine it is easy to install and has never bluescreened or caused any problem at all .This is my two cents worth of opinion and it is just that.Msi and Gigabyte both have really good NForce Boards I am just partial to Asus because of the better track record and Intel has a patent that is going to prevent any overclockers from boosting the Cpu higher than stock settings I will stick with AMD they have treated us Gamers and tweakers well and the Barton is a very good overclocker I have a friend who is a reviewer and he stated that the 400 fsb Bartons won't have the increase in speed like the 333fsb did going from 266fsb.I have the Barton 2500 and have it clocked to near XP3000 speed .I believe it is wise to run a new Cpu stock for a week and slowly increase the clock speed i have had good luck doing it this way i compare it with a new vehicle motor let it break in some and then go to the race track.If anyone wants to know anymore expierences i have had with the NForce boards and the Barton let me know i am willing to share my knowledge with anyone.
Happy Gaming and Overclocking and remember some reviewers aren't really qualified to review boards and make recommendations I have found that Forums are a lot better way to guage a product and i have found out that the first revision of a motherboard isn't the way to go anymore since they went to four layer boards they push them through production as fast as possible.

Zardon

very true