Intel vs. AMD

yeah it was a special "AGP can still be fast" effort. As far as I know only Gainward made one, but I could be wrong.
With the X1900s, particularly the XT/XT-X, if you can find a good deal, snatch one up they're excellent cards, but somehow I think you're unlikely to find them, this is what usually happens to the top-end cards, they disappear as soon as superceded. The X850XT somehow managed to avoid that fate.

 

Right now i really think AGP isnt for anyone thats buying a new PC you might get one more descent card out of it which is DirectX 10 planned by Nvidia one in the 8000 series for AGP 8x but besides that its old now and not worth it i havent seen many mainboard with AGP anymore mainly PCI-e.

 

Yeah, 939 AGP motherboards are pretty much extinct now I know that much.
I've managed to get an RMA for my S939 board now, and as I did so, now note there is a bizarre quirk with my 775 one, in that the CPU fan speed varies by itself, a lot at initial startup, and then varies up and down 1 semitone every so often, this is without any software controlling the speed, it should just be 12V. When I open speedfan, the speed goes crazy and then settles at whatever speedfan's setting is, rock solid. Weird.
Additionally, I found that my maximum no-modifications overclock is less than 25%. :-(

 

LOL

 

so i guess you experiment isnt going to well then if your resorting to the auto feature. im sure it will but you must be missing somthing somwhere.


quick tips.

everything not being used (sata/ide ports, legacy usb, spec spread and all the other options you can find) off(intel thremal is auto).

1.35v vcore
2.175v ram
auto nb
1333 fsb
667 ram (1:1) and tighten your rams timings (not finished playing with mine but they are @3-4-3-11 1t now)

thats mine at 3ghz

as for the 7 pro, if i just leave it on full and watch its speeds in asus probe (speedfan doesnt get my rpm right) it can go from 2400 to 2700rpm and anything in between. it doesnt seem to matter what the system is doing so im not sure what causes it to fluctuate(next doors kettle?).

 

I was only going to auto only to see how far I could get before settings need to be changed, I had it successfully overclocked to 2.62 before, but that was as far as I could get before i hit a blackspot or it wasn't stable. My RAM is 800mhz, but using the settings you list (and even setting the RAM timings to 5-5-5-16), my board doesn't POST.

 

Right, followed your advice and no change. Set Vcore offset to +100mV, no change. Only 2.25Ghz. Having set Northbridge Vcore to 1.56V, I am able to boot at 3.0Ghz. I had to press the reset button once at POST to get there, but >touches wood> so far so good.

 

Mort81,

Would that be a "Witches Brew"? LOL!!
Seriously, the newer 7 Pro has an electronic speed control built into the cooler and it may be interfereing with the speed control on the MB. Mine starts off fast at around 3000 rpm and gradually lowers itself to about 2400 or so. When I encode it gradually raises itself to about 3000 again. I wound up turning Q-Fan off because the constant up and down was annoying!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

Lol so now you know what having an X1900XT with the stock cooler is like, just double the pitch and the volume and you're almost there!

 

sammorris,

Believe me when I say that the X800 can make some noise during game play. It do get loud, sounds like a siren in the distance. You'll be sitting there playing and you can hear it spool up! The fan for it normally runs about 55% but when it hits max, Ugh!!! It just has this high pitch whine that is so annoying!

theone

 

Heh, likewise with mine. I had an X800 Pro so I know what they were like but the difference was that it was in a PC built with very little consideration for noise. 5 80mm case fans, four of which span at 2000-2500rpm! The X1900 really sticks out in a PC that runs a lot quieter.

 

i would like to ask not which is better intel or amd but comparing the
2 as equals . for exmp; is a intel core 2 duo proc e4300 (1.8ghz) egual to a Athlon 64 X2 Processor 2.6 ghz
please keep in mind that i am not up on pcm spec or construction
thank as always AD

 

you will have to change you sig again now

i havent used the +100 yet but my chip doesnt seem that power hungry to be honest and i think it will/should only be needed at the top end of the available volts in the bios. have you tried orthos to see how it fairs under a heavy load? i get some killer vdroop and would like to know if you get the same. it gets worse the more i give it. i only realy needs 1.41v to run at 3.3ghz but because of this i need to give it 1.44v to compansate.

ddr2 800 should have no trouble at all runnig at 667 as its a lower speed (underclocked) ands thats whay i can get the tighter (cas3) timings at the rated volts. i might see how it does at 375x8 and see if my ram will keep the same timings running 1:1 there.

i know it might seem strange to underclock my ram but my system seems to run a bit more responsive in all apps, everything is just more snappy, more instant. i guess its down to the 1:1 ratio.


edit

the 4300 give about the same performance as a 2.4ghz x2

 

At stock, the E4300 seemed slightly slower than my X2 4200+ (2.2Ghz), however the overclocks you can get on them, even as a rookie just flatten anything the AMDs can do.
My RAM's back at 800mhz at the moment, don't see any reason to change it. I can do Sandra tests, I ought to try Orthos though, see if that causes any issues.

 

sam,

try setting your memory at fsb:drm ratio 1:1. remember at 1:1 ram freq = buss speed/cpu freq x 2 so at 1:1 if the cpu freq is 333mhz, the ram freq needs to be 666 (667). it should run timings of 4-4-4-12 there no problem. maybe even tighter.

I'll bet if you run your memory fsb:drm ratio at 1:1, you'll be able to bump that 4300 up some more. you'll probably need to bump your vcore to 1.35 or a little higher like marsey suggested.

my memory benchmarks better a little underclocked at 1:1 than it does overclocked at 4:5.

 

Speaking of fan speeds. My X1800XT is *fairly* quiet most of the time with a speed of 30%. When running games I have it set to turn up to 85%. Then it can be a bit noisy with a constant whirring sound in the background.

Then my X850XT is very noisy as it will overheat quickly if left at the factory setting of 25%. I had to turn it to 85% to keep it cool. At that setting it sounds like a small jet engine or a hair dryer when starting up.

EDIT:

On that $800 X1900XTX it's normal for some retailers to just price it and leave it. I recently found a 9800Pro for $300. Good card but not *that* good lol.

 

sammorris,
thanks for the advice on those cards(still not sure what I'm going to do just yet)but will let you know.

Not sure what bios revision you have or any of the other guys with the
P5N-E SLI are using,but just noticed there is a new revision (0505) dated 2007/03/16.

P5N-E SLI BIOS Release version 0505
1. Add C1E function support for Conroe-L A-1 stepping CPU .
2. Support new CPU, please refer to our website at: http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5N-E SLI
3. Support FSB 1333 CPU .
4. Fix CPR might fail when overclock too much.


http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

 

Hmm, interesting. Although after Russ' experience, do I dare? I've got 3Ghz out of it, I think I'm going to leave it at that. This board has a nasty habit of not letting you use a setting that worked before if you push it.

 

sam,if you are having issues like that,(not letting you use a setting that worked before if you push it.)I think a new bios revision may be just what the doctor ordered!