Meadia Net Tech's unlocked barton review

As a suggestion from Hoot in this thread...

http://www.ocforums.com/vb/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252516

I purchased a Barton 2500 from Media Net Technologies. You can do the same, here.

Apparently they are receiving lots of orders on the thing. I bought it when it was at $100. The price is higher now, which leads me to believe that they are seeing a lot of orders. Good for them, they are a reliable company and deserve lots of success.

I asked about products that weren't on their website and Kevin was able to obtain everything I asked for. For example, they don't advertise an Abit NF7-S, but he said he would be able to get one for me.

Anyway... the chip itself is the reason I posted this here instead of reseller reviews.

I received an 0334 AQXEA SPMW Barton 2500.

Components used: Abit NF7-S, Corsair XMS 3500 Cas2, Radeon 9800 Pro

My first test with this chip was to see if it could post with the standard 11x200 at default voltage. This was using the stock AMD cooler, of course. The first three attempts, I wasn't able to post it at 1.65v. The best I got was 1.675. I then remounted the heatsink with a more even coat of AS5 and could post 11x200 / 1.65v all day.

Happy with that mounting, I decided to install XP to continue my tests. That was when I realized I left my XP disk in a CDRW I let a friend borrow. So... 'real' overclocking tests with a 'real' cooling system will have to wait.

For now, if you are looking for an unlocked 2500 that can hit 11x200 with a stock cooler at stock voltage, Media Net Technologies gets my vote.

I received one of these unlocked Bartons yesterday... its a 0330 week code.

I left it at home this morning Priming at 245x9.5...
Hopefully its still Priming when I get home.

vonkaar, with your stock voltage are you taking into account that the nf7-s undervolts the vcore?

clockedOut, what vcore did you need for that?

giving 1.95vcore, the MB undervolts... and Im not exactly sure it needs that much, yet.

No two motherboards deliver the same voltage in any of the bios selectable voltages. To simply make a broad statement that all NF7-S undervoltage a given voltage is shortsighted. With a precision Digital Multimeter (Fluke189) measuring right at the Vcc pins on the back of my socket, my particular NF7-S delivers 1.707Vcore when I call for 1.70 in bios. My previous NF7-S delivered 1.713Vcore when calling for 1.70 in bios. interestingly, both NF7-S boards delivered .1V higher Vdimm than called for in bios. IE Vdimm 2.8 in bios got 2.9 at the sockets.

I emphasize that these readings were taken with a multimeter at the sockets. My onboard voltage monitoring chip in both NF7-S' reported the Vcore being lower than what I called for in bios, but then it also reported both my Vdimms as being right on the money.

Don't trust onboard voltage monitoring circuitry, regardless of which program you use to access it including the in-bios monitoring page!

Hoot said so!

I also got a AXQEA 0330. I was gonna ask for the 0334, but I heard that someone had a locked 0335, so I was scared

I've read that AXQEA's usually overclock pretty good. I won't be able to put mine in until christmas

Thx for starting this post. I'm sure it'll answer questions that many have since they are the only site I have found that carry unlocked ones.

It's not handling as well as my somehow(?)-locked week 6 AQUCA 2500, temperature wise. It(the new CPU) seems to do 2200 at about 1° higher than the other one, although this could easily be chalked up to a really good mount vs a decent or shoddy mount. We'll see.

Hoot, at what accuracy would you advise me to stop measuring? I have access to meters that can read down to 10picovolts (HP 3458A option:1)... from my little .00 meter, I'm seeing the same results that you are. Bios says 1.65, meter says 1.65. I'm considering taking it into work for a few tests... how 'clean' the power is vs regs with cooling... DC fluxuations etc.

The interesting data comes from metering it while running a stressing program. Hopefully, everyone knows to turn off features like halt-on-idle type temperature moderating settings. They actually hurt overclockability and besides, who cares if the temperature drops at idle... In the case of the NF7-S that bios setting is CPU Disconnect and by default, it is enabled. That feature makes the core voltage bounce a lot.

I doubt whether any degree of resolution in excess of hundredths of a volt will yield much useful information.

Hoot

I haven't read about or even heard that hoot.

Thanks