why the mobil athlon

[FuriousGeorge]

i have done some reading up on this but i started today so fogive me if this is a stupid question but:

why are people modding the mobile athlon vs just overclocking the regular athlon mp which has a higher starting clockrate at the same bus speed?

correct me if im wrong but the highest current clockrate for a barton based athlon chip is 2.13 ish and the highest clock speed for the t-bred line is 2.25 but with only 256 l3 cache

is it that the mobile chips are better at being overclocked? are the regular XPs harder to mod but theoretically faster b/c they were meant to run on 333 and 400 mhz buses

[FuriousGeorge]

besides the price, obviously

[aftermath]

mobiles arnt super locked so we can actuly get an oc.
mobiles use a lower vcore as standard and therfore can achive a beter overclock with the same voltage as a normal barton.
The clock ticks dont get as fuzzy as fast, when u raise the core frequency from stock, with the mobiles thats why they run at lower vcore.

[{PMS}fishy]

Mobles run cooler and faster than any other Tbred/Barton chip out there. They are a bit more expensive than the desktop chips, but as you already said cheaper than the MPs. All the need is a simple L5 bridge and they are now SMP capable.

[dustybyrd]

All the need is a simple L5 bridge and they are now SMP capable. [/B]


i think you also need to cut the 3rd L5 bridge as well (to prevent mobile function which would cause a very low default multiplier)

[Arkaine23]

Cutting the 3rd L5 disables the mobile powernow features, and turns the chips into MP's. It also makes them run at a low multi (8) by default. So after breaking the L5, you then have to set the multi higher with a socket wire mod.

It's a bt of work, but the mobiles are cooler-running, and give you a very good shot at having a duallie running at 2500-2600 mhz.

[{PMS}fishy]

Originally posted by dustybyrd



i think you also need to cut the 3rd L5 bridge as well (to prevent mobile function which would cause a very low default multiplier)

Can you not leave that, seeing as the MPX chipset supports power now, and change the multpliers in Windows?

[Arkaine23]

So far testers report only 1 CPU will work if you leave the mobile bridge intact (but it will work at the correct default multiplyer for the CPU). Not sure if software for changing the multi would work or not. I don't think anyone has tried, because what's the point of running a duallie with just one CPU?

To answer the original question. For awhile there was no MP barton so people had to mod desktop bartons, but they had 166fsb. Once the desktop bartons got multi-locked, they were no longer good for MP mods (multi too low). So the mobiles offered unlocked 133FSB cpu's, cool temps, and good OC'ing all at once. And the only price was a couple of tricky mods.

[FuriousGeorge]

this is exciting news as it makes the amd mpx platform only half dead... there will be newer mobile chips comming out and there is always the hope someone will come out with a new thlon mp chipset.

can someone explain to me in lay terminology what exactly it is amd is doing to make there cpu cycles pund-for-pound more powerful than the xeons? it cant be the cache or fsb so what is it.

[Arkaine23]

It's just a different design philosophy. Better FPU, shorter pipelines.

Just keep in mind- tricky modifications in order to get the mobiles to work in SMP. That means 99.9999% of people have no idea this is possible, or what it's benefits are. And even those in the know hesitate because its sort of difficult.

[{PMS}fishy]

Originally posted by Arkaine23
So far testers report only 1 CPU will work if you leave the mobile bridge intact (but it will work at the correct default multiplyer for the CPU). Not sure if software for changing the multi would work or not. I don't think anyone has tried, because what's the point of running a duallie with just one CPU?

To answer the original question. For awhile there was no MP barton so people had to mod desktop bartons, but they had 166fsb. Once the desktop bartons got multi-locked, they were no longer good for MP mods (multi too low). So the mobiles offered unlocked 133FSB cpu's, cool temps, and good OC'ing all at once. And the only price was a couple of tricky mods.

Ok, thanks. That deffinatly clears that one up.