I Need advise from the AMD oc kings...please.

[Dennis Baliton]

Hello to the kings of AMD overclocking. I'm new to the world of AMD overclocking and I'm in need of a lot of advise.

I just bought two used mobos, an Epox 8KTA3+ and an Abit KT7-RAID. I've tested both using a friend's Duron 700 and both booted up and ran fine. So my first question is, which AMD CPU should I buy for these boards to give me the "most bang for the buck"? I plan on adding these machines to my F@H "farm" as well as MPEG to VCD encoding/decoding.

Also, which air cooling setup should I buy? I would like to stay within the $20-$35(US) range for each heatsink/fan combo. What temps should I expect to get with good heatsink/fan?

Finally my last question. I am considering a used T-Bird 900 or a Duron 700, are these CPU's good for overclocking, MPEG to VCD encoding/decoding and F@H?

Thanks in advance to all, like I said, I don't have much experience with any AMD "schtuff" so any information is welcomed.

[scoobydoo]

I just got a 1GHz T-Bird 266FSB chip from www.newegg.com for $83 shipped.

It has been running stable at 1.393 for over a week now.

$83 for basically a 1.4GHz chip isn't bad:)

[Dennis Baliton]

b.u.m.p.

[WillysNut]

Dennis,

The 8KTA3+ has the Via 133a chipset which is capable of handling 266MHz (133x2) fsb processors. Shucks..can't get to Epox's website right now. Check their site and you will find a "compatability" list for supported Processors for specific mobos/chipsets. I believe w/ a current BIOS update, most 133a boards are supporting up to the 1.333 and 1.4 Athlon.

The KT7-Raid has the older Via 133 chipset which is known to have "issues" over about the 115-117MHz FSB range if I'm recalling correctly. I would stick w/ a 200MHz (100x2) fsb procesor with this board.

Hope this helps..good luck!

[wildone]

Hey I got a 1 gig 266 fsb axia and I am at 1450 , so I would have to say that it is the biggest bang for the buck , I can also recommend the ak31 rev 2 board by shuttle , for 80-90 american its awesome. and at this price makes it no biggie when it comes to upgradeing later ,also it beats most motherboards out with the same chipset.One more thing , the ak31 has real support for the palimino , as in three phase power.

wildone

[SickBoy]

You've definitely got 2 good candidate motherboards there. I have some suggestions:

1. 1 GHz TBirds are where it's at. Price/peformance wise, and OC potential, a good stepping 1 GHz chip should get you to 1.33 or 1.4 GHz with aircooling, no problem. If you do a lot of media encoding, the new Morgan cored Durons score excellently in those tests - their hardware prefetch and enlarged TLB push it over the 1 GHz TBirds in a lot of tests (and that's w/o the advantage of SSE optimizations - the testers used a BIOS that did not identify the chip as SSE capable, so any differences are attributed to the TLB and the prefetch). They're in that $80 range, so they're worth a look. The Morgans should be looking at a similar overclock to the Birds, maybe slightly less, but you'll get more performance out of every clock cycle than the Bird will on those encoding tasks. The jury is still out on the Morgan for F@H... it sure as heck won't be any worse than a Spitfire core Duron, the question is just HOW much better it will be.

2. webuildpcs.com has Thermalright SK6's with YS Tech Extreme 40 fans for $33.50. Pretty dang good deal for an excellent cooler if you ask me. You'd be hard pressed to find a cooler that outperformed it out of the box for the same price. I got one myself and I couldn't be happier with it.

Hope that helps.

SickBoy

[Hugo 59]

Originally posted by SickBoy
You've definitely got 2 good candidate motherboards there. I have some suggestions:

1. 1 GHz TBirds are where it's at. Price/peformance wise, and OC potential, a good stepping 1 GHz chip should get you to 1.33 or 1.4 GHz with aircooling, no problem. If you do a lot of media encoding, the new Morgan cored Durons score excellently in those tests - their hardware prefetch and enlarged TLB push it over the 1 GHz TBirds in a lot of tests (and that's w/o the advantage of SSE optimizations - the testers used a BIOS that did not identify the chip as SSE capable, so any differences are attributed to the TLB and the prefetch). They're in that $80 range, so they're worth a look. The Morgans should be looking at a similar overclock to the Birds, maybe slightly less, but you'll get more performance out of every clock cycle than the Bird will on those encoding tasks. The jury is still out on the Morgan for F@H... it sure as heck won't be any worse than a Spitfire core Duron, the question is just HOW much better it will be.

2. webuildpcs.com has Thermalright SK6's with YS Tech Extreme 40 fans for $33.50. Pretty dang good deal for an excellent cooler if you ask me. You'd be hard pressed to find a cooler that outperformed it out of the box for the same price. I got one myself and I couldn't be happier with it.

Hope that helps.

SickBoy

Ditto

[Dennis Baliton]

Thanks to all scoobydoo, WillysNut, wildone, sickboy and Hugo_59. I'm gonna run out to the computer fair today and find a nice 1GHz and heatsink.

db

[wildone]

Try for an AXIA if you can , I love my axiaand you would be happy with a legend :)
wildone

[proze]

just note that the axia 1ghz chips actually oc better than the 1.2ghz chips on average...