Best Bang For the Buck

[TC]

Just thought I would share my latest hardware experience for those thinking of adding a little to the farm for Christmas. I just picked up a few new pieces, and so far I am thoroughly impressed with the Epox 8KHA+ and XP1500. Both will run you around $100 a piece, and for that you can easily overclock to 1600+ MHz. Mine is clocked at 1660MHz 1.85 volts with a thermalright SK6. Work unit times are under 3 hours. So far this one box alone has cranked out 9 units per day. Looks like a great bargain.

[dugans]

Nice! And to think what I just spent ......joking, of course!!
Bang for the buck is one of my favorite things. Free megahertz is another.

Hey TC: now that you have changed your sig you'll have to do a monthly post on what's growing in your farm!

[Eliminator]

Originally posted by TC
Just thought I would share my latest hardware experience for those thinking of adding a little to the farm for Christmas. I just picked up a few new pieces, and so far I am thoroughly impressed with the Epox 8KHA+ and XP1500. Both will run you around $100 a piece, and for that you can easily overclock to 1600+ MHz. Mine is clocked at 1660MHz 1.85 volts with a thermalright SK6. Work unit times are under 3 hours. So far this one box alone has cranked out 9 units per day. Looks like a great bargain.

Is that an unlocked cpu? Also, why didn't you get a 1600+ (only $10 more)? I can't seem to get past an FSB>145 on my 8KHA+ :(

My A7M266 has never failed me. Even though the mulitplier is locked on this board. With my XP 1600+@1.6 (FSB=153), it's cranking out 8WU/day on stock amd retail cooling. So I can definitely vouch for your remarks on what a great chip these XP's are :)

[TC]

I didn't buy a 1600 because I had an 1800 that wouldn't overclocked any faster than a 1500, so I figured why pay more for something that won't overclock any better. What ram are you using with your board? I've had corsair pc2400 up to 180.

[Eliminator]

I tried my Corsair and Crucial sticks along with different dimm's. Nothing helped, so I went back the the Samsung. Needless to say, I'm really turned off by Epox. That was my first board and I was expecting high speeds. I guess I could always try Shuttle. :rolleyes:

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator
I tried my Corsair and Crucial sticks along with different dimm's. Nothing helped, so I went back the the Samsung. Needless to say, I'm really turned off by Epox. That was my first board and I was expecting high speeds. I guess I could always try Shuttle. :rolleyes: Wow I'm surprised. I've had 3 8K7A's and they sold me on Epox. They overclock better than any other board I've had. All of them will hit 180 without breaking a sweat. Maybe some other piece of hardware is holding you back. The 8KHA+ has a beta bios that's getting people up to 200 by means of a ram divider.

[SpeeDj]

Cool tip... *thinking maybe after the new years come in it will be time to prune the farm and replace some of the crop* :) Need to up that BP6 to some of the last PPGA celly's *Don't trust myself to the excessive mods it needs* Will also be upgrading that AMD I am sure :cool:

J - Will never stop "farming" just need a bigger crop!

[Eliminator]

Originally posted by TC
Wow I'm surprised. I've had 3 8K7A's and they sold me on Epox. They overclock better than any other board I've had. All of them will hit 180 without breaking a sweat. Maybe some other piece of hardware is holding you back. The 8KHA+ has a beta bios that's getting people up to 200 by means of a ram divider.

What kind of hardware are you using? Hdd, psu, Vcard, and network cards? And are you doing Vmods?

Why would you ever want to go beyond 160 fsb? After that, aren't you just asking for your hdd to become corrupted. Also, wouldn't you get faster times with Seti if you kept your fsb around 150 with a higher multiplier, instead of a HUGE fsb and a stock multiplier?

[LandShark]

well, as far as i know, SETI love memory speed!!

fastest memory timing + fastest memory speed = fastest WU time!! ;)

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator


What kind of hardware are you using? Hdd, psu, Vcard, and network cards? And are you doing Vmods?

Why would you ever want to go beyond 160 fsb? After that, aren't you just asking for your hdd to become corrupted. Also, wouldn't you get faster times with Seti if you kept your fsb around 150 with a higher multiplier, instead of a HUGE fsb and a stock multiplier? Most of my boxes use a Maxtor drive, 350 watt enermax psu, plain old ati rage pci video, and linksys nic. The 8K7A and 8KHA+ have a divider that kicks in at 166, so that puts the periperals back in spec. Otherwise there's no way people could run 180+ all the time. I'm not using any vmods - just the max available on the stock board. Additionaly, Seti benefits not only from a fast processor, but a fast memory bus and ram timings. So ideally you want the fastest combination of both cpu clock and FSB. I found with the XP1500's that they won't overclock past 1700, and with a multiplier of 10 that lets me get the fsb up fairly high right where the /5 divider kicks in. That gives me a good combination of clock speed and bus speed where I can use the fastest ram timings.

[Eliminator]

Thanks for your input.

With the harware you stated and the harware I use, I still don't know why my Epox won't budge 145. Everyone tells me to Vmod my board. It's hard to believe you can get those speeds with max Vcore settings. Maybe I should try another Epox, and if it sucks, take it back.

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator
Thanks for your input.

With the harware you stated and the harware I use, I still don't know why my Epox won't budge 145. Everyone tells me to Vmod my board. It's hard to believe you can get those speeds with max Vcore settings. Maybe I should try another Epox, and if it sucks, take it back. I'm maxed out on the Vdimm not Vcore. The cpu is at default voltage.

[dugans]

Overclocking can be funny: I have two cpu/mobo combos that I bought used from different people-

One of the was run at 1000 that was run @1.6 for a few weeks, no problem: I could only get 1.4 best, and now it is down to 1.3!

The other was unable to go more than 20 mhz over default, but it is now stable @165mhz of free speed!

We all know that two chips with the same stepping may be different, but don't forget how many variables are in the mix too:

Change a network card and you may lose (or gain!) a lot of stable overclockability!

[Eliminator]

Originally posted by TC
I'm maxed out on the Vdimm not Vcore. The cpu is at default voltage.

Wow! Defualt! 1.65. Unbelievable!

My 1.4 T-bird wouldn't go past 154 w/o crashing and I had the Vdimm and Vcore maxed. Once I raised my Vcore to 2V, I could get up to 160. I backed off though because I was afraid everything else would get "fried".

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator


Wow! Defualt! 1.65. Unbelievable!

My 1.4 T-bird wouldn't go past 154 w/o crashing and I had the Vdimm and Vcore maxed. Once I raised my Vcore to 2V, I could get up to 160. I backed off though because I was afraid everything else would get "fried". My particular board is defaulting to 1.75....not 1.65.

[Eliminator]

Still amazing to me.

Makes me sick :)

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator
Still amazing to me.

Makes me sick :) Well it's a little easier to squeeze 1600 out of an XP than a tbird. I have the last stepping in the 1.4 tbirds and it won't go past 1550 at any voltage.

[LandShark]

TC: what kinda DDR voltage u r using?? u said max out??

i have 2 8KHA+ board w/ athlonXP. both is only running at 2.7vDDR volt. and max core volt. one w/ Crucial, one w/ Corsair. is it saft to up the memory votage?? 2.8v?? or more??

[TC]

I think it's at 2.9 volts. No problems after 5 months running 24/7...

[Eliminator]

Originally posted by TC
I think it's at 2.9 volts. No problems after 5 months running 24/7...

I thought the 8KHA+ max's out around 3.2V

[LandShark]

i think so too. but sure i'll never wanna try it at 3.2v!!! 2.8-2.9v would be the max i would ever try. but running at 153mhz w/ 2.7v right now. pretty happy w/ it. :) might try up the memory speed a bit more again.....155 or so. ;)

[TC]

Originally posted by Eliminator


I thought the 8KHA+ max's out around 3.2V What the manual says is one thing, what it actually does is another matter. I like to scope my boards to see what they're actually doing. In this case the voltage was 2.97.

[LandShark]

u don't have any problem at 2.9+v for the memory?? what kinda memory r u using, TC??

mine, Corsair 256MB PC2400, is running @ 2.8v at 153MHz right now. didn't try anything higher. do u think it's safe for me up a little bit more?? both voltage and speed?? 'cos i've heard other people's memory die on them after certain time b/c of the high voltage. like 2.9 or more..... :rolleyes:

[TC]

I'm using corsair pc2400 (micron chips) - no problems so far, but I don't guarantee anything for anybody else. I've had my 8k7a boards maxed out for several months and they're still going.