Hey all, I was gonna try to setup an old AMD bencher, AM3 sockets are awesome like that. I have an OLD opteron 1385 that i have never touched and i was looking into picking up an athlon II x2. I was curious what, if any, suggestions you guys have. I have never really dabbled with the Old style BIOS before UEFI, I know my way around but i have never OC'd anything in there, nor have i ever really pushed and AMD. Newcomer to this so everything is appreciated, Thank you.
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So, Oldskool AMD build... Need some help.
- Thread starter TuKr
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- Thread Starter
- #3
thanks for the quick reply. I was gonna grab a gigabyte ga-ma78lmt-s2 rev3.4. One of my coworkers has an asus but i'm not sure of the model. Should I pick up an newer AM3 board from Microcenter?
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- Jul 14, 2013
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- Holed up in Branford, CT
An Opteron 1385 is a highly binned Phenom II. I have one and overclocked it to nearly 3.7 GHz. Do yourself a favor and get a better board. Look for 6+2 or 8+2 phase boards. They are all full ATX.
- Joined
- May 30, 2004
For AMD, you have to go all the way back to socket 462 to get a pre-IMC processor, thus anything after socket 462 don't have an FSB!
Thus, the memory controller is on the processor and the motherboard don't matter, unless it's a cheapo.
Back in the FSB days, a major difference just from changing the motherboard was common.
Now days, it don't matter much as long as it don't have a cheap VRM setup.
With Intel, the last FSB-based arch was socket 775.
But, an on-die memory controller can be bad news when a RAM test fails, it can mean that you're forced to replace the processor, when you weren't in the FSB times.
An IMC means that the processor determines the RAM, not the motherboard!
Thus, the memory controller is on the processor and the motherboard don't matter, unless it's a cheapo.
Back in the FSB days, a major difference just from changing the motherboard was common.
Now days, it don't matter much as long as it don't have a cheap VRM setup.
With Intel, the last FSB-based arch was socket 775.
But, an on-die memory controller can be bad news when a RAM test fails, it can mean that you're forced to replace the processor, when you weren't in the FSB times.
An IMC means that the processor determines the RAM, not the motherboard!
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- Thread Starter
- #6
Thank you for the reply, That will definitely help me stay stable as i poke and prod through the new waters. any specific things to look out for in my search?
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So dont go buy the fastest DDR3 I can find and expect it to work, The CPU will only be able to do so much. Thank you. You guys are awesome. this would have been one hell of a trial and error thing for me.
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- Apr 26, 2012
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- New York, USA
For AM3 AIIs and that Opteron, your best bet would probably be something in the M5A99FX family. The dual core would probably overclock well on any board, but the Opty will certainly do more on a better board.
AM3 processors work on AM3+ boards, you know. Unless you want it to look "retro" (not sure if a 6 year old platform qualifies as "retro" yet), they'll perform just as well on current boards.
AM3 processors work on AM3+ boards, you know. Unless you want it to look "retro" (not sure if a 6 year old platform qualifies as "retro" yet), they'll perform just as well on current boards.
- Thread Starter
- #9
Can you explain that a bit more? I was looking at asus m5a97 and the m5a99fx. I more than likely will choose the 99 because its only a few bucks more, but im building this so i have a super flexible amd bench. I want to learn about each and compatibility is important. Thank you for the info.
I understand what you're trying to do.
You want one board with the most supported processors to bench with.
Not possible. It takes at least 2 to cover AM2 to AM3+.
In your position, a 990FX board will do you better. The other board you mentioned is a 970 chipset and not as stout.
I actually use 3 different boards to cover AM2 to AM3+. Yes, they overlap in CPU support slightly, but each board has a feature or two that the others don't or one board clocks a certain core better than the others. There really is no catch all board.
- Thread Starter
- #11
Thank you. I will probably stretch for the better board that will support the newer cores for now, am3 (+) because i intend to bench those more. The old opty will get its day on its own more devoted board but for now ill run all of them on the newer boards to get my feet wet. Thanks again for all of the info.
- Joined
- May 30, 2004
You can try higher-clock DDR 3, but I can't tell if you will get a huge gain or not.
What I meant in my post was that the memory controller is embedded in the CPU instead of the motherboard.
This possibly can make things more consistent between boards and thus less differences between motherboards. Basically, the only things the motherboards have on them now are the bridge chip that links PCI-E to the CPU, the traces from the RAM to the CPU socket and the southbridge.
Of course, the VRM is still on the motherboard.
In fact, a while after the Athlon 64 arch debuted, it's believed that you can run RAM with a clock slower than the system bus and not notice much difference, if at all.
This looks a lot like a huge contrast to the FSB arch of the previous platforms.
(Socket 462 and earlier for AMD)
(Socket 775 and earlier for Intel)
(IIRC, it was a post I saw when socket 939 was a new kid!)
AMD came out with the new bus arch many years before Intel did and it's pretty much unchanged even with FXes of today.
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- Thread Starter
- #13
Oh, well that make sense too. the reason my mind went to fast ddr3 was because i know i can pick up 8gb of evga 2400 cl11 for like 50 bucks but i dont know if that will be close to stable for the older chips with the integrated IMC. thanks for the extra info, I seems really foreign to me but i know that i will pick up on quick especially with everything you guys are telling me. any gotchas to keep an eye out for?
- Joined
- May 30, 2004
The only big gotcha I can think of, is if the IMC is faulty.
Then doing a motherboard swap won't do squat.
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2010
Not much point to getting high-frequency memory for AM3 (Deneb or Thuban cores) to be honest. They usually topped out at 1600MHz (stable), or sometimes 1800-1866MHz if you got lucky.
- Thread Starter
- #16
i came accross a crosshair formula z for about 140 that i thought about grabbing tomorrow. Cant decide if i want to go grab it or not... its super tempting.
Scratch that^^
so its either an Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 or a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3, The gigabyte is about 20 cheaper.
Ive always used Asus so i am slightly partial too them, Ive never really heard anything bad about gigabyte but i have never used one. so this one is a toss up for me, Im totally OK with either one. I know asus fairly well and at the same time im curious how the gigabyte will perform. Any suggestions or would you guys pick one over the other indefinitely. Mr.Scott you said that you use 3 boards to cover your gap, is one of these better than the other for my purposes? Thanks again for the help.
Scratch that^^
so its either an Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 or a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3, The gigabyte is about 20 cheaper.
Ive always used Asus so i am slightly partial too them, Ive never really heard anything bad about gigabyte but i have never used one. so this one is a toss up for me, Im totally OK with either one. I know asus fairly well and at the same time im curious how the gigabyte will perform. Any suggestions or would you guys pick one over the other indefinitely. Mr.Scott you said that you use 3 boards to cover your gap, is one of these better than the other for my purposes? Thanks again for the help.
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- Joined
- Apr 26, 2012
- Location
- New York, USA
Gigabyte is hit and miss, it depends mostly on what revision that board is. For some reason, Giga thinks that they have to constantly tweak things. Sometimes, they get the board right the first time, and then proceed to completely screw it up, and others, the best revision is 2 or 3, but then they screw it up again. Most of the AMD gurus can tell you which revisions are the ones to watch for.
Asus is more stable as far as model revisions, they usually don't change too much between them and what the do change usually doesn't effect the end user much.
Asus is more stable as far as model revisions, they usually don't change too much between them and what the do change usually doesn't effect the end user much.
Alaric
New Member
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- Dec 4, 2011
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- Satan's Colon, US
I'm using a M5A99FX Pro Rev. 2 and I like it , but OC is limited on FX chips. I can run 4400MHz for 24/7 , but that's where it stalls. If you're going to end up with an FX , and plan to OC , the boards to have are the Sabretooth and Crosshair. Period. For a Deneb or Thuban the M5A99FX should be a great board. With a good PSU you shouldn't have any problems. It has lots of bells and whistles for memory OC too.
Alaric
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2011
- Location
- Satan's Colon, US
I will probably pick up the asus board, but that just got put on hold for a bit.... I think im gonna pick up 2 ASUS Matrix 780 TI's instead.
Doesn't sound like a bad way to go !
