Forgive me, but I need some help.

I'm a bit baffled by the 3 cores available for socket 939...the most expensive processor I can afford right now is the 3500...so my question is:

Which processor/core should I get, if I am using a good HSF and moderate OC on an Asus A8n SLI Deluxe?

(I have decided not to wait for the Venice)
I see winchesters are quite popular, however, the FX series share the clawhammer core With the 3500 clawhammer (which seems like a very good thing) and I hear very little about Newcastles.

(Sorry if the post seems redundant, but after scouring the site I still can't find a sticky to directly address this)

I really appreciate it.

What has made you not wait for the venice? Since they are hitting awesome O/C's at stock voltage D!!! Im guessing the wait? Well some sites have them for preorder and they will recieve them on the 18th, Froogle ada3500bpbox for some sites ... Please if you can wait a little bit just get a venice I think you will be 100000 times happier .

anwar1337 said:

What has made you not wait for the venice? Since they are hitting awesome O/C's at stock voltage D!!! Im guessing the wait? Well some sites have them for preorder and they will recieve them on the 18th, Froogle ada3500bpbox for some sites ... Please if you can wait a little bit just get a venice I think you will be 100000 times happier .

Click to expand...

Though I really do appreciate the advice, I'd really like some practical advice on existing cores, rether than being the first to own the new venice core...i feel pretty strongly about this even though everyone is hyped up about the venice. I'd really like to know which existing core in the 939 platform is the best choice now, rather than speculating on the venice....
Is the Winnie 3000 or 3200 the preferred chip? (judging by its popularity it seems so.) Is the clawhammer 3500 worth the extra $, since it shares the same core as the FX? Whats up with the Newcastles? Not much info on them....
etc
The stickies do have lots of data, but these questions of mine are holding me up and so far i cannot find the answers in the stickies
still looking....

the claws are the same core as the fx's and the a64 4000+ that didnt pass the cache test, so they were bastardized with only half the cache. they overclock very well, but put out a decent ammount of heat. the new winnies are sucking and only averaging 2.5-6ghz while the claws get 3ghz usually. newcastle for 939 is useless.

Winchester is a great core, it has shown to be a better overclocker than the newcastle time and time again.

The difference between the 3000 and the 3200:

3000 is locked at 9x
3200 is locked at 10x
3500 is locked at 11x (11x is pretty much useless for overclocking)

Many people are happy with 9x and a high fsb, such as 300x9, others like me, use the 10x. I have great results with my winnie, and many others have to. See my benchmarks in my sig if you like.

Of course if you wanted to drop the dough for a claw then by all means have at it.

thanks so much for the prompt replies, starting to make more sense now!

You indicated that an 11x multiplier is pretty much useless for OCing, and the Clawhammer 3500 seems to be locked at 11x....however, it seems to be recommended in this thread and others as a very overclockable chip(?)
does this mean that the multi, while being locked at 11x, can still be DROPPED to 9 or 10, as you have expressed?

Misfit138 said:

thanks so much for the prompt replies, starting to make more sense now!

You indicated that an 11x multiplier is pretty much useless for OCing, and the Clawhammer 3500 seems to be locked at 11x....however, it seems to be recommended in this thread and others as a very overclockable chip(?)

Click to expand...

Naw, I meant the 11x for the winnie core only. 11x in a claw is a good thing, because you may use it. But in a winnie, you probably won't have to use the 11x. What I mean is if you buy the winnie 3500+, you probably won't even use the 11x, you'll probably bump the multi down to 9x or 10x anyway; so the extra dough for the 3500 winnie isn't really worth it imo.

Now I got it!
Think I'll grab the Clawhammer and eventually upgrade from pc3200 to pc4000 and some decent cooling..

Thank you all so much.

Under construction:

A64 CLawhammer3500 (dont worry i'll be pickin your brains soon enough on decent air cooling!! )
Asus A8n SlI Deluxe
1.5 gig Crucial PC3200
MSI 6600GT x2 in SLI
Raptor 74g x2 RAID 0 (Boot,apps)
Maxtor 80g IDEx2 RAID 0 (Pagefile,data)
Antec Truepower 550
Coolermaster Wavemaster Aluminum

Misfit138 said:

A64 CLawhammer3500 (dont worry i'll be pickin your brains soon enough on decent air cooling!! )

Click to expand...

XP-90 is a common choice for good air cooling

Misfit138 said:

Now I got it!
Think I'll grab the Clawhammer and eventually upgrade from pc3200 to pc4000 and some decent cooling..

Thank you all so much.

Under construction:

A64 CLawhammer3500 (dont worry i'll be pickin your brains soon enough on decent air cooling!! )
Asus A8n SlI Deluxe
1.5 gig Crucial PC3200
MSI 6600GT x2 in SLI
Raptor 74g x2 RAID 0 (Boot,apps)
Maxtor 80g IDEx2 RAID 0 (Pagefile,data)
Antec Truepower 550
Coolermaster Wavemaster Aluminum

Click to expand...

Aw dude you want air cooling sweet then I got the suggestion, I jsut got the xp-90c w/tornado. Man I tell you what, I ain't afraid to put it up against any water cooling. I really don't think any sink can out perform this one. The tornado is 117cfm, which is loud, but you can always turn it down if you want.

xp-90c is solid copper!

http://heatsinkfactory.com/cgi-bin/HFAstore.pl?user_action=detail&catalogno=HS-005

misfit. stop right now. get the dfi sli board. its a much better ocer then the asus. also, id get like a gig of some new bh-5 or utt, cause the dfi can take advantage of it with its 4.0v vdimm.

Misfit138 said:

Now I got it!
Think I'll grab the Clawhammer and eventually upgrade from pc3200 to pc4000 and some decent cooling..

Thank you all so much.

Under construction:

A64 CLawhammer3500 (dont worry i'll be pickin your brains soon enough on decent air cooling!! )
Asus A8n SlI Deluxe
1.5 gig Crucial PC3200
MSI 6600GT x2 in SLI
Raptor 74g x2 RAID 0 (Boot,apps)
Maxtor 80g IDEx2 RAID 0 (Pagefile,data)
Antec Truepower 550
Coolermaster Wavemaster Aluminum

Click to expand...

With all due respect, I'm not too fond of a few of your upgrade choices. If you don't mind, allow me to make some suggestions:

1. With the imminent release of Venice, there is no reason NOT to buy anything but a revision E processor. These should overclock much better than both Winchester and Clawhammer processors. Also, a 3500+ is a waste of money. You'd be much better off picking up a 3000+ Venice which should not have much a problem hitting 2.6 Ghz at least. For good air cooling, think of the Thermalright XP-90/90c (for 92mm fans) or Thermalright XP-120 (120mm fans).

2. Instead of two 6600GT's in SLI, you would be better served with a single 6800GT or an ATI x800XL. At best, two 6600GT's are not much better than one 6800, and an x800XL is faster than a stock 6800GT. Moreover, you should have no problems finding a decent x800XL for under $300.

3. With this in mind, there is no need for an SLI motherboard. My suggestion would then move on to the DFI NF4 Ultra-D, but there are other solutions such as the MSI K8N Neo 4.

4. Instead of the Crucial PC 3200, I'd just go for a GB of TCCD. You won't need more than a GB to run smooth, and TCCD should have no compatibility issues with any NF4 platform.

5. Two raptor's are a pretty big financial investment. While it is true that the seek times are very fast, I simply cannot justify their price premium for such a small amount of space. Personally, I think you would be much better off going for a pair of 200+GB NCQ drives and saving some change. Of course, they would not be as fast as a Raptor, but I think that the cost savings and practicality will negate the Raptor seek times.

6. I'd go for another unit besides the Antec. It's no secret that I am no longer an Antec fan, but many users have had issues with some of their products. With that being said, look into a Fortron Blue Storm 500W. These are inexpensive, yet very reliable units that will provide you more than enough power for any system. And did I mention its pre-sleeved?

deception``

^^^^^^ great advice

well, the thing is i already own some of these components, as yo can see in my sig
but one thing is for sure, i dont think i;ll wait for the venice this time...i have bided my time so many times with these upgrades only to be disappointed after the hype settles

Misfit138 said:

well, the thing is i already own some of these components, as yo can see in my sig
but one thing is for sure, i dont think i;ll wait for the venice this time...i have bided my time so many times with these upgrades only to be disappointed after the hype settles

Click to expand...

The Venice processors should begin shipping early next month. I understand your frustrations, but I am not telling you to wait months for a supposed product; rather, I am stating that your euphoria is only but a few weeks away. Of course, you are welcome to purchase a 3500+ Clawhammer, but just know that there will be many individuals in the near future who are clocking higher for less money.

deception``

^ words of wisdom there, on that note I agree, but misfit said he is set on the current revision cores. The price of a raptor is hard to justify, but I bought mine with this idea in mind: A hard drive is the slowest part of the sytem and I wanted to make sure I minimized that bottleneck as much as possible. I am happy with mine, and I wouldn't even change them out for a faster processor. But that is what suits me though.

deception`` said:

The Venice processors should begin shipping early next month. I understand your frustrations, but I am not telling you to wait months for a supposed product; rather, I am stating that your euphoria is only but a few weeks away. Of course, you are welcome to purchase a 3500+ Clawhammer, but just know that there will be many individuals in the near future who are clocking higher for less money.

deception``

Click to expand...

you raise some excellent issues, however, i have had reliability issues with DFI motherboards in the past (Had 2 DOA socket a Lanparty's)
I would really love to stick with asus, as they have been stone solid for me..also, you recommend fortron psu's, would you also recommend a sparkle psu, since they are made by fortron? i understand they have a model with adjustable pots (which sounds like an EXCELLENT idea)

Misfit138 said:

you raise some excellent issues, however, i have had reliability issues with DFI motherboards in the past (Had 2 DOA socket a Lanparty's)
I would really love to stick with asus, as they have been stone solid for me..

Click to expand...

The DFI was simply a suggestion, but I did also mention the MSI K8N Neo 4 as a solution. I agree that Asus makes some of the most solid boards around, but they do not offer me the sort of robust overclocking features that I seek. If Asus is your fancy, know that they do have an NF4 Ultra motherboard which will suit your needs. When you begin to piece a system, make sure to look out for the Asus A8N-E.

deception``

dfi has gotten alot better. they make the best enthusist 939 board out there. and you wont need adjustable pots with the dfi 939s, as they have a floppy connector and a regular molex connecter input on the mobo for 4.0v's for the vdimm without any mods, just the moving of a jumper.

Misfit138 said:

also, you recommend fortron psu's, would you also recommend a sparkle psu, since they are made by fortron? i understand they have a model with adjustable pots (which sounds like an EXCELLENT idea)

Click to expand...

The Fortron Blue Storm 500W has adjustable pots, but it will require you to open up the unit in order to take advantage of this. If you're looking for easier manipulation, you'll have to look at something such as an Antec True Control (which I would recommend against) or perhaps an OCZ Powerstream 4w0W (which might be slightly more expensive than the Antec or Fortron).

deception``