Athlon 64 2800 or Mobile 2500?

[Maxvla]

pretty much the only current consumer sound chipset i have not listened to is the audigy 2 (still ac97 based however) and turtle beach santa cruz. i have listened to these on varying reproduction systems so i cannot directly compare one to the other.

 

[Sentential]

no more static, no more odd sounds. it sounded just like any other onboard sound i've used. when i moved the mouse i got odd static, if i turned the volume up it was awful. and the microphone was completely useless it was so staticy.

perhaps i got a faulty board, but all 3 of them (2 8rda+, 1 NF7-S 2.0) sounded the same.

lol.... sounds like *somebody* didnt sink their Southbridge. Mine did that till I active cooled it. Now its crystal clear

___

As for me, Im waiting for Winchester.

 

[Maxvla]

lol.... sounds like *somebody* didnt sink their Southbridge. Mine did that till I active cooled it. Now its crystal clear

___

As for me, Im waiting for Winchester.

why would actively cooling the southbridge help?? there's not enough data moving through it to heat it up afaik, not like the northbridge which handles ram and agp traffic.

i don't profess to be an expert on athlon xp, since i rather detest the platform i cut short my time with it, but i do have some experience with it.

 

[The Coolest]

Believe me, there's enough data flowing through it to not just make it hot, but sizzling hot. I really need to sink this thing, it causes all sorts of bad stuff to happen. I had sound breaking up and I have had my PC start slowing down just because the SB was running too hot.

 

[MitchV]

The problem here is you're comparing the overclocked 2500 to a stock Athlon64. Once you oc the a64 the 30% higher price is more than justifiable.

Well this actually gets back to my original question... According to Maxvla, a stock Athlon 64 3200 would be approximately the same as a Mobile Barton running at 2.6Ghz -- noticably faster than a Mobile Barton at 2.3Ghz.

So does this mean that one can expect to push their Athlon 64 2800 from 1.8Ghz (stock) to 2.2Ghz (the speed of a Newcastle 3200) with a standard air cooler? I don't know the answer to this, I've never OC'd an Athlon 64.

 

[The Coolest]

If you get a newcastle 2800+ you'll be able to reach much higher than that, even on stock cooling.

 

[DaveB]

Some thoughts:

1. You don't need a newcastle A64 2800+ for a great OC. I have OC'ed an A64 2800+ 1MB cache clawhammer to 2.4 GHz on a Gigabyte K8NS Pro.

2. You can't use a stock retail heatsink with mobile A64's, they won't even touch the CPU since it's sits lower. The Thermalright 948U works great on mobile A64s.

 

[MitchV]

1. You don't need a newcastle A64 2800+ for a great OC. I have OC'ed an A64 2800+ 1MB cache clawhammer to 2.4 GHz on a Gigabyte K8NS Pro.

Yow! Is that typical? I wasn't aware that people were running Mobile 64's in desktops successfully. Are the mobile 64's as overclockable as the Mobile Bartons? Do you have to have a noisy CPU fan or noisy case fans to handle an Athlon 64 OC'd to those speeds? Does you MB have PCI locks?

 

[Kaswyn]

Mitch, I know you asked about a mobile 2500+, but you might as well spend $7-10 bucks more and get a mobile 2600+, if you plan on going the non-64 path.

 

[MastarPete]

does the 2600+ do better than the 2500+ or something?

 

[Kaswyn]

does the 2600+ do better than the 2500+ or something?

Oh yeah

And it doesn't cost much more.

 

[The Coolest]

Mitch most current motherboards don't work with mobiles. only the MSI k8N NEO, but its having some quality issues right now. Your best bet is get a NewCastle, which is listed on newegg, and get the epox board, or wait for the DFI

 

[DaveB]

Mitch most current motherboards don't work with mobiles. only the MSI k8N NEO, but its having some quality issues right now. Your best bet is get a NewCastle, which is listed on newegg, and get the epox board, or wait for the DFI

You're saying that only the MSI K8N Neo works with A64 mobile, and is flat out not true.

 

[DaveB]

Yow! Is that typical? I wasn't aware that people were running Mobile 64's in desktops successfully. Are the mobile 64's as overclockable as the Mobile Bartons? Do you have to have a noisy CPU fan or noisy case fans to handle an Athlon 64 OC'd to those speeds? Does you MB have PCI locks?

I used a quiet 2500 RPM Cooler Master 80mm fan on the 948U, so no noise issue. Only a couple more quiet 2500 RPM fans in the box. Yes, the K8NS Pro has AGP and PCI locks. That is a feature of the nForce3 250 chipset.

 

[MastarPete]

@Kaswyn
hmm..
have you tried both, or are you just comparing your resutls with others?
how much more of an OC are we talking about.

actually now that I noticed your sig, that does look pretty good. maybe do a bit better on water eh?
thanks for the tip.

@Mitch..
I wouln't mind going the A64 route myself, but I decided to splurge on a video card, a water setup and good ram, and wait a year or so for A64

 

[The Coolest]

AFAIK, that's the only motherboard that was confirmed to work with mobiles, and it also had problems with them later on.
Please list all the other boards you know of that work with mobiles.
Getting a newcastle isn't a hard thing to do right now, so I see no point in getting a mobile, and risk any incompatibility...

 

[DaveB]

Here's a short list right off the top of my head:

AOpen AK89 Max,
ASRock K8S8X,
Chaintech VNF3-250,
Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro,
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro,
MSI K8N Neo Platinum

All are nForce3 150 or 250 boards except for the ASRock, which is a SiS chipset. There are several humungous threads at other forums on this topic, much of which deals with the flaky nature of the MSI board.