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AMD Athlon 64 x2 5000+ Black Edition

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bluefightingcat

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Hi,

I building a new machine and I'm on a tight budget. I am also quite new to all this so any advice would be appreciated. Whilst I don't play many games these days I am obsessed with MS Flight Simulator X. I want to build a system that can run MSFS in all its glory. However the catch is it has to be done on a small budget. :shrug: Otherwise I just use my computer for everyday office and multimedia stuff.

So I've bought a Athlon 64 x2 5000+ Black Edition (2.6Ghz) and my intention is to Overclock it. It comes with the multiplier unlocked which helps alot. On Tom's Hardware they got it to about 3.2 Ghz and on xtremesystems forum they got it to 3.7 Ghz both air cooled.

First my question about what accessories to add to it. For the motherboard I've decided that I would get a ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe. This definitely seems like a really great board especially for overclocking. Anyone have any experience with it?

I plan to buy 2 x 512MB Kingston DDR2-800 (PC2-6400). Do you think that this will be enough and overclockable? (Does it make a difference if I get 1x1024 or 2x512?)

I've never overclocked before and whilst I have read about it alot am I a little unsure of myself. So my first question about this is, which should be overclocked first: CPU, motherboard or memory?

With the CPU, when overclocking should I overclock with the multiplier first or should I try and increase the FSB? Or should I increase both together bit by bit?

What stability software should I use to check whethre the machine is stable?

I plan to load XP on the system. And later on Linux Kubuntu (Dual boot).


Any advice would be much appreciated.

BFC
 
Welcome to the forum.

For ram I would rather get 2X1024, you could get some budget ram as well which performs very well, read DDR2 800 and can OC to 1060+.

For mobo I would recommend the Biostar TF560 does 350+ HT and cheap, singlechip design, not hot with good layout.

Regarding the OC.
Have to find the maximum of each component of the system and then figure out the best combination.
Would be faster to OC the ram than just raise the multi.
In my case 10X270 easily beats 14X200 in most cases.

Lower your multi (and the HT multi) push the HTThigh maybe steps of 10 Mhz will do, and test the ram with memtest or orthos.
Then raise the multi and see how far you have to push the cpu.

Check the sticky threads in the general CPU part of the forum.
 
With FSX you will want 2Gb of RAM. The 5000 BE will do fine my 4800 will run FSX at stock. The Biostar TF 560 is a good board just be sure to update to the lataest BIOS to get all the RAM settings. The hard part about building an inexpensive rig for FSX is that it needs either an ATI 2900 or nVidia 8800 level video card to run it at decent settings. I use an nVidia 7600 GT and get low frame rates near cities and airports.
 
FSX is so CPU bound and built on old code from previos FS versions, you need some serious integer performance. The difference between AMD and Intel is huge on this game, even with SP1 it is too heavy for an AMD when you crank up the quality. You may manage to clock that Black high but i would change to E6750 (if you still havent bought all the parts) and clock the crap out of it, you just cant get enough CPU performance for high quality FSX.

And only nvidia screencards for FSX, 7600GT will outperform HD2900XT.
Edit, and +1 to 2GB, you REALLY need it.
 
Last edited:
Look at this for graphicscard:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=857&model2=855&chart=291
FSX is weird this way, but when you think about it, its a low framerate game so it makes sense, you dont need extreme cards to run 25FPS, and to get more than that on high settings you will have to wait for something like a Penryn at 4.5GHz anyway. Surely it helps with a good card in high resolutions and high AA, but a high end card is not as important as fast CPU. Could be different with the DX10 patch, maybe you need 8800GT then.
 
There's an SP1 patch for FSX that is coded now to use multi-cores, as well as other fixes. There was a decent performance improvement, but nothing great. I'd state my gains, but I upgraded my vga drivers at about the same time.

From what I know of the BE, all you have to do is up the multiplier, and they've been running well. I still would recommend doing it in steps. I've seen the testing done and if I recall correctly, its been to 3.2GHz stable before it needed a voltage increase - All while not increasing temperature drastically, if at all. You'll be happy with it for what you plan on doing with it.
 
the 2900 pro which can flash to xt VERY easily is an all around solid card. If you did get into gaming at all, it will serve you well for quite some timie. the 7600gt was a nice card and all, but it needs to die. It is not the card it once was in gaming today.


If you really JUST want to play FSX, grab a 7900GS from the classies. Hell for what they are going for, get 2 for SLI.
 
Hey,

Thanks everyone for the advice. I appreciate it!

It seems that FSX "accelaration" pack will include upgrade (SP2) for DX10. I was wondering how much DX10 will improve performance. I also heard you would need to use VISTA to exploit DX10 to the fullest. Is this true?

Originally I was planning to go with the Nvidia 8800 GT but I will have a look at the ATI. I've also heard that 8800 GT doesn't support DX 10.1. I am not entirely sure whether this is an issue.

I checked prices and in my part of the world 8800GT is cheaper (209€) as opposed to 229€ for the ATI. So I think I will probably stick to the 8800GT. It's a Club 3D card. Does the company making board really effect the performance (eg. Asus vs Club 3d)?

By the way. One more thing. I ordered a 400W power supply. Unfortunately I do not know how much the max 12v, amps are. I was wondering what would you think is the minimum? Would 15amps be enough to run the setup above? Would 12amps work?

BFC
 
Hi,

I was wondering another thing. I use a Radeon 9600 currently. Would I be able to use that? Maybe I could combine it with a new card? Would that be of any benefit? However I don't think it does SLI......

Also would it be better to get say 2 GeForce 7600 instead of one 8800GT? The price is about the same.


BFC
 
Look at the tomshardware results for FSX again, even considering ATI for FSX is wasted. I recommend you take a look at some flightsim forums, dont take my word for it, see for yourself. Do yourself a favor and be objective, dont take fanboy advices, ATI is too far behind in both FSX and FS2004. And you said Kubuntu in the future, that alone is reason enough to stay away from ATI. Going AMD+nvidia might be similar in performance to Intel+ATI, but AMD+ATI? Happy slideshow landings and forget about "run MSFS in all its glory".

SP2 will help as much as SP1, in other words it will help most for those with already good hardware.

Check out the tests over at simhq.com, their hw-guy is the biggest authority on the web in FS hardware. (site seems to be down atm)
 
Hi th3,

Thanks for the advice. You're right. I think I am going to stick with the 8800GT.

Would there be any point of putting in my current board (radeon 9600) along with the 8800GT? Would it increase performance or would it be a dumb idea?

I'll look at the FS forums to see what people are running.

BFC
 
bluefightingcat said:
Hi th3,

Would there be any point of putting in my current board (radeon 9600) along with the 8800GT? Would it increase performance or would it be a dumb idea?
Click to expand...

If I read that right, you want to run those together? I really don't think that is possible.

To answer some of your other questions, FSX is huge, its hungry, and it still dont play that great on the higher machines. The DX10 patch for FSX, no doubt, is for DX10.0. No one has a DX10.1 card out yet, but ATI will later this month with the 3800's. No word form the NV camp on 10.1 cards, but the changes are minimal apparently. Still, ATI has been benching behind nVidia in terms of performance with their cards. Stick with getting the 8800GT. That is the best card to buy at the moment judging by the nVidia forums here on OC. The ATI forums don't seem to be 'abuzz' like the nvidia forum.

Yes you need vista to use DX10. Dx10 is not available in XP. I don't expect a performance increase. I'd even expect a performance decrease as has been true with most games in Vista vs XP.

I used to be an avid simmer as well, and have the past 3 versions. However, with their latest, it really is unplayable IMO at the sub-30 frame rates hardware like mine have been seeing. I went back to fs2004 and installed the user-base mods and textures to make it look great and it runs awesome at 60-70FPS.
 
th3 said:
Look at this for graphicscard:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=857&model2=855&chart=291
FSX is weird this way, but when you think about it, its a low framerate game so it makes sense, you dont need extreme cards to run 25FPS, and to get more than that on high settings you will have to wait for something like a Penryn at 4.5GHz anyway. Surely it helps with a good card in high resolutions and high AA, but a high end card is not as important as fast CPU. Could be different with the DX10 patch, maybe you need 8800GT then.
Click to expand...

That chart does not include the 8800GT though. The 8800GT beats the 8800GTS in almost all the benchmarks. As well it also beats the 2900XT
 
I have tried to mix ATI and nvidia screencards for FS2004 multimonitor setup, never managed to make it work correctly, the drivers conflicted too much. Running two nvidia cards was no problem, but two cards with 3D views puts almost double the strain on the CPU, so its still impossible with FSX.

You can run 2 monitors on a single card without losing a single fps if your screencard is somewhat powerful with enough vram, the performance is real good in horizontal Span mode. When you try to span over 2 GPUs the performance goes straight down to Powerpoint framerates, because you then need to set up separate 3D views for each GPU instead of horizontal span, will be too hard on the CPU.

However, running instruments/GPS/radios on a separate GPU has almost no performance impact, works very well. For best performance and control i found a widescreen for main view + a smaller screen for radios/AP/GPS to be the optimal for me, 2 monitors in span is really annoying as the split view will be right in front of you. And you cant span a third monitor without serious performance loss, thats why hardcore simmers with 3 monitors use Matrox Tripplehead2go and a single more powerful GPU, and the even more hardcore ones use WideFS (for multi-PC setups)

OT: Any of you simmers already bought the Saitek Yoke? I couldnt find info on the elevator axis in/out travel, i know its only around 3 inches on the CH, terrible... If its 5in or more i'll go for the Saitek.
 
Hey,

I was just wondering. I have a 32 inch HD-TV (my normal TV). Would it be possible to run FSX on it? Probably I would have to set the setting done since the resolution is huge but it would actually be really cool.

BFC
 
bluefightingcat said:
Hey,

I was just wondering. I have a 32 inch HD-TV (my normal TV). Would it be possible to run FSX on it? Probably I would have to set the setting done since the resolution is huge but it would actually be really cool.

BFC
Click to expand...

its possible, but considering the 8800 ultra was squeaking out 14-15fps at a much lower res wit the goodies turned on, I dont think its in your best interest for performance.
 
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