I have decided to go Dothan

[galileo5]

why this forum ALWAYS shows that I am offline? I am online..Well, some time at least.

 

[galileo5]

Thanks Brian.

I'll let you know.

No luck. Anything beyond 1939 results in reboot

Oh well.

 

[Sjaak]

Upon Request, pictures of my rig.

Red = CPU with Asus bare heatsink
Blue = Fans (1x92, 1x120mm @ 6v using coolermaster aerogate 3. absolutely silent)
Green = RAM with heatspreaders. Cooled by 120mm.
Yellow = x800 with 70mm fan set to silent mode
Purple = Harddrives. No fans, just a little bit of airflow from 120mm.

Overall, the only thing that really making noise in my system are the harddrives (whine) and the PSU (slight humming noise). My wires are *slightly* cleaned up, mostly just out of the way of airflow. The thin black one to the bottom of the case is the temp sensor that used to be on my 9800XT but now has no purpose anymore. I run with the sidepanel on at all times now, it helps a good deal in blocking the HDD whine.

Because of the way the case is filled and placed in my room, theres a convection flow from the bottomfront to rear. Even without any casefans theres a steady flow of warm air coming out of the top rear hole and middle grilles. CPU temps are sub 50, RAM sub 45 and VGA sub 70 on full load. I'm loving it

 

[speed bump]

Sjaak any chance you have some bigger pictures than just that Thumbnail?

 

[Sjaak]

Man putfile.com sucks. Gimme a sec.

*edit* fixed

 

[Jimbob7]

Edit, fixed ^^

Scott.

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

What mainboard do you use to get that XP90C on a dothan?

 

[Highlander]

They do run quite warm as you up the vCore and cpu speed though, Saw 66+ load @ 2.8ghz with 1.6v on the stock cooler.... Down to under 40 load now with maze3 fitted though

 

[Jimbob7]

What mainboard do you use to get that XP90C on a dothan?

Not so much the board, but how. I'm not really the person to ask, but no one else has replied yet so I figured i'd show it again. I've never used XP90 so I don't know how it mounts. But theres usually a way around things. There is a 915 chipset mobo which you could use, bit its very hard to come by and costs a lot. Theres probably some info over at Xtreme. Sorry i'm not of much help, just a bump as said.

Scott.

 

[Sjaak]

Whoah, been silent here for awhile.

The past weeks ambient temps here have dropped dramatically (snow, winter and such ) and temps have gone below 35 load now

I'm also very content wiht my new laptop (botom sig, have it for three weeks now), the system (dothan!) is giving me 4hrs of battery time which is amazing considering the size and weight of the thing.

 

[Gautam]

Quiet eh...lets get the pot moving...surely at least one of you Dothan guys can beat me out here. Doesn't need a special clocker for sure.

 

[mtb856]

I have a question for you Dothan guys.... how is the gaming comparatively between your last system and when you switched to a Dothan? I'm debating between a system with a Dothan or getting an Opteron 146.... but I'm leaning towards the Dothan b/c I wouldn't need to buy a new PSU and I'm already familiar with overclocking Intels. Just the same I'd like a little input from you guys about how well your games are running with the Dothan setups.

Anyways, thanks for your input

 

[fordf250]

well My benchmarks are not much diff than my 875p-t with a 640 running 4.32G exept in 3d01 being better.I was told the dothans would give better min fps and it shows.In doom3 my fps is still 92 at 1280x1024 in the demo but when I use fraps and play the game with the 640 when vsync was enabled it ran 60fps till there was smoke, light changes or lots of flashing lights then it always went to 30fps.With the dothan once its over 2800mhz the game stays at 59-60 fps all the time, same gfx card and driver, same max fps but better min fps,other games are the same change min fps way up giving smoother game play.I cant say I was able to push the aa, af or any detail up anymore but game play is better.

There is also a rumor that the x1800 will be an agp card also.

 

[mtb856]

Thanks for the quick reply, that's exactly what I was wondering about

 

[mtb856]

I have a request for you guys.... I'm thinking about building a Dothan setup pretty soon and I was wondering if yall could look at this system I'm thinking of piecing together and maybe make some comments about things I could change or improve on.

CPU: Dothan 1.73 gig 533 FSB - $200
MOBO: Asus P4P800-E Deluxe - $118
RAM: (512x2)OCZ PC3200 Platinum EL Revision 2 - $160
VIDEO: BBA X800XT AIW - $280
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 4 - $28
: CT-479 ~ $50
PSU: Antec TrueControl 550W - Already have from previous system
---------------------------------------------------------------
Total: A little over $800 after shipping


Are there any potential conflicts with these components?

 

[Gautam]

Change the P4P800 to a P4C800-E Deluxe. I've bought three of them and all of them were $105 or cheaper. Look around the classies and eBay.

Although to be perfectly frank, I think an Opteron would be a better idea, mainly because it is a lot more future-proof. Investing as much as you're planning to into AGP is not that practical, considering options such as the ATi X1800XL and nVidia 7800GT. I'm not 100% up to speed, but I don't think a new power supply would be needed.

 

[speed bump]

So tempted to hunt up a P4gd1 and join the dothan action However I wish abit, Asus, or even DFI would come out with a sweet 915p based Dothan board with PCI-e, and DDR2.

Anyway on PSUs it would probably be a pretty smart thing to buy something 24 pin for futureproofing.

 

[Sjaak]

@meatball

Well, when i compared my new system (dothan @ 2.6Ghz) to my old one (p4 @ 4Ghz), FPS's sure took the high ride (with my old 9800XT). Now with the x800...well...see for yourself (bottom sig)

As said, you ARE investing money in older technique. This is how i'm going to solve it for me:

After my current system gets old (or whenever the upgrade rage takes over again, probably in 12- 18 months) it will retire to a silent game server. It's perfect for it, small, silent and hella fast (could even run fanless if underclocked). Heck, i could even make a HTPC out of it.

Also, take these advantages in the equation: If done properly, your rig can be whisper silent with the dothan (even overclocked). That's not something you can easily do with an Opter0n and 939 board. And if you underclock the VGA while not gaming, it will save some serious pennies on the power bill.

 

[mtb856]

@Sjaak

That's exactly what I was thinking..... the Dothan system isn't exactly set for the future, but for me it's around 400 dollars cheaper to build an equivalent system and I don't buy a new computer very often either.

I think I may look around for a used P4C800E DLX, I guess what I'll do is just do the droop mods on it to stabilize the vcore and vdimm.

Really though, I'm not looking for a top of the line system.... I'm a poor college student, so I don't have a whole lot of money to drop on a new system. I'm just looking for something to replace my laptop so I can have something to play UT2k4 and WoW on and not kill my power bill. When it gets too slow to play the new games, I'll just part it out and then buy a complete new system.

Thanks for all of your comments and keep them coming

BTW, would you guys recommend an X800XL AIW or an X800XT AIW? They're about the same price on the egg, but I've heard good things about how well the XL's overclock..... but then again the XT's pretty fast already. What do yall think?

 

[Sjaak]

BTW, would you guys recommend an X800XL AIW or an X800XT AIW? They're about the same price on the egg, but I've heard good things about how well the XL's overclock..... but then again the XT's pretty fast already. What do yall think?

I'd go with the XT myself.