Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

I wouldnt upgrade your current 3000+, just not worth the extra cash for minimal performance increases.

I have a 3200+ venice and for the last few weeks have been putting my new ram through the paces, and frankly just like the OP found out, its damn near impossible to notice a speed increase in BF2 when overclocking the CPU.

The biggest difference is the increase to 2 GB of ram, other than that 1T, 2T, 2ghz, 2.4ghz, 2.6ghz, memory on a divider, memory 1:1 etc... really has made no differences in game play that are noticible. Sure 3dmark or sandra show huge increases, but such is the nature of synthetic benchmarks.

I would just keep what you have and if you must, upgrade your GPU down the line or wait until early 2007. Honestly the DDR2 AM2 chips are going to be a poor value for anyone with a s939 or fast s754 system. Only the .65nm chips in 2007 hold any promise IMO.

[lil_jimmy_norton]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

anyways, my point in a nutshell was this:
ive seen people get a stable 2.6 ghz out of a winchester 3000+ on air cooling. but were not talking about extreme overclocks here, i think its totally overkill. at some point you have to ask yourself wether the premium HSF (which can cost quite a bit these days), extra case cooling fans, and aggravation couldnt have just been better spent buying a faster chip in the first place. dont even get me started on people who spend $300+ on water cooling to overclock a chip - risk frying it and invalidate their warranty - when they could have practically gotten the faster CPU for that much anyway. or if not then a faster one than what they started wiith that could then be *mildly* overclocked.

It's called a hobby. And in many cases spending the money on cooling it is still more cost effictive.

[Talus]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

Just to update:

I set the FSB to 250 and the CPU speed registered as 2250 MHz and the RAM frequency as 225 MHz. The machine posted fine. Booted into Windows fine (the settings are currently in place). Currently performing Prime95 torture tests.

I don't think I'm going to leave it here...don't feel comfortable OC'ing 4 sticks of ValueSelect RAM this far...

So I'll play with the FSB value until I get 200 MHz on the RAM I think.

CPU-Z is always giving me a RAM frequency of CPU speed / 10. I don't know WHERE the 10 is coming from...

[Talus]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

Prime95 picked up an error..so back I go

I decided to try the 3:2 memory divider with the 240 MHz FSB, and sure enough...CPU-Z gives me a RAM frequency of 196.4 MHz. Close enough. CPU-Z now gives a calculation of CPU / 11. Man, I dunno where it is getting that number from.

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

Prime95 picked up an error..so back I go

I decided to try the 3:2 memory divider with the 240 MHz FSB, and sure enough...CPU-Z gives me a RAM frequency of 196.4 MHz. Close enough. CPU-Z now gives a calculation of CPU / 11. Man, I dunno where it is getting that number from.

Dont worry about the CPU-z number, just worry about the memory speed. Remember a divider on an A64 doesnt really impact performance, because the memory is automatically running on a divider in the most basic sense because its connected directly to the CPU.

[Talus]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

Dont worry about the CPU-z number, just worry about the memory speed. Remember a divider on an A64 doesnt really impact performance, because the memory is automatically running on a divider in the most basic sense because its connected directly to the CPU.

So how else am I supposed to know the actual speed my RAM is currently running at?

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

http://twsmit.com/images/260mhz.jpg

Look at where it says frequency

[LasVegas]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

for alot of experts, someones getting it all wrong, i got a really old 9700pro ati, i got 2 80gb satas, i got an Asus K8NE-64 deluxe, athlon 64-3700, 1.5 gb ram, no lag, no graphix issues, no problems at all, so what is it, my 'old' card, my 'lack' of ram. rofl, it aint nuthin, no problems here - period, so someone is awfully wrong about something! prior to getting the asus and the a64 procssr, i had 1 sata, 2gb ram, redstorm 32bit moboard, and an athlon xp2000, i could run bf2, but only 16/32 player srvrs, and only on lowest settings, now its all on med/high, any size server anywhere, running at 1100x800. so all in all, i'd say the 3700 plus a good 64 bit board will do ya fine, humbug to all the 'experts'

[Blackhearted]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

you could try the next lower ram divider. ddr 266?
running your FSB at 260 and your RAM divider at DDR 266 will end up with around 400mhz DDR. at least i think so, dont have a calc right now, i could be wrong.
if your cpu gets too hot at that speed or you get any errors in prime95 id return it to 240mhz/ddr333. if that worked for you its a nice mild overclock that shouldnt have any drawbacks. 20% speed for free isnt bad at all.

still, im shocked it even posted with valueselect at 225mhz. thats DDR450. valueselect is cheap, reliable RAM - i have it in 2 of my systems - but its generally the *worst* stuff imaginable for overclocking. to have it reach 225mhz, especially without modifying the voltage, is amazing. do you even have heat spreaders on it? :)
im serious, with quality heat spreaders and volt mods i cant even squeeze 5-10 mhz reliably out of mine.

i still dont get the wierd CPU-Z numbers. but i generally trust CPU-Z - if it says your RAM is running at 216mhz id be more inclined to trust that than calculating what it would be running at manually, or what the mobo bios settings tell you it should be. strange - perhaps theres something wrong with your mobo?
you could check your mobo manufacturer's site for BIOS updates, and look in the update notes to see what they fixed. but i am definitely *not* recommending you flash your BIOS unless you have done it before and are completely aware of the risks involved.
you should just mess with the dividers and clock settings a bit till you find something stable you are satisfied with and leave it at that.

[Blackhearted]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

http://twsmit.com/images/260mhz.jpg


Look at where it says frequency

are you using water cooling or do you live in antarctica? your cpu is lower than my ambiant case temp, im skeptical. if youre not using water cooling there is no way it would be that cool under load - perhaps your sensor is misreporting the temp.

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

XP-90 on air cooling with some other noisy 90mm fans in my case. Nothing special really, Venice are known to hit 2.7ghz ish. I can go up to 2.7ghz but it requires an insane ammount of voltage. 2.6 i can run almost stock voltage.

My current delema is that I have 4x sticks of mixed ram. I am trying to sell it off to upgrade to 2x 1GB. So much for practicing what I preach... lol I know the dividers dont matter, and that running 1T or 2T doesnt really impact performance, but i sill yearn for that 1T 1:1 speed... lol


EDIT: That CPU temp is idle, at load its around 38-44*C depending on how warm my room is.

[Talus]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

I am running the latest BIOS (although it's beta) for my motherboard.

I'm now running at 245 FSB with a 3:2 divider giving me a RAM frequency of 200.5 MHz. I'm getting great temps and no Prime95 errors. So that's where I'm going to leave it I think.

I have no RAM heat spreaders or anything and since you don't think the VS RAM is a good candidate for running higher than normal speeds, then I won't bother even though 216 MHz didn't seem to give me any problems.

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

If you have a winchester your probably good to go, but if its a venice as long as your mobo can take it, crank that sucker to 2.4-2.5ghz+

Drop the HTT multiplier to 4x or 3x, put the ram on a divider and see how high you can go. As long as you dont have to increase the voltage too much, they say a 10% increase in voltage is the max you ever want to try, I say take the free performance and run with it.

HTT = 3x
FSB= 266
CPU multiplier = 9
Ram = 143 or (150 if you have an DFi mobo with extended ram settings)

have some fun

[Blackhearted]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

for alot of experts, someones getting it all wrong, i got a really old 9700pro ati, i got 2 80gb satas, i got an Asus K8NE-64 deluxe, athlon 64-3700, 1.5 gb ram, no lag, no graphix issues, no problems at all, so what is it, my 'old' card, my 'lack' of ram. rofl, it aint nuthin, no problems here - period, so someone is awfully wrong about something! prior to getting the asus and the a64 procssr, i had 1 sata, 2gb ram, redstorm 32bit moboard, and an athlon xp2000, i could run bf2, but only 16/32 player srvrs, and only on lowest settings, now its all on med/high, any size server anywhere, running at 1100x800. so all in all, i'd say the 3700 plus a good 64 bit board will do ya fine, humbug to all the 'experts'

a huge part of this is subjective.
ive frequently seen people post their system specs as a P4 2.8ghz, geforce 6600gt, 1gb ram and say they run BF2 at all high settings. or they ask what settings they should run it at and a bunch of kids chime in saying 'crank em all up to high!'

im no expert, but i have a rough idea as to what systems paired with what cards will run at what settings. ive read through many 'what settings do you use' posts and have shaken my head at some of the posts - people running at *far* too optimistic settings that couldnt be getting more than 10-15 FPS. but to them that is considered 'perfectly playable'.
personally i consider <30fps unacceptable. and that generally means you need >50-60FPS average, which will dip to the 30s when the $hit hits the fan in big firefights - and thats when you need smoothness the most.

so no offense, but when someone says 'i have this and this and it runs perfectly fine', i want to see settings and average/min FPS.

and what is someone 'awfully wrong about'?
its been established over and over that beyond a point BF2 is *not* CPU dependant. the difference between an athlon xp 2000 and an athlon 64 3700+ is night and day. an xp 2000 is pitifully below BF2 requirements - not just the recommended, but the minimum requirements (which are very optimistic). you are going from a processor that is far too slow to run BF2 properly to one that is more than adequate. previously your processor was the bottleneck. right now its your vid card - if you swapped your processor for an FX-60 i doubt youd get any significant increase. your argument is hardly conclusive of anything other than that yoou finally have a processor fast enough to run it properly.

the thread was asking whether upgrading from a 3000 to 3700 would yield an increase in BF2 performance and the answer is no, unless you consider 1-2 FPS a noteworthy 'increase'.

[LoD]

Re: Anybody upgraded from an A643000+ to an A643700+ or higher?

^^^

Amen