amd vs. intel

[keith]

thanks for the info!
i am going to put together an intel and an amd i think......

I wish my CFO had you're attitude! ;-)

 

[Rob Stow]

hello George and thanks!
[...below...]

George Macdonald wrote:


I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."


I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

And I would disagree on the "Photoshop". I have built several
dual-Opteron boxes for video processing and the owners of those
boxes typically have Xeon boxes too. The feedback I keep getting
is that the employees fight over who gets to use the Opteron
boxes - they are much faster for editting, apply visual effects,
editting the soundtrack, and so on. The Xeons only have an edge
- and often a substantial one - in the vary last phase of
processing the video: the final encoding. And that last
encoding phase doesn't much matter because they can leave it
until the end of the day, and then let it run overnight.

Interesting, but I guess not surprising. Photoshop tends to optimize
for the platform better than most software.

I'm surprised that at the cost of keeping a graphics designer in a chair,
they wouldn't buy a bunch more Optys, if there was that much of a
difference.

The two video shops I do the most work for are both in a
transition from Intel to AMD. They still have a few late model
Xeons because until recently a few people couldn't be convinced
that AMD could ever compete. I wouldn't call them graphics
designers either - although maybe that is what they call
themselves. They seem to do mostly wedding videos, TV
commercials for businesses in the area, training videos, etc.

And this is the last time I use this siggy - getting old and
stale even for me.

 

[Tony Hill]

i found the 640 3.4 ghz which costs more than the motherboard AND cpu i want (the 630 3.4 ghz
is *a bit* more reasonable...)

P4 chips in general are fairly expensive. The cheapest of the LGA775
chips I've seen is the P4 530J, which sells for $184 at
www.newegg.com. For comparison, the faster but more expensive P4 630
sells for $245.

my original plant was to spend (relatively) more on the motherboard (and save a bit on the cpu
until they are cheaper) also i noticed that the 6xx series have prescott cores (which i've
been told create a lot of xs heat)
(although the heat i guess is more related to the process?)

All LGA775 P4 chips use the Prescott core (as are some of the older
Socket 478 chips, eg the P4 3.0E and 3.2E). Intel has pretty much
discontinued their older Northwood chips. They do use more power,
though the 600 series does cut that back a bit with some new
power-saving features.

the mother board (P5GDC-V Deluxe) (lga 775) will supposedly support the 6xx series.
i've heard that there is barely any noticeable difference between for ex: 2.8 ghz and 3.0 ghz)

There isn't much difference. Usually it's best to try and find the
"sweet spot" with processors. Up to a certain clock speed you don't
really pay much extra for the chip. Beyond that sweet spot though the
price starts increasing rapidly without much additional performance.

For example, these days it doesn't make much sense to buy a 2.4GHz P4
because the 2.8 and 3.0GHz chips are only a few dollars more. However
the difference in price between the 3.4GHz 560J and the 3.6GHz 570J is
about $250 for only a very small increase in performance.

(and i read in an overclocking article (i do not plan to oc) that increasing the operating
frequency can cause instability (somehow related to heat) so i'm assuming that the number of
ghz may be related to heat
(i. e. 2.8 ghz would produce less heat than a 3.4 ghz cpu))

All else being equal, yes, that is definitely true.

i guess a pci-e 16x would be 16 * the pci bus?
(iow 16 * 33 mhz)?

Come now, that would be just too simple! :>

PCI-Express is actually TOTALLY different than PCI. Really the only
thing that they share is the name, the technology is quite unrelated.
Where PCI used the "wide and slow" approach (ie 32 or 64-bits wide,
but only at 33 or 66MHz), PCI-Express used the "narrow but fast"
approach. It has an effective clock of 2.5GHz but only 1-bit wide
(for PCI-Express 1x). One of the tricks with PCI-E though is that you
can group a bunch of channels together, so PCI-E 16x has 16 PCI-E 1x
channels grouped together to act as one.

The end result is a whole LOT of bandwidth.

i saw what you mention on the asus Web site
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=P5GDC-V Deluxe&langs=09

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket775/p5gdc-v-d/overview.htm

(but it mentions that one does not need a video card)
looked up this "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900" on intel's Web site and it also mentions
that one doesn't need a video card
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/graphics1/gma900/index.htm
(the reviews (several) discuss the good quality onBoard video chip)

Hmm.. well whaddayaknow.. Even Asus doesn't seem to know what's what.
I went to their Global site, which lists the following specs:

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=164&l1=3&l2=11&l3=25

Same motherboard name as the one you linked to above at their USA
site, but the Global site lists different specs.

I suspect that there is just a typo or two on the Global site, it
certainly wouldn't be the first time that had happened. It certainly
would make sense for the board to have integrated video, usually any
time Asus has a '-V' in their product name it does.

 

[Torbjorn Lindgren]

i guess a pci-e 16x would be 16 * the pci bus?
(iow 16 * 33 mhz)?

No, PCI-E is a fairly different beast from PCI, it narrow and fast
instead of wide/slow. It also has separate upstream and downstream
bandwidth, while PCI/PCI-X/AGP shares this (well, AGP sidebanding has
a narrow separate backchannel, but there it leads to other problems).

PCI-E lanes can be combined as wanted (any power of two up to 32), and
one "lane" is IIRC roughly 256MB/s in each direction. Regular PCI
(32bit/33Mhz) is 132 MB shared up+down, but the requirement to turn
around the bus can reduce this further.

The difference between shared/separate up and down link makes it kind
of hard to give really good figures how the speed relates between
them, it will depend on what it's used for..

BUT.. In practical terms it means that a 1x PCI-E connector is between
2-4x (more likely 2-3x) the speed of a regular PCI bus.

AGP 1x is twice the speed of a regular PCI bus, so the shared speed is
the same as the uplink or downlink speed of a PCI-E 1x. With
sidebanding and better streaming the AGP shouldn't be that much slower
than PCI-E for the same "size".

Note that there tends to be very little actual performance difference
between AGP 4x and 8x, since even AGP 4x is usually enough bandwidth.

This is why most SLI chipsets split the lanes and run PCI-E 8x+8x in
SLI mode (in two PCI-E 16x formfactor slots, among other things the
card gets more power the bigger the slot is).

There's nothing stopping them from building chipsets which has enough
lanes to 16+16+misc PCI-E (at *least* 34 lanes, compared to the
usually 20 in current motherboards), but it will add to cost.

Don't expect to see this in normal boards for a while though, it will
show up in high-end workstation and server boards.

I'm not sure if Intel has revealed any server/workstation chipsets
with enough lanes yet, but Nvidia's upcoming nForce Pro starts with 20
lanes/4 connectors, but fully kitted up it can have 80 lanes/16
connectors (with three "2050 MCP").

Nvidia's suggested "dual processor platform" is 40 lanes/8 connectors,
and I suspect that it's likely to have 16+16 and a bunch of 1x
connectors (and possibly a 4x), this might prod Intel into adding more
lanes.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1087
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2327&p=4
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/PCIe_graphics.mspx

 

[Tanya]

hello Torbjorn.
thanks for replying
[...below...]

No, PCI-E is a fairly different beast from PCI, it narrow and fast
instead of wide/slow. It also has separate upstream and downstream
bandwidth, while PCI/PCI-X/AGP shares this (well, AGP sidebanding has
a narrow separate backchannel, but there it leads to other problems).

i am not sure what pci-e would be good for?
and also pci-e x4 (these seem to be in place of pci's)

PCI-E lanes can be combined as wanted (any power of two up to 32), and
one "lane" is IIRC roughly 256MB/s in each direction. Regular PCI
(32bit/33Mhz) is 132 MB shared up+down, but the requirement to turn
around the bus can reduce this further.

The difference between shared/separate up and down link makes it kind
of hard to give really good figures how the speed relates between
them, it will depend on what it's used for..

i am not concerned w/ the speed -- just the function -- what i can use
them for?
for example: a modem? a parallel port?

BUT.. In practical terms it means that a 1x PCI-E connector is between
2-4x (more likely 2-3x) the speed of a regular PCI bus.

AGP 1x is twice the speed of a regular PCI bus, so the shared speed is
the same as the uplink or downlink speed of a PCI-E 1x. With
sidebanding and better streaming the AGP shouldn't be that much slower
than PCI-E for the same "size".

Note that there tends to be very little actual performance difference
between AGP 4x and 8x, since even AGP 4x is usually enough bandwidth.

thanks i am considering going for an agp video now... (vs. pci-e x16
video)
(the pc i am using right now is onBoard video with 2 mbs video ram - so
anything's an improvement even though the video is fine on this one...)

This is why most SLI chipsets split the lanes and run PCI-E 8x+8x in
SLI mode (in two PCI-E 16x formfactor slots, among other things the
card gets more power the bigger the slot is).

the motherboards with the sli also state that they can be run with 1 video
card (i don't need 2)

There's nothing stopping them from building chipsets which has enough
lanes to 16+16+misc PCI-E (at *least* 34 lanes, compared to the
usually 20 in current motherboards), but it will add to cost.

Don't expect to see this in normal boards for a while though, it will
show up in high-end workstation and server boards.

I'm not sure if Intel has revealed any server/workstation chipsets
with enough lanes yet, but Nvidia's upcoming nForce Pro starts with 20
lanes/4 connectors, but fully kitted up it can have 80 lanes/16
connectors (with three "2050 MCP").

Nvidia's suggested "dual processor platform" is 40 lanes/8 connectors,
and I suspect that it's likely to have 16+16 and a bunch of 1x
connectors (and possibly a 4x), this might prod Intel into adding more
lanes.

ok... is the pci-e x4 for dual? if so i can rule out that motherboard...

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1087
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2327&p=4
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/PCIe_graphics.mspx

thanks again for the reply and for the links!
sincerely,
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi and thanks for answering!

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

thanks for the link!
i don't see a 2.8 ghz 6xx (which is the op freq in the 520)
the 6xx series costs too much right now...
plus the 6xx series have prescott cores (i thought that prescott cores produced xs heat)

The 600 series is the new Prescott with imroved power management; the 500J
series is the previous Prescott which has had some reports of overheating -
presonally I've no experience with it.

i don't know about the 5xx j ones but the included heatsink and fan for the 520 according to
intel (who will supply the 3-year warranty) is sufficient (wrt to heat)

Yes increased frequency increases power draw - faster voltage swings is
more current... and heat.

i think that the above (2.8 ghz) aside from being *relatively* cheap, would be a good chip
thank you
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hello George and thanks!
George Macdonald wrote:

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

And I would disagree on the "Photoshop". I have built several
dual-Opteron boxes for video processing and the owners of those
boxes typically have Xeon boxes too. The feedback I keep getting
is that the employees fight over who gets to use the Opteron
boxes - they are much faster for editting, apply visual effects,
editting the soundtrack, and so on. The Xeons only have an edge
- and often a substantial one - in the vary last phase of
processing the video: the final encoding. And that last
encoding phase doesn't much matter because they can leave it
until the end of the day, and then let it run overnight.

it would seem if the amd's have more instructions per cycle that they would be superior... (at
everything)
i've read about hyperThreading (which seems essentially like 2 cpu's which im<very>ho would
result in more instructions per cycle as well -- except the instructions would have to be the
same...)
i don't know what the final video encoding entails...

thanks,
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

The terms are actually "registered" vx. "unbuffered". Confusing perhaps,
very

but that's the way things tend to be. ;-)

The use of unbeffered or registered isn't a matter of the processor, per
se. Yes, the controller is the real issue. That said, neither AMD64 nor
P4 go either way, by nature. Opterons are designed to be server chips, so
use server DRAM (registered). Athlon64s are intended more for desktops,
thus use unbuffered. Intel isn't much different. Chipsets that are
designed for server use will naturally use registered memory. Those that
aren't, don't.

can any p4's use UNbuffered?
(i thought that registered keeps a registry in the mem chip which keeps track of the
order of data bits and the unbuffered is not used by the amd b/c the chipset is not
involved...)
whereas the p4 (which includes the chipset) off / away from the cpu, uses buffered to
help out the chipset...
(i have to look these up again)
THANKS!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hello George,
[...below...]

SLI is dual PCIe video cards... for top-end gaming. Not a "problem" but a
waste of $$ if that is not your interest - IOW save the $$ for something
else, like a better CPU.

the sli issue seems to be a real problem (for me it uses up a pci (which i
assume i will need) i don't recall sli being an issue when trying to pick an
intel (p4) - supporting board?
?

thanks!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi

I wish my CFO had you're attitude! ;-)

you are lucky your cfo does not!

 

[Tanya]

hi keith,
thanks

...but that wouldn't have given me nearly the opportunity to have some
fun. ;-)



Not a waste at all. Its purpose in life isn't reliability, but
performance. RAID0 does give measurable performance. Is it worth it?
Not in my opinion. Then again, neither is any other RAID, IMO.

i have to look this up -- i thought the point was to save data.......

Yes, virtual memory can get paged out to disk. However, the OS has to
live somewhere. If virtual > real, then much of it too can live on
disk. If virtual = real then the OS *requires* part of the real
memory space to be reserved for it, since there can be no pageing.

Also the I/O has to be in the real address space, since it is sorta
"real". ;-)



Why would you need a video card with on-board SLI? IIRC you don't do
games, so a PCI 2D card woild likely work too.

i don't know -- having a *great* time trying to find a board and the sli issue keeps coming up
no i won't be using the pc for games... it appears that the boards with sli however, have fewer pci's
(i need at least 2) and i do not know what pci-e is for...
i read somewhere that the sli requires a certain brand (type) of video card (i am unsure whether they
are referring to the dual set-up requiring 2 certain types or the vga single setup requiring a certain
video card.)
somewhere else, it states that the default (single) setting can use *any* card.
perhaps agp???

YOY do companies use words like "Deluxe" and "LAMEPARTY" to describe their
technical wares?

lamEparty
the dfi is great for games (again irrelevant) plus it has no parallel port and the bios is supposedly
flaky to work with

Yes, I posted the reference, but I know nothing about it. Search-engines,

you know. ;-)


Good choice. I went for the Opteron nine months ago (wanted the larger
cache) so I'm stuck with registered memory, but Santa brought me a couple
of PC3200 512MB sticks to add to the two 256MB sticks I had originally, so
I'm a happy camper. ;-)

1 thing re: system ram: the asus you posted from the search engines supports ecc mem (i thought that
ecc costs latency?) the other boards do not mention ecc..........


thanks again!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi Tony,
thanks...

i found the 640 3.4 ghz which costs more than the motherboard AND cpu i want (the 630 3.4 ghz
is *a bit* more reasonable...)

P4 chips in general are fairly expensive. The cheapest of the LGA775
chips I've seen is the P4 530J, which sells for $184 at
www.newegg.com. For comparison, the faster but more expensive P4 630
sells for $245.[/QUOTE]

(the one i like is cheap and 520 (i thought the "J" has them running slower -- it could be the
opposite?)

i don't mind the heat issue (intel *assures* me that their packaged heatSink and fan are sufficient
--
i'll be getting the boxed cpu (aka 3-year warranty)

All LGA775 P4 chips use the Prescott core (as are some of the older
Socket 478 chips, eg the P4 3.0E and 3.2E). Intel has pretty much
discontinued their older Northwood chips. They do use more power,
though the 600 series does cut that back a bit with some new
power-saving features.

the power issue -- this is at the cost of the psu? i.e. needing to purchase more *wattage*?

There isn't much difference. Usually it's best to try and find the
"sweet spot" with processors. Up to a certain clock speed you don't
really pay much extra for the chip. Beyond that sweet spot though the
price starts increasing rapidly without much additional performance.

For example, these days it doesn't make much sense to buy a 2.4GHz P4
because the 2.8 and 3.0GHz chips are only a few dollars more. However
the difference in price between the 3.4GHz 560J and the 3.6GHz 570J is
about $250 for only a very small increase in performance.


All else being equal, yes, that is definitely true.


Come now, that would be just too simple! :>
figures...

PCI-Express is actually TOTALLY different than PCI. Really the only
thing that they share is the name, the technology is quite unrelated.
Where PCI used the "wide and slow" approach (ie 32 or 64-bits wide,
but only at 33 or 66MHz), PCI-Express used the "narrow but fast"
approach. It has an effective clock of 2.5GHz but only 1-bit wide
(for PCI-Express 1x). One of the tricks with PCI-E though is that you
can group a bunch of channels together, so PCI-E 16x has 16 PCI-E 1x
channels grouped together to act as one.
?

The end result is a whole LOT of bandwidth.

ok the dfi lanParty board has pci-e x4 -- afaik there seems to be no function for this (no
component) also the pci-e -- what can be used in it?
for example a modem?

Hmm.. well whaddayaknow.. Even Asus doesn't seem to know what's what.
I went to their Global site, which lists the following specs:

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=164&l1=3&l2=11&l3=25

Same motherboard name as the one you linked to above at their USA
site, but the Global site lists different specs.

I suspect that there is just a typo or two on the Global site, it
certainly wouldn't be the first time that had happened. It certainly
would make sense for the board to have integrated video, usually any
time Asus has a '-V' in their product name it does.

the retailer states that it has onboard video...

thank you!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tony Hill]

(the one i like is cheap and 520 (i thought the "J" has them running slower -- it could be the
opposite?)

Ahh, I missed that 520 chip. The 'J' is just the second evaluation of
the Prescott core and doesn't change performance one way or the other.
The 'J' chips add a couple of new power saving features and support
for marking data as non-executable ("NX bit" in AMD lingo, "Execute
Disable Bit" in Intel lingo and "Data Execution Prevention" if you're
talking to Microsoft... all the same thing, just the three companies
can't agree on a name).

This non-executable data bit is a nifty little feature enabled in
WinXP SP2 and some modern versions of Linux that separates out your
data from your executable code. This is done to help prevent one of
the most common sources of hacks and security exploits. While it's no
replacement for a good firewall, it does provide a small extra layer
of defense with no real drawbacks.

In any case, the long story short is that the 520 and 520J are fairly
comparable, though the 520J is a slightly more desirable chip. If
there is a big price advantage with sticking to the 520, then stick
with it. If the prices are about the same, the 520J is a better
choice IMO. Looking at www.newegg.com suggests that the point is kind
of moot since they don't seem to carry the 520J!

i don't mind the heat issue (intel *assures* me that their packaged heatSink and fan are sufficient

And one would hope that they know what they're talking about!

 

[George Macdonald]

hello George,
[...below...]

SLI is dual PCIe video cards... for top-end gaming. Not a "problem" but a
waste of $$ if that is not your interest - IOW save the $$ for something
else, like a better CPU.

the sli issue seems to be a real problem (for me it uses up a pci (which i
assume i will need) i don't recall sli being an issue when trying to pick an
intel (p4) - supporting board?

It's not an "issue" unless you want dual video cards and want to play
complex games at high(est) frame rates. It soon will be available for P4 -
Intel wants it so much that they agreed terms to license the P4 FSB
technology to nVidia. Take this as a sign that Intel is *worried* - they
have lost a *big* portion of the gaming market to Athlon64.

I don't understand how you got diverted into this SLI thingy, nor why it
would be of the slightest interest to you... given you are trying to save a
few $$ on the CPU. SLI is a high-end (expensive) feature for the err,
"ultimate" gaming experience. It is currently available for some Athlon64
mbrds and is planned to be available for upcoming P4 mbrds with the new
nVidia chipset.

There are many Athlon64 s939 mbrds without SLI so just don't look at SLI as
in your list of possibilities for A64. Personally I've had good luck with
MSI mbrds recently (used to buy Asus exclusively) and they have several A64
mbrds based on the nForce4 and ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets. Chaintech
also has a nice nForce4 mbrd for a reasonable price - I've no experience
with it or Chaintech but Tony Hill has tried a Chaintech mbrd and liked it.

 

[Ed]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:04:08 -0500, George Macdonald

There are many Athlon64 s939 mbrds without SLI so just don't look at SLI as
in your list of possibilities for A64. Personally I've had good luck with
MSI mbrds recently (used to buy Asus exclusively) and they have several A64
mbrds based on the nForce4 and ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets. Chaintech
also has a nice nForce4 mbrd for a reasonable price - I've no experience
with it or Chaintech but Tony Hill has tried a Chaintech mbrd and liked it.

I've had a Chaintech VNF3-250 for about 6 months, no problems at all
except CnQ doesn't work, with it enabled it just locks up in Windows.
$75 or $49 for the refurb. (newegg)
Ed

 

[Tanya]

hello George,
[...below...]

hi,

MAGGOT VOMIT wrote:

I am building my first machine and decided to go with the Athlon64
3000+ and the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 MoBo and ordered it last
week and installed them both last night. A friend had some Arctic
Silver5 and so I removed the stock Thermal Paste and used the AS5.

Can't wait to get the other hardware and finish it!! :wink:

Got my MoBo for $173.99 from here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

i was looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 board but the SLI was
possible problem???
thanks

SLI is dual PCIe video cards... for top-end gaming. Not a "problem" but a
waste of $$ if that is not your interest - IOW save the $$ for something
else, like a better CPU.

the sli issue seems to be a real problem (for me it uses up a pci (which i
assume i will need) i don't recall sli being an issue when trying to pick an
intel (p4) - supporting board?

I don't understand how you got diverted into this SLI thingy, nor why it
would be of the slightest interest to you... given you are trying to save a
few $$ on the CPU. SLI is a high-end (expensive) feature for the err,
"ultimate" gaming experience. It is currently available for some Athlon64
mbrds and is planned to be available for upcoming P4 mbrds with the new
nVidia chipset.

it seems that every board which looks good has the sli...i do NOT need 2 video
cards (but the main problem is that the sli boards have fewer pci slots (and i
don't know what pci-e x4 (or pci-e for that matter) are used for))

There are many Athlon64 s939 mbrds without SLI so just don't look at SLI as
in your list of possibilities for A64. Personally I've had good luck with
MSI mbrds recently (used to buy Asus exclusively) and they have several A64
mbrds based on the nForce4 and ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets. Chaintech
also has a nice nForce4 mbrd for a reasonable price - I've no experience
with it or Chaintech but Tony Hill has tried a Chaintech mbrd and liked it.

i'm looking at some chaintech and msi boards...

thanks
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:04:08 -0500, George Macdonald



I've had a Chaintech VNF3-250 for about 6 months, no problems at all
except CnQ doesn't work, with it enabled it just locks up in Windows.
$75 or $49 for the refurb. (newegg)
Ed

hi Ed,
thanks for replying -- i should have specified socket 939 -- the boards however
does look good
thanks,
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Rob Stow]

George Macdonald wrote:

hello George,
[...below...]

George Macdonald wrote:


hi,

MAGGOT VOMIT wrote:


I am building my first machine and decided to go with the Athlon64
3000+ and the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 MoBo and ordered it last
week and installed them both last night. A friend had some Arctic
Silver5 and so I removed the stock Thermal Paste and used the AS5.

Can't wait to get the other hardware and finish it!! :wink:

Got my MoBo for $173.99 from here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

i was looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 board but the SLI was
possible problem???
thanks

SLI is dual PCIe video cards... for top-end gaming. Not a "problem" but a
waste of $$ if that is not your interest - IOW save the $$ for something
else, like a better CPU.

the sli issue seems to be a real problem (for me it uses up a pci (which i
assume i will need) i don't recall sli being an issue when trying to pick an
intel (p4) - supporting board?

I don't understand how you got diverted into this SLI thingy, nor why it
would be of the slightest interest to you... given you are trying to save a
few $$ on the CPU. SLI is a high-end (expensive) feature for the err,
"ultimate" gaming experience. It is currently available for some Athlon64
mbrds and is planned to be available for upcoming P4 mbrds with the new
nVidia chipset.

it seems that every board which looks good has the sli...i do NOT need 2 video
cards (but the main problem is that the sli boards have fewer pci slots (and i
don't know what pci-e x4 (or pci-e for that matter) are used for))

PCI-E means "PCI Express". It is intended to replace the AGP,
PCI, and PCI-X buses that motherboards currently use.

A PCI-E bus between devices, such as between the chipset and the
PCI-E slots on the motherboard, can have 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32
"lanes". If you double the number of lanes, you double the rate
at which the bus can transfer data.

16 lane PCI-E slots are the new standard for video cards.

x2 and x4 would refer to 2 and 4 lane PCI-E slots. They could be
used for high-bandwidth devices like RAID controllers, Gigabit
network cards, video-capture cards, and so on.

x1 slots would be sufficient for devices that need less
bandwidth, such as modems, sound cards, low-end disk controllers,
low-end network cards, additional USB ports, etc.

Other than video cards there are so far very few PCI-E devices
out there. The first RAID controllers are just starting to be
marketed and supposedly gigabit NICs are not far behind.

 

[George Macdonald]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:04:08 -0500, George Macdonald



I've had a Chaintech VNF3-250 for about 6 months, no problems at all
except CnQ doesn't work, with it enabled it just locks up in Windows.
$75 or $49 for the refurb. (newegg)

When you say enabled did you install the CnQ software which comes with the
mbrd? I have it "working" in my MSI K8N Neo2 Plat.but I left it disabled
in BIOS Setup and use the software to turn it on or off as I want.

After 4 months I'm still not 100% confident in it though which is why I
quoted working. Once in that time it randomly and silently turned on
the MSI "Dynamic Overclocking" and hung the system hard, just after I
realized why things were acting weird and the fans were oscillating between
high & low speeds. Other times it seems to run at a lower reported temp
and fan speed for no apparent reason.

IOW I'm not 100% confident in the MSI software, which they call
CoreCenter... just like I'm always suspicious of reported temperature
readings... which CoreCenter obviously relies on. I see that AMD
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html
has a new driver from 12/2004 so possibly that'd help things work better...
and maybe I'll give the AMD software a try but it's dated 9/2003 and says
it's a "Demo".

 

[George Macdonald]

it seems that every board which looks good has the sli...i do NOT need 2 video
cards (but the main problem is that the sli boards have fewer pci slots (and i
don't know what pci-e x4 (or pci-e for that matter) are used for))

Oh no, there are several non-SLI mbrds available - the MSI ATI mbrd also
has integrated graphics, is micro-ATX form factor and has 3 PCI slots.
There are some mfrs, possibly Asus, who have tried to capitalize on the SLI
moniker *and* price, by introducing SLI mbrds first. MSI even has a
barebones nForce4 mbrd Neo4-F for $92. at newEgg which has 4xPCI slots, one
of which also accomodates some special interface for Wi-Fi cards.

PCI-E is the new inter-connect which will eventually replace PCI and
replaces AGP for video interface - PCI-E is a serial interface which comes
in several "lane" widths, x16, x4 & x1 currently, according to bandwidth
requirements. Currently the x16 is the video which has a max bandwidth
which is ~2x that of AGP 8x, x4 is for high bandwidth accessory cards, like
Gbit networking, likely sound cards and x1 is for lower speed devices. The
different physical slot widths look like a nightmare about to happen to me
and it's not quite clear what is going to be desirable in mbrd slot widths
and counts yet; in that respect I see there are PCI-E cards which fit in a
x4 slot but only use two of its lanes so possibly x2 slots will not be
common... we'll see.