got one of those newfangled NForce boards

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 6:44 am

bought 'em myself -

i will need to upgrade my hsf or at least put a bigger fan on the drthermal - when i was running the 1600 @ 155 I got one thermal shutdown from the mobo - i had it set at 60 C

is the board you're getting the one with all the bells and whistles ?

it has been well reviewed

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 10:10 pm

ed, lmk how you do with the memory - it's the mushkin $149 pc3200 - right

i have one stick of that and one stick of samsung 2700 -

I know you want the grill - make me an offer!

chottoED · Post by **chottoED** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 10:19 pm

i'll let you know how it goes this weekend

as for the grill, i've already got an extra large one

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:01 pm

I got one of the Asus Deluxe versions of the nForce 2 chip. Very nice

I enjoy it.

chottoED · Post by **chottoED** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 1:05 pm

bubsy, what settings are you using for your cpu and memory? also what version BIOS are you using?

so far here's my results:
13000 on 3Dmark 2001SE
w/ the following:

TBred A XP1800+ @ 10.5 x 180MHz on SLK800 with Vantec Smart Fan
CPU voltage - 1.75v (capped at 1.75v)
Memory - 6-3-3-2.5 @ 180MHz (synched)
Memory Voltage - 2.6v
AGP locked at 66MHz
AGP voltage - 1.5v

wv, looks like that's pretty much what the TBred A's cap at.. guess the memory prolly wasn't the cap.
I've heard that running the memory synched to the FSB = increased performance, any truth to that?
I've still yet to fully run a vigorous stress test on those settings but they made it through a run of 3Dmark.. we'll see later on tonight
Gotta say, it's mighty fast though.
I've gotta reinstall my OS cuz WinXP kept bombing out during the repair due to my Handspring software (bombs on palmusbd.sys). Oh well.. I needed to clean out my OS anyways, now I've no excuse to hold it off.

Jen · Post by **Jen** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 7:41 pm

Hi John

how is the week 50 chip doing ?

Jen

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 9:44 pm

wvjohn: I remembered reading this thread back in December, and more recently, many postings in other forums and web sites - this Epox EP-8RDA+ is an incredible motherboard! So, last night I started down the road to poverty - I ordered this motherboard and the Athlon XP 2100+ (t-bred B) from newegg.com for about $210, and the Thermalright SLK-900 from the Heatsink Factory for about $62 (all including shipping / handling). Why the SLK-900, and why from the Heatsink Factory? Well, I read a review of the heatsink here: http://www.systemcooling.com/modules.ph ... le&sid=401 , and they said it mounts to this particular EPOX motherboard just fine. If you search for folks that have this heatsink right now, you will have a hard time finding one elsewhere! I don't want to run my fan (either a Vantec Stealth 92mm or 80mm) at high speeds - I want a fairly quiet system. If I need more airflow, I might go with an 80mm fan up to 3200 RPM, but I'm not going up to Delta speeds (5000 RPM+).

Ok, before this stuff arrives, I need to determine what memory I should use to overclock this special CPU a good amount. For right now, I can get by with a stick of PNY 2100 DDR that I got for free, but I'm thinking that 2 sticks of 256 MB 3200 DDR CAS 2.0 from a good manufacturer is the way to go. I could use some suggestions, because I have read that some people have had issues with incompatibilities of certain manufacturer's memory sticks - lockups, poor overclocking performance, etc.

A videocard will be necessary soon too, but I can wait a month for that. Perhaps a Geforce4 Ti4600, but I don't want to spend more than $200 if I can avoid it. I already have two Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB cards in other systems.

Anyway - how about some pointers or links to a smart memory purchase?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 10:22 pm

al, you're gonna like it.

because the baord locks down the agp and pci bus, you have a little more play in the memory i think

nforce 1 - currently 2100+ b tbred @2335@1.75v 13.5x172

512 muskkin value pc3200/512 samsung 2700

this fsb speed is the sweet spot for this rig

with only the pc3200 i've gotten boot and sandra benches run at 210 fsb - but not stable in fah

this setup is 98% stable at 2405 - i am running the mem at like 7-3-3-3

nforce2 2x256 mushkin pc3000 - currently running 1800+ 10.5x166=1750 6-2-2-2.5 1,75 v.

you can run good ram faster !

prices are falling hard right now so i would look for some quality pc3000 or 3200 - muskin, corsair or similar - there is not real advantage to ramping the bus speed up if you have to loosen the memory too far - a lot of the 3200/3500 stuff is only guaranteed to cas 3 - there are sales all over the boards right now - cheapest i've seen is 512 kingson 2700 for $75 whihc is cas 3 stuff , but still tempting at the price. the people that are running over about 2.4 are using esoteric cooling which is just too noisy or espensive

my 2.35 rig uses a dr thermal with a 5500 rpm fan
my 1.75 rig uses a volvano6 cu with a 5000 rpm
wife's rig will use an sk6 with a three speed fan or a volcano7 (it's awfully big)

you will also need to pull the heatsink on the northbridge, scrape off the thermal pad, and put on some ASIII or similar. for high fsb it need additional cooling - i have 80 mm case fans in both of mine blowing on the mobo and northbridge, which helps a lot

depending on what chip you get, you should be in the ~2.3 ghz range with minimal effort

nforce3 is sitting on my desk at work too - that will be the wife's box so it will only have pc2100 probably - i've got a 1700+ for it - should end up about 1.65 ghz

i spend hours trying to trouble shoot the shuttle ak35gt2 i was going to give to her, finally said F* it and ordered one more for her system - i am very impressed by the quality, stability and ease of setup on these boards

remember you can only install drivers and flas the bios when using the "optimal settings"

report in as soon as she's up and running!

chak22 · Post by **chak22** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 10:38 pm

I would recommend Twinmoss/winbond 3200 memory I have it in my 8RDA and I am currently running at 12.5x177 @2223 mhz I have had no problems thus far (well except for windows 98) and I am working it up slowly, I purchased it from MemoryX it runs about for a 256 mb stick , make sure its the one using the WINBOND chip

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 10:42 pm

Thanks for the memory suggestions and performance settings. I'll be looking carefully at the market over the coming week before making my decision - unless some special deal pops up. I would prefer to stay below $150 if I can swing it.

I don't understand how this board can ignore the multiplier lock on the CPU. Why don't I have to unlock the CPU with the conductive paste on the L-whatever bridges? That is perhaps the most surprising thing I have heard so far about this board. The most pleasing aspect was the lock down on the PCI and AGP busses.:tongue

chak22 · Post by **chak22** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 10:47 pm

OOPS I forgot the price ...its $76 [url=http://]http://www.memoryx.net/[/url]

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:06 pm

Yeah, I found it here: http://store.yahoo.com/memx/gn256pc3200.html , and it's $76 for each stick plus shipping / handling. That's pretty good, but I'm going to wait a few more days and keep my eyes open. Thanks chak22, wvjohn, and of course.....PreDatoR (in this thread: http://www.pcabusers.com/forums/showthr ... adid=24803 ).

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Feb 21, 2003 6:29 am

they just danced around the multi lock in hw on the mobo

for tbreds anyway - makes it a whole lot easier to find the sweet spot! memory prices seem to be bottoming out now - xmas surplus probably - you can get 1 gig for 110 (see blades post in deals) - good pc3200 2 x 256 for $100 - last night i noticed that geil 3200 was down to ~$60 at newegg - i have s tick of that i got as a replacement for some (: CZ stuff that died - haven't tried it but i've seen reviews where it did 220 fsb - may be possible this weekend with some digging, esp if you have access to any of the big chains and can go in and check the chips

PCA Forums

got one of those newfangled NForce boards

Whoops....I did it again!

Thanks.

I was just searching for it....