Love your socket 754?

ep1taph said:
Haven't decided what to do with my extra machine. I gutted the dvd combo drive, hard disks, power supply and sound card to use in the new build. I may use it as a normal development machine so I won't be completely devoid of S754.

Felt good to be working with hardware again... felt that rush only a true hardware geek can feel when I opened up the boxes.
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Use it as a fileserver or secondary box for testing, and run folding on it (heck, run folding on the new machine). ;)

As for the hardware box opening joy, well....working in a data center has sort of ruined that for me. :p I open new hardware boxes all the time. :)
 
I doubt that. Get yourself a Penryn box or a new top-of-the-line NVidia card and you'll feel a rush.
 
I fixed up the old computer and gave it to my father. He works for a web development firm and his old home PC was only a 1700+ Athlon XP with 512mb SDRAM and he is really loving the upgrade.

Only cost about $90 after buying some parts from a local Microcenter and it's a huge jump for him, plus the 754 gets to live on.

I forgot, I also have a 754 in my media PC! It will live on... :)
 
tsuehpsyde said:
Use it as a fileserver or secondary box for testing, and run folding on it (heck, run folding on the new machine). ;)

As for the hardware box opening joy, well....working in a data center has sort of ruined that for me. :p I open new hardware boxes all the time. :)
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Yeah - kind of like working in a bakery if you are a baked goods junkie. The thrill is gone after awhile :(:D
 
Hey guys

Somehow my RAM divider got screwed up. I've noticed it default back to AUTO a few times.

I know my chip tops out at 224x12 @ 1.5x HTT.

I got 2GB Kingston HyperX some time ago (KHX3200AK2/2G rated at 2-3-2-6-1 at 2.6v...although I noticed some older reviews say 2.65v. I had settled on 219x12 and cas2 some time ago as I didn't have time to play further.

I'm currently running it at 219x12 amd the 2:1.83 divider. My BIOS says that's DDR400. Memtest and Sisoft Sandra say 188mhz (DDR376). The numbers agree with Memtest. I don't get why my BIOS says 400 when it's really 376. I've tried cranking it higher but it just results in memory errors even at cas 2.5. My memory voltage just shows +.1v, etc...Gigabyte's Easytune shows +.1v = 2.7v so that should be good.

Any advice? I'm a bit confused why the BIOS and Memtest/Sandra/CPU-z don't agree on my RAM speed. And even if I was over 400 I'd expect it would run stable at cas 2.5. I'm testing 219x12 at 2:1.83 at cas 2 right now.

EDIT: I think I get why it says different, the math jives with memtest/cpu-z, but it's annoying. I figured out the memory errors...I had set command rate to 1T. Whoops.
 
Another S754 still going strong. Old rig in my sig now working as a headless dedicated rFactor server for my gaminlg league :)
 
Sorry I couldn't help there GreenMonkey. I was scratching my head on that one. Glad to hear you got it figured out.
Its kind of weird that your ram has to run at 2T though. This Crucial Ballistix I've got will run at 1T all the way up to 278 mhz at CAS 2.5-2-2-8.
 
BigMacAttack said:
Sorry I couldn't help there GreenMonkey. I was scratching my head on that one. Glad to hear you got it figured out.
Its kind of weird that your ram has to run at 2T though. This Crucial Ballistix I've got will run at 1T all the way up to 278 mhz at CAS 2.5-2-2-8.
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I learned this quite a while back. Memory controller issue. The Venice chip runs 8 banks of RAM at DDR400 but it has to be 2T. Older revision chips would only do 8 banks at DDR333 (although I had a board at once point that I got away with it somehow manually clocked up). Single sided 1GB chips would be a different story but they're rare.

It was one of the reasons I stepped up to the Venice 3400+ - I was stuck with 2GB @ DDR333 with my Newcastle. (Eclipse's memory guide mentions this...alt-f search for "single sided sticks" : http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952359 )

Your Ballistix is probably 4-bank 512MB sticks. I remember considering some 4-bank Ballistix but the price at the time I didn't think warranted upgrading my RAM just for the extra speed...and it limited me to 1GB RAM when I wanted to move to 2GB.

My board is just a bit flaky for overclocking anyway. I was running 219x12 and 438mhz RAM last night. Memtest stable but the stupid box doesn't always boot. Don't know why. Annoying.
 
I see on the ram - I'm only running 1 mb (2x512) so yeah, that's probably why.

My motherboard is goofy too (Abit NV8). I can push it on up to a certain level and then it will warm boot but won't cold boot. I can take my 3400+ Venice to 248x11 and it will cold boot anytime - but set it at 250x11, turn it off and come back the next day and - HANG. It won't even get me into the bios. I have to reset the cmos jumper and reset everything. I can't count how many times I've had to do that. Now if I boot at 248x11 and get it all up and running I can reset and oc on up from there - but when it comes time to shut down I have to remember to clock down. It does it on all my Venices at different cpu frequencies depending on which multiplier I am running at the time. I really like the mobo so I have just worked around the issue but it is a pain the the rear.
 
I was going to retire my skt 754 A64 Semprons until discovering ABC@home, a distributed computing project under the Boinc umbrella.

To my pleasant surprise my complete time is over 3x faster on my 3100+ (at 2.33 ghz) running an optimized linux 64 bit client than a P4 3 ghz system running windows.

http://abcathome.com/workunit.php?wuid=5103459

In this example my Sempron even beats a few core2 quads but to their credit they're under a very big handicap ... they're running Vista :)

http://abcathome.com/workunit.php?wuid=5070950
 
Updated my signature since I'm back up and running and added 20mhz to make up for the lost time.;) Timings are still completely loose on the RAM since the new set I got back from Ocz has not been tested much. I don't know if any of you guys saw but at some point somewhat recently Newegg had some of the *new* 2x1GB Ballistix sets. I don't know what the story is on them but I went to the Crucial site and sure enough they are selling 1gb modules of DDR Ballstix again in the new style (the heatspreaders are different so you can easily tell them apart from the old defective generation). Too bad Crucial charges sooo much direct through their site and Newegg had the listing pulled when I checked again last week.
 
Thanks to BigMackAttack's (thank you for all your help ;)) help I went out to buy Venice 3200+ and I love it (it was an upgrade from 2800+ Newcastle). I was able to do easy 240 * 11 @ 1.45V using stock HSF, but I was reaching 61C at load (prime95), so I've listened to BigMackAttack's advise and I'm currently running 220 * 11 @ 1.45V. I'm currently awaiting for used NINJA PLUS Rev.B HSF (which btw I bought used on [H]) to arrive any time now. I hope with it I'll be able to push the CPU to 240-250 * 11 with a reasonable temperature. Also I've added 4 * 120mm Yate Loons to my case (2 for air-in and 2 for air-out) which I control with a switch to run at 8V (using rectifier diodes to drop voltage) or full 12V. Anyways I still have fun playing with it, and I can still play most of the sports games at my monitor's native resolution 1680*1050... i.e. Pro Evolution Soccer 6 !!!!!! :D

Btw...what is the safest temp I should stay with my little Venice 3200+ CPU at load? Is 60C ok? or is it pushing it a little too much?
 
Always a pleasure to help out a fellow skt 754 user :cool:
I like to stay in the mid-upper 50's personally but these things seem to be like Timex watches - they take a licking and keep on ticking! You must also remember that Prime95 will load your cpu a lot more than most games so 61C in Prime95 would equate to maybe 57C in an intense gaming situation.
 
I'm glad to hear others are still enjoying their s754 setups too. For my tasks there is no reason to move beyond s754 at the moment. Heck, I could probably get by with this setup for the next 18 months and be perfectly content. By then quad cores will be in abundance and maybe AMD will be back on top. Who knows what will happen in 18 months. Long live s754! :D
 
BigMacAttack said:
Always a pleasure to help out a fellow skt 754 user :cool:
I like to stay in the mid-upper 50's personally but these things seem to be like Timex watches - they take a licking and keep on ticking! You must also remember that Prime95 will load your cpu a lot more than most games so 61C in Prime95 would equate to maybe 57C in an intense gaming situation.
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Thanks BigMacAttack for the tip. I guess to get most of my current setup I would still need better air HSF. It doesn't look like my Ninja HSF cpu will ever arrive :( Once I get my money back for it, perhaps I'll try again to buy it again from [H] :eek: I've already been scammed by LogitechFreak (Zalman 9500) and now this... :(
 
That suck amd7674. Well LogitechFreak is in jail AFAIK.
I just built (read: completely renevated) a socket 754 e-Machines for my little brother.
I need a better processor for it though. It has:
AMD Sempron 3000+
Asus K8V-VM
2x 1024MB generic DDR-400
HIS Radeon HD3850
 
Well, this is it, Crysis is next to unplayable on a socket 754 processor. This officially takes s754 out of the gamers sector from now on.

All settings at Low (DX9) at 800x600, average framerate is 26FPS
all settings at Very High (DX10) at 1680x1050, average framerate is 25 FPS

And that's on an 8800GTS...so yeah, there's a horrible CPU bottleneck going on. Looks like I'll be jumping ship soon, considering a similar setup to mine with a dual core yields an 80% performance boost. Here's what I have lined up:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186098 - $104 - Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103735 - $63 - Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161030 - $52 - RAM

Grand total after tax, shipping, and rebates is exactly $250. considering I already have a PCIe video card, that's not too bad (and that processor should overclock like mad).
 
Unknown-One said:
Well, this is it, Crysis is next to unplayable on a socket 754 processor. This officially takes s754 out of the gamers sector from now on.

All settings at Low (DX9) at 800x600, average framerate is 26FPS
all settings at Very High (DX10) at 1680x1050, average framerate is 25 FPS

And that's on an 8800GTS...so yeah, there's a horrible CPU bottleneck going on. Looks like I'll be jumping ship soon, considering a similar setup to mine with a dual core yields an 80% performance boost. Here's what I have lined up:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186098 - $104 - Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103735 - $63 - Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161030 - $52 - RAM

Grand total after tax, shipping, and rebates is exactly $250. considering I already have a PCIe video card, that's not too bad (and that processor should overclock like mad).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, however IMHO it all depends on the type of games you like. Myself I find most latest sports games still very much playable on my s754 rig using x850...Madden 2008, NHL 2008, VT3, Pro Evolution Soccer 6 etc. :D

I guess sports games do not require as much juice as latest FPS games...
 
amd7674 - I would recommend an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro from Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125&Tpk=Freezer+64
Its supposed to be a beast of a cooler and you can't beat the price.

I knew Crysis would not run well on a skt 754 cpu no matter how well oc'd from all I've been reading about it. I'm not concerned because my gaming days are all but over. Half-Life Deathmatch was my game of choice back in the day (can't stand HL2 Deathmatch) and my systems ran it perfectly. HL2 single player is also a lot of fun as was FEAR. I had no problems with my current skt 754 rigs in any of these games, but since I really don't have the time for serious gaming anymore I fail to see the need to upgrade. My 3000+ & 3400+ Venices are more than fast enough and my 3700+ Clawhammer still soldiers on at work more than adequately. Besides, I have other things to spend my money on right now.
 
BigMacAttack said:
Besides, I have other things to spend my money on right now.
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Bummer, missing out on some great gaming. I am 37 with a good job, great family, run 4-5 miles 3x a week, play kickball in a 21+ league, and I LOVE to game still, always will. And I won't stop, I'll be fragging one way or the other for along time to come :p
 
Well, when my favorite game went by the wayside (HL Deathmatch) I more or less gave up online gaming. Valve screwed HL2 up so bad I just refuse to play it Deathmatch style (in fact I despise it) so I've gone back to online chess and toying with my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. Plus I still have a lot of things to catch up on around the house as well.
 
Well, there is one thing you can do to get Crysis to run well on a s754 system...turning "Shaders" all the way down from "Very High" to "Medium" is the only thing that will increase minimum framerate. For some reason, everything above Medium causes CPU usage to spike...but anything below "high" looks like crap by comparison, so it's a lose-lose unless you want to play it and have it look like FarCry all the way through.

The "Shaders" setting controls a lot of INI variables, and I'm betting it's just one or two that are causing CPU load to go up. I'm going to fiddle with it and see just how far I can push the settings before processor load spikes.
 
Unknown-One said:
Well, there is one thing you can do to get Crysis to run well on a s754 system...turning "Shaders" all the way down from "Very High" to "Medium" is the only thing that will increase minimum framerate. For some reason, everything above Medium causes CPU usage to spike...but anything below "high" looks like crap by comparison, so it's a lose-lose unless you want to play it and have it look like FarCry all the way through.

The "Shaders" setting controls a lot of INI variables, and I'm betting it's just one or two that are causing CPU load to go up. I'm going to fiddle with it and see just how far I can push the settings before processor load spikes.
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Just push your proc to 3GHz and all will be well :D
 
Unknown - and for us other 754 cheapskates -

If you are looking to do a cheap upgrade to AM2 check out this combo deal:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103774&CMP


AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Processor - Retail

+ 2 GB Corsair DDR-800

$100.99 shipped - $40 rebate = $60.99.

My buddy is giving me a free C2D board but I still hesitated and almost did this. If only I hadn't already bought my 2GB of DDR2 already.


I'm in sort of the same boat as BigMac. My computer room was given to the baby so now my PC is in the bedroom downstairs. No more hours of deathmatches into the wee morning for me. I might have to start getting online FPS games for the 360 and deal with the analog sticks... :eek:

I'm still waiting for a good sub-$100 C2D before I do anything. Maybe in January.
 
ClariorHincHonos said:
Just push your proc to 3GHz and all will be well :D
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That's what you think...my little brothers socket 754 Sempron 64 clocks higher than my Athlon 64 now that we have it on a nice heatsink/fan combo. I got it up to 2.95GHz, booted up Crysis, set everything to low, and the "Minimum FPS" value from the CPU benchmark was still only around 9FPS (as apposed to 7.5FPS @ 2.7GHz).

That's only a 1.5FPS jump per 250MHz increase in speed. Crysis is multi threaded, so adding an extra core helps a boat-load and nearly doubles minimum framerates, combining that with 2GB of DDR2 @ 800MHz in Dual Channel mode should also yield a noticeable performance boost for minimum FPS (and helps kill stuttering with texture streaming turned off, which has the added bonuses of better looking distant textures and reduced CPU load).

I'm hoping to see around 25FPS as a minimum framerate, witch will at least keep Crysis playable when physics and AI go bat-shit insane.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103774&CMP


AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Processor - Retail

+ 2 GB Corsair DDR-800

$100.99 shipped - $40 rebate = $60.99.
Click to expand...
Oug! The second I order everything from ZipZoomFly, newegg strikes with a killer deal >_>

that would take it from $195 after rebates, to 135 after rebates (still ordering the mobo from ZipZoomFly because it's cheaper there). Hmm, should I cancel my order...
 
I have all the parts except a cpu to put together a system..

So I figure as long as I can find a cheap enough processor,I might as well do it.

How much processor would it take to push a ati 9700pro video card?

It is only going to be used for surfing the web,and maybe play some older games like ut99 and bf1942

It is going to be on a biostar board that is good up to about 260htt.

I am thinking of going with one of these from ewiz..

SDA31BX_64 AMD Sempron Processor 3100+* 64bit 754pins, OEM $24.21
SDA30BX_64 AMD Sempron Processor 3000+* 64bit 754pins, OEM $21.63
SDA-3300BA AMD Sempron Processor 3300+* 754pins, OEM $37.08
AX643000 AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+* (2.0GHz) 754pin, OEM $37.08
SDA33BX_64 AMD Sempron Processor 3300+* 64bit 754pins, OEM $26.27


which one would be the best bang for the buck??
 
I'd go with either the Athlon or the 3300 BA, unless those extra couple bucks are a big factor. If you were asking me, I'd go on ebay and pick up a 3200 Venice for ~$35, because that would probably beat both of those. The Athlon 3000 is a 130nm process, meaning it will probably not overclock as well. The BA is, if I recall, a lower-power version of the 3300, which means it would probably overclock very well.

None of these are going to limit your 9700 pro much, unless maybe you are playing something like NFS that is insanely cpu intensive
 
Well guys, I jumped ship and moved on to socket AM2. Got a nice motherboard, 2GB of nice RAM, and an Athlon X2 4200+ that I currently have up to 2.8GHz. I'm pretty sure I can break 3GHz if I get a better cooling solution set up; my BigTyphoon can't be mounted properly on Socket AM2, so I had to half-ass it by taking apart the stock heatsink and using its retention mechanism to attach it to the motherboard...it works, and it's better than stock, but doesn't put enough pressure on the core to get the full potential out of the heatsink.

Now, as for my membership to this club...I wont be leaving any time soon! My old hardware is moving down the line, everything in the house is getting upgraded a notch, and the last Socket-A system I had that was still in operation is getting retired :D.
 
Desdichado said:
<snip> I'd go on ebay and pick up a 3200 Venice for ~$35, <snip>
Click to expand...

Thanks for reminding me about ebay.
The last time I checked(it was a while ago),the 754's were priced way to high.

Checking now, I see the guy selling new 3200's for $35 shipped.
While used one are going for more??? :confused: :p
 
I am really happy with my 754 setup. The sonata case and silent cooler on the 9600pro make this system very nice to work with. I hate how dual core is mainstream though. It makes the 754 feel 'old' technology!

The only negative for this is AGP. New video cards (8800gt, etc). are all PCIe.
 
chrispycrunch said:
I am really happy with my 754 setup. The sonata case and silent cooler on the 9600pro make this system very nice to work with. I hate how dual core is mainstream though. It makes the 754 feel 'old' technology!

The only negative for this is AGP. New video cards (8800gt, etc). are all PCIe.
Click to expand...

As long as the pc is fulfilling all of your needs you're golden. I'm still rockin' the s754 myself and probably will for at least another year. Between school and work there's not much time left to upgrade my PCs.

After finals this week I'm going to try and overclock my 3200+ even further and possibly my 7800gs.
 
I'm currently in the process of selling off my s754 setup. It has served me well tho.

~ Here are the specs ~

- AMD64 3700+ ClawHammer @ stock
- EPoX 8NPA SLi MB *gasp* a s754 MB that takes PCI-e SLi :)
- Corsair 2GB RAM (MB Limit)
- X-Fi XtremeMusic Audio Card
- eVGA 7900GTX 512MB
- Cooler Master Hyper 6 Copper HSF (2 fans)

My only regret is that I never did get a chance to utilize SLi.
My new build will not include a SLi MB so it would of been nice.

Here is a picture of my s754 motherboard.

epoxsli3et4.jpg
 
chrispycrunch said:
I am really happy with my 754 setup. The sonata case and silent cooler on the 9600pro make this system very nice to work with. I hate how dual core is mainstream though. It makes the 754 feel 'old' technology!

The only negative for this is AGP. New video cards (8800gt, etc). are all PCIe.
Click to expand...

Look a little harder. I believe a lot of the new video cards being released are also in AGP flaver as well. They'll cost a bit more than PCI-e, though.
 
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