Venice 3000 vs. 754 3400

C

chomsky

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
251
Hey guys, I've been looking for a cheap box to replace my shuttle (which is going to be switched over to gentoo) so I hopped on that tiger direct deal a couple weeks back for a 754 3400 for $130, totally unaware of the whole venice core craze. Now I'm not sure if I should sell it and buy a venice 3000+. The only definite I have right now is 512 of a corsair twinx ddr 400, so do you guys think it's worth ditching the 4300 and trying to overclock a venice with this ram past the 3400+ speeds?
 
I personally would make the switch. As long as you are confident you can perform a moderate and solid OC, you should be happier with the Venice. It will also require a socket 939 motherboard, though. Newer tech, but possibly higher price.
 
SO you are going to spend MORE money to ge a chip that may not end up as fast as even the stock 3400??
The only reason to to with the venice right now is that your motherboard will have more upgrade possibilities. Personally, since MB's are pretty cheap, I would do the 3400 for now, then when it comes time to upgrade, sell the 3400/mb as a combo to finance the upgrade.
 
Have you got a decent overclocking (DFI) board sat around? If you dont want to invest in new ram then you wont gain any advantage by going to 939 because you wont get dual channel. Have you overclocked the 754 already? What kind of speeds do you get? Eclipse is prob the best guy to get an opinion of, all knowing guru of A64 overclocking that he is.
 
Davenow said:
SO you are going to spend MORE money to ge a chip that may not end up as fast as even the stock 3400??
Click to expand...

Yes, I would, and in a heartbeat. Please do not forget that a Venice at 2.2ghz is rated at 3500+. Even the worst Winchester's seem to do 2.2/2.3 ghz, and the Venice is an improvement upon that with which the Winchester sometimes let down: the memory controller.

But yes, its undeniable that he is spending more for a slower stock chip. It all depends on who you are and what you value. I personally can't justify spending any money if I can't get the most within my budget. The Venice is an improved chip on an improved socket and offers more performance potential. One stick of RAM will be a hinderance, but is certainly not any slower than single channel 754 and will always have potential to be easily upgraded. And the gamble on a Venice chip for overclocking to 2.5 and beyond is a bet I think I'd take any day.

That being said, the 3400 with a motherboard to match will be a great setup as well. And to simply hold out with that setup and sell it off down the road is another good option. It all depends on how chomsky feels about his options.
 
I don't have a motherboard bought for it so I'm not sure what kinds of speeds to expect out of the 3400, but I'm not really expecting much. I believe it's the newer revision for 754 (not clawhammer, newcastle perhaps?) so I guess it'll probably be running at 2.2 or 2.4 ghz already. As far as upgrading goes I agree in that carrying over the motherboard to a new system isn't a priority. By the time I build something else we'll be so far into x2 that nforce4 would be well on its way out. I guess if people are reaching 4000+ speeds fairly reliably with venice I might have to ditch the 3400 even if I won't benefit from dual channel with s939. Man will I be fuming if I wind up with a dud though.

I think I had my mind made up and I just needed a little bit of persuasion. Thanks for the advice, venice here I come
 
Plus, a Socket 939 motherboard will allow an upgrade path to a dual-core CPU when they get affordable.
 
one question.. why not try your hand with the 3400+
i'd be surprised if you don't get 2.5-2.6ghz unless you have an old old clawhammer.

my opinion? why spend all the money to do something that the stuff you have now should be able to do? ;)
 
Now this is in eclipse's CP, post the numbers on top of the cpu, im sure hell be able to at least give you an idea of how well it should overclock. It might even be the magic stepping.
 
I don't have a motherboard yet so if I wanted to try the 3400 I'd have to buy a 754 and then there isn't really any going back. I don't have the cpu on me but I'll post the numbers when I get home later today and hopefully you guys can tell me some good news
 
Alright, on the top of the cpu it's ada3400aep4ax and it also had these on it : lbazc 0509gpcw , Z614DB2C50270, what do you think?

hah, yea. When I see a deal like that I just jump on it and worry about the components later. After checking ebay I guess it wasn't that good of a deal but it certainly had my heart racing after just building a 3200 system for a friend just a while ago when it was $280
 
an LBAZC?! wow.. i've never seen one of them before. you've got a 2.4ghz newcastle though, made from the 3rd batch on sunday of the 9th week in 2005 :p

i have no idea what the LBAZC stepping does though.. that's really something special. haha, i'll gladly give it a shot and give it back to you, live somewhere near rochester? :D :D
 
Thanks for the info, right down to the batch #, hah. Well I ran the numbers by three other people and we're all pretty positive it says LBAZC. Oddly enough I am a couple hours from rochester but what I'm curious about is if this cpu is already clocked at 2.4 and let's say I can get it to 2.6 which I'd say is about as far as I can reasonably expect to go, that'd be equivalent to about an A64 3700? And a venice at 2.6-8, is that going to be significantly faster?

I mean, 4000+ speeds would be, IMO, considerably faster and I'm not sure what ghz that is on a venice but supposedly it's quite reasonable on air cooling/close to stock vcore, right?
 
i think you would need ~2.5ghz for stock 4000+ speeds with a venice.
amusingly, your 3400+ will have similar performance to a 4000+, as it runs at the same mhz. only difference is the dual channel, which makes little difference, and the extra cache, which also isn't pronounced :D
 
basically, i don't think it would be worth it to get a new cpu and a more expensive mobo to overclock a revE chip when the one you have can probably oc just as well, if not to the same levels, you won't notice the difference between the two. stick with the 3400+ you got, it was a good buy :D
 
Just curious, but does the 3400 have 1mb of cache, of 512kb? That'd make it any easy decision imo.
 
he gave us the opn:
ada3400aep4ax

AX means newcastle
4 means 512kb cache.

question answered. i still think it's not worth spending money on a new cpu :p
 
haha, I think my plan is to throw it on ebay and if it gets 180 or up it'll cover the added costs, if not, I'm sure I'll be happy with it. I don't think I'll be buying another system for at least 2 years (I've put together a shuttle, XP, and dual xeon all in the past year and there's just no need for that) so if I have to front a little bit more for a "no regret" attitude then I don't mind.
 
Well then, here are my thoughts on the matter:

You'll have to oc by, what, 400-600mhz to meet/beat the stock 3400? I just don't see why you'd toss out the 3400 for the 3000 venice just going by performance. Yes, the venice should oc higher, yes it will be cooler and use less power, but it's still rated lower than the 3400 for a reason, and unless you get a good venice chip vs a bad 754 chip, I don't see the 3000 venice winning by any means.

If you think you can sell the 3400 and make enough profit to pay for a motherboard, sure, that makes sense. But if you don't need the money, and are just antsy because you're not getting the newest platform, don't worry. The 3400 will work just fine, unless you want to upgrade to dual core(which doesn't seem to be the case).
 
Andrew_Carr said:
But if you don't need the money, and are just antsy because you're not getting the newest platform, don't worry. The 3400 will work just fine, unless you want to upgrade to dual core(which doesn't seem to be the case).
Click to expand...
i agree. see my sig? :)
 
Alright, You got me. I went to check your sig from your profile (I didn't see it attached to the post) and instead wound up reading through your guides and I'm just going to go and say that you know way more than I do about it and I'll just take your word for it and keep the 754. That said, I've used the MSI boards in the last 3 socket 754s I've built (all of them Neo-FSRs or something like that), and my last question is: any opinions on this board?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130493
 
i'm assuming by that you want a pci-e based video card? msi makes decent overclocking boards. kinda limited on voltage compared to dfi, but they don't have s754 + pci-e, so... :(
 
It's good. Although yeah...PCI-E? Makes sense if you're trying to avoid having to replace the video card as quickly I suppose. Or if you've already got one. But there's no distinct advantages in either direction, AGP is sometimes cheaper to go with but that's about it.
 
Yea, I might not update the cpu for a while but the video card might get a bump sooner rather than later. Thanks for all the advice, I'll post an update when it's built and we'll see how these oddball LBAZC chips perform
 
A lot of Google results are popping up for LBAZC, but none of them post any OC results. However, it looks like all of them are early 05 chips; could it be that LBAZC is an improved or updated version of 2004's CBAZC? Mine is CBAZC 0441, so the pattern certainly could have some validity- if I'm right, expect your CPU to match/beat mine at 2.7G Prime-stable.
 
i too looked, and it turned up some random semr0ns, and i was like "eh?"
2.7ghz would be hot for a 3400+ though, quite hot :D
 
he said he doesnt have a mobo, so theres no real aded expenses in a 939 mobo other than $30 or something. Good luck in your venice/newcastle endevours.
 
Yeah, but he has bought the 3400 already, so he'd have to e-bay that at a loss, and a hassle, just to get something comparable or worse.
 
*Update*
Well, I just got my system together with the 3400 s754 chip and went to overclock it...prime stable at 2506mhz at +.1V! What a dud! So perhaps stay clear of these steppings if you ever come across them.
 
chomsky said:
*Update*
Well, I just got my system together with the 3400 s754 chip and went to overclock it...prime stable at 2506mhz at +.1V! What a dud! So perhaps stay clear of these steppings if you ever come across them.
Click to expand...
Which motherboard? RAM?
 
MSI K8T Neo3, gig corsair 3200, whatever that matched pair was called, twinx?
 
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