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What performance boost would i get

D

deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2003
Messages
2,036
I knew I had an Athlon 2000+ but I didnt know it was a palomino until i looked on a program called CPU-Z. I understand these are the earliest athlon's available am i right?

In december I will be buying a new processor, I want to buy an AMD Athlon 64bit 3500+ 939. Is this a good choice?

What sort of performance boost would i get from this processor i have now, to this 3500?
 
You would get a huge performance boost over what you have. Look how the socket-939 processors go in the Doom3 guide over the other processors and you will agree.
Remember: You'll have to buy a new mobo to get that processor - you can't just buy the chip and try to use it on your current CPU's mobo. And you will need new RAM - socket 939's require buffered ECC-RAM. Keep that in mind.
 
Oh what!?

I understand i will need a new Motherboard but new RAM too? how so? why wouldnt my pc3200 ram work in it? Oh no!
 
Sorry to break the bad news to you...
but they require ECC RAM. Don't know the reason, I just know it.

EDIT: AMD's web site states it will support PC3200 registered RAM (ie ECC).
 
PC3200 registered ? whats that? mine is PC3200 but i dont know if its registered or not, what does that mean?
 
deadman_uk said:
PC3200 registered ? whats that? mine is PC3200 but i dont know if its registered or not, what does that mean?
Click to expand...

It means ECC-RAM. I think its because they designed it for use in servers - they need ECC-RAM to make sure there are no errors.
I think you can check what type your RAM is, try SiSoft Sandra. I'd reckon that you would have non-ECC RAM in your current system.
 
I have sandra 2004, but not sure where to look to see if i have ECC ram.... any ideas?
 
Try the RAM module (or something like that). Or try the motherboard/BIOS module, that will tell you if your mobo is capable of ECC or not.
 
I cant see it anywhere in sandra.

Anyone else know how to find out if my memory is ECC or not?
 
4keatimj said:
And you will need new RAM - socket 939's require buffered ECC-RAM. Keep that in mind.
Click to expand...

Socket 939 doesn't require ECC RAM. If you were wondering where the extra pin went when they went from Socket 940 to Socket 939, that is essentially the absence of the ECC pin for the RAM.

The big deal with Socket 939 was it could run regular non-ECC RAM in a dual-channel configuration.

As long as you have a pair of matched DDR DIMM's running at PC3200 or higher, you should be fine.
 
Buckus said:
Socket 939 doesn't require ECC RAM. If you were wondering where the extra pin went when they went from Socket 940 to Socket 939, that is essentially the absence of the ECC pin for the RAM.

The big deal with Socket 939 was it could run regular non-ECC RAM in a dual-channel configuration.

As long as you have a pair of matched DDR DIMM's running at PC3200 or higher, you should be fine.
Click to expand...


hes right, ECC was req'd for 940, not 939. you will requre a new mobo, but that pc3200 you have will be fine
 
Oh great news then, thats saved me a lot of money, i bought pc3200 a few years ago because i was told it is alot more future proof than if i got pc2700 so i guess the guy who told me this was correct.

As long as you have a pair of matched DDR DIMM's running at PC3200 or higher, you should be fine.
Click to expand...

What do you mean matched DDR DIMM's?
 
he means 2 of the same exact brand and model sticks of pc 3200 ram for the dual channel config, dont know if dual channel its required tho
 
I bought 1 stick of ram (512) and then much later i got another 512 stick, both from the same shop. CPU-Z said one of my sticks is Micron Technology ram, it doesnt know the brand of the other stick but both sticks it says at pc3200.

So can i run a Athlon 64bit 3500+ 939 with this ram or not?
 
dont know, but i wouldnt be so sure of using them dual channel, since they seem to be diferent...i dont have much knowledge of AMD newer systems
 
It shouldnt matter whether they are different brands should it? i mean they both run at pc3200, i might make a post later, a new thread and ill post on a few more forums to find out the answer.
 
it does matter, when its gonna be a dual channel setup that is, its gotta be same ram, same brand, same modules, its important, thats why most companies sell dual channel kits, with 2 sticks of identical and tested ram, to assure it will work, if you want more info on dual channel and memory in general theres a post on the memory forum called memory 101 i think, its got very useful info on ram
 
When i get a new cpu and motherboard, because I cant fit it myself, ill have to ask the shop and see if they can test my ram with what i just bought. They should know if it will work or not.
 
deadman_uk said:
When i get a new cpu and motherboard, because I cant fit it myself, ill have to ask the shop and see if they can test my ram with what i just bought. They should know if it will work or not.
Click to expand...
Even if the sticks you have don't work in dual channel, you will still be able to run it, just not in dual channel. Correct me if I'm wrong
smile.gif


But I got one question. Will a 940 pin cpu with registered and ECC ram perform better than a 939 cpu with registered and ECC ram?
 
Buckus said:
Socket 939 doesn't require ECC RAM. If you were wondering where the extra pin went when they went from Socket 940 to Socket 939, that is essentially the absence of the ECC pin for the RAM.
Click to expand...

Well, no. Both packages expose MEMCHECK[0:15], though they expose the signals on different pins.

The 939 doesn't require ECC RAM. But it can still use it, and therefore still has "the ECC pin for the RAM", whatever that's supposed to mean. There's not a single signal between the motherboard and the processor for ECC; there's one pin per eight bits of data bus width.

See the 940-pin datasheet and the 939-pin datasheet at the AMD website.

.B ekiM
 
ChingChang said:
Even if the sticks you have don't work in dual channel, you will still be able to run it, just not in dual channel. Correct me if I'm wrong
smile.gif


But I got one question. Will a 940 pin cpu with registered and ECC ram perform better than a 939 cpu with registered and ECC ram?
Click to expand...

i think those intitial benchies [H]ard did of 939 showed that it was actually faster than(and much less expensive than... damn that ECC registered ram!) the 940 boards
 
All this talk about ECC ram got me thinking... exactly what errors would it correct?
smile.gif
 
ChingChang said:
All this talk about ECC ram got me thinking... exactly what errors would it correct?
smile.gif
Click to expand...

It doesn't correct any. It's up to the supporting hardware to do the detection and correction, either in the processor or in the memory controller.

Most consumer-available implementations will use extra bits of memory per word. If I remember right, memory with a 64-bit width uses 8 exta bits, and 32-bit wid memory uses 4 extra bits bits. (Er, but maybe it's 9 bits and 5 bits. Uh, or maybe I just can't remember.)

The hardware reads a word (whatever width) from the data part, then looks at the bits it stored in the check values. If the check values don't match the read word, then the controller tries to figure out what happened. Maybe there was a single bit; the processor has enough information to figure out which bit is wrong and fix it.

Maybe there was more than one bit in error, or maybe there was an error in the check. If so, the system actually rasises an error because it knows there's a memory problem, but it can't fix it.

.B ekiM
 
BTW, the Palomino isn't the first athlon. It goes (correct me if I'm, wrong): Thunderbird (900mhz - 1.4 ghz), Palomino (1600 - 2100), Throughbred (1700 - 2400), Barton (2500 - 3200), now its A64 (I cant remember all the names, newcastle is one)
 
Sorry guys, I must of got confused. There was another thread about the 939 requiring ECC RAM, and I read a review of the 939 and it said it needed ECC RAM. Funnily enough, I looked it up on the AMD website and it said it required REGISTERED RAM - I obviously got the meaning wrong. Sorry.
 
wangFu said:
it does matter, when its gonna be a dual channel setup that is, its gotta be same ram, same brand, same modules, its important, thats why most companies sell dual channel kits, with 2 sticks of identical and tested ram, to assure it will work, if you want more info on dual channel and memory in general theres a post on the memory forum called memory 101 i think, its got very useful info on ram
Click to expand...

Actually, that's not true. They only need be the same size and running at the same speed. There is a much higher probability that they will overclock while running in dual channel mode if they are completely matched sticks. As others have said the computer will still work fine in non-dual channel mode, but there will be a slight performance hit in memory intensive applications.


From the FAQ:
Take note that the memory isn't dual channel, the platform is. In fact there is no such thing as dual channel memory. Rather, it is most often a memory interface composed of two (or more) normal memory modules coordinated by the chipset on the motherboard, or in the case of the AMD64 processors, coordinated by the integrated memory controller. But for the sake of simplicity, we refer to DDR dual channel architecture as dual channel memory.

Dual Channel requires at least two modules for operation. It is recommended that the modules you use be of the same size, speed, arrangement etc. Dual Channel is optional on the original nforce2 motherboards and nforce2 ultra400. You can choose to run in single channel mode on these motherboards. Nforce2 400 boards are singe-channel only. Most dual channel capable nforce2 motherboards come with three slots. On these motherboards the first memory controller controls only the first slot (or the slot by itself), while the second memory controller controls the last two slots (which are usually closer together). Name them slots 1, 2 & 3 respectively. To implement Dual Channel, it is necessary to occupy the slot 1 (channel 0) and either one of the two slots that are closer together, slots 2 or 3 (channel 1). The entire config would be running in 128 bit mode.

You can use three modules in Dual Channel Mode, by filling the third unoccupied slot. With three sticks, slots 1 remains as channel 0 while slot 2&3 become channel 1. To maintain 128-bit mode, with all three slots filled, each channel must have an equal amount of memory. For example, slots 1 should be filled with a 512 Mb module, while slots 2 & 3 are populated 256 Mb modules. If you were to use three modules of the same size, then only the first two modules would be running in 128 bit Dual Channel Mode. Example, using 3x 256 Mb modules will have the first 512 Mb running in 128 bit Dual Channel mode, while the remaining 256 Mb will be in 64-bit Single Channel mode.

Intel dual-channel systems are different. The have either two or four slots, and to run dual channel mode must have either one or two pairs of (hopefully) matching modules. Running three modules on a P4 system will force it to run in single channel mode, and is therefore to be avoided.
 
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