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Which core to choose (A64)...

K

karnick

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2004
Messages
183
ok guys heres the deal.. ive been out of the game for a while..... its been about 6 months since i havent had to buy any new hardware... i have a 3000+ newcastle, that shows u how behind i am... but i have a friend who bought a MSI K8N neo2 plat and i am trying to figure out which chip and core to go with for the best overclocks (939 pin of course).... last time i was on the forums i think the winchesters were doing the best.... thanks guys
 
Venice cores run cool and can get some very good overclocks.
 
I have the K8N Neo4 Platinum with Venice 3000+ and my experience has been one of frustration. It's a long story, but I'll try to boil it down to this: The board won't post above 240 FSB. After some extensive searching, I've found that a lot of enthusiasts are complaining about a BIOS bug with this board and Winchester CPUs. Apparently when paired with a Winchester, the board won't post above 220 or 225 FSB. I assume the problem I've been seeing is similar/related to the one with Winchester CPUs.

To work around this problem, I boot my machine at 220FSB and I've set up ClockGen to run at Windows startup, and boost my FSB to 267 in Windows. This gives me a final setting of 267x9 = 2403Mhz, my RAM is on 166Mhz divider for 218.5Mhz at 1T-2.5-3-3-6 timings. I am very happy with the temps (never over 41c under load) and the overclockability of the system. But I am not happy about what appears to be a BIOS bug that MSI will neither acknowledge or offer a solution for. Basically their statement is "it runs at stock, shame on your for trying to overclock .. bad enthusiast!"

So bottom line, the Venice core is a good choice. The MSI board is a good overclocker. But be prepared to do more fiddling than you might have to normally, or consider another board (DFI LanParty is nice I hear.)

MSI K8n Neo4 Platinum (non-SLI)
A64 3000+ Venice @ 2403Mhz
Arctic Cooling Freezer64 HSF
2x512MB Corsair XMS
PowerColor X800XL 256MB
OCZ ModStream 520W PSU
 
A 3000+ or 3200+ Venice would be an awsome place to start. I wouldn't go any further then that with that core, if you've got the cash and want something more, go for a 3700+ SD and the extra cache.

The longer you wait the lower your chances are at a nice overclocker though....MANY of the newer Venice steppings and production dates are producing less then desirable OC's.

If you've got a local shop or a friendly online store you deal with, ask them if they can tell you what steppings they have in stock. 0515's and 0517's were/are typically very nice overclockers...but the newer 0518 and especially 0520 dated chips aren't fairing too well.

EDIT: This should actually be here though...a little more relevant me thinks.
 
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