Asus M3A AM2+ System "Swamp Thing" (56k Warning)

[Methious]

Been there, sun coming up me going to bed.

[Resnik]

Hummm...
You know what i always say Meth..
Post more pics mang..

However..
How do you all feel about the new 3780X2??

I've been puttting off building my new system, in order to save the extra 240 the x2 is gonna cost..

Yeah, i havent really seen any benchmarks comparing the 3870 to the Nvidia GT 640 Meg's however..

The 3870X2 is in my opinion the best bang for your "Big Buck" and $449 Honestly.. Isnt Big Bucks..

But, what do i know?? *snicker*

[jpierce55]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/ ... X2/20.html

[Methious]

Well with all the contests for it popping up around the web I've been reading on the 3870 X2, seems like at higher resolutions it does amazing, in the same class as 8800 ultra xxx. Some sites report that at lower resolutions not so well. Personally I'd be more likely to go single slot dual gpu than Sli or Crossfire right now. If they support it well, and the drivers mature it should be a good card.

Been playing FEAR so I haven't been working on the rig last few, gotta have some recreation time

[Methious]

The hardware bug got me and after testing the mosfet temperatures under heavy load I have a set of self adhesive (thermal tape) heat sink coolers coming for the mosfets. Not to say that under normal use with air cooling the mosfets run abnormally hot, but under water the cpu fan that normally blows on them is no longer there so they might need a little extra heat dissipation. On many non value based board these are covered by a heat pipe. Since I was running low on Thermal compound any way I went ahead and ordered a set.

The setup on this board wouldn't allow for normal mosfet coolers as the mosfets are in between capacitors, so what I have coming to cover them is a set of VGA heat sinks which hopefully will fit as the mosfets on this board seem to be in pairs behind the cpu. Soon as they come in I'll post pics of the install.

[Methious]

Another short update, I have a set of 4 Gig set of OCZ Reaper memory coming for the rig, lower latency 4-4-4-15 rated to run lower with a little tweaking help from the OCZ help forum people. I've been running Mushkin Enhanced 5-5-5-18 but had the chance to sell it, since it was actually rated to run at 1.8v and my board is 1.9v minimum I thought I'd better go for it.

I'll have the Mushkin for a day or two so before I let it out the door. I'll run some tests with it, then run some with the OCZ Reaper and do some comparisons. Hopefully I'll see some performance gains. The Reaper kit if loosened to 5-5-5-18 can run at 1066 which the board is rated to run. Should be fun.

[jpierce55]

Nice ram, what are you stepping away from?

[kenc51]

Another short update, I have a set of 4 Gig set of OCZ Reaper memory coming for the rig, lower latency 4-4-4-15 rated to run lower with a little tweaking help from the OCZ help forum people. I've been running Mushkin Enhanced 5-5-5-18 but had the chance to sell it, since it was actually rated to run at 1.8v and my board is 1.9v minimum I thought I'd better go for it.

I'll have the Mushkin for a day or two so before I let it out the door. I'll run some tests with it, then run some with the OCZ Reaper and do some comparisons. Hopefully I'll see some performance gains. The Reaper kit if loosened to 5-5-5-18 can run at 1066 which the board is rated to run. Should be fun.

Unless I'm mistaken (I could easily be, as I haven't used AMD since sckt939) but AFAIK you're better off trying to get low timings instead of high MHz!
Try CAS3 and tight sub timings, you should see more performance. (this is because of the integrated memory controller)

[jpierce55]

It is a bit of a balancing act. With my Ballistix I can still do cas4 at 428-430mhz and memory performance is much stronger than at cas5 running 457mhz.

[Methious]

Yea tight timings are probably better Ken, I've seen these run at 3-3-3-12 but unless I'm very lucky I won't have the voltage to hold it that tight, if I remember right I can get to 2.25 vdimm and it tops out the voltage. 2.1 vdimm is stock on these at 4-4-4-15, supposed to run at that vdimm at 4-3-3-15. Extended volt protection on these is 2.2 (like they'd know if you over volt them). As long as I can run them FSB at 220 (3.52 Ghz) maybe drop the multiplier a notch and run it higher I'll be happy with them.

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/ ... /index.htm
(2) Matched 1024MB 240 pin DIMM units
Speed: DDR2 800 (PC2-6400)
EPP Timings: 4-3-3-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
Non-EPP Timings: 4-4-4-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)


Figured if nothing else it'd look really cool

[kenc51]

Yea tight timings are probably better Ken, I've seen these run at 3-3-3-12 but unless I'm very lucky I won't have the voltage to hold it that tight, if I remember right I can get to 2.25 vdimm and it tops out the voltage. 2.1 vdimm is stock on these at 4-4-4-15, supposed to run at that vdimm at 4-3-3-15. Extended volt protection on these is 2.2 (like they'd know if you over volt them). As long as I can run them FSB at 220 (3.52 Ghz) maybe drop the multiplier a notch and run it higher I'll be happy with them.

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/ ... /index.htm
(2) Matched 1024MB 240 pin DIMM units
Speed: DDR2 800 (PC2-6400)
EPP Timings: 4-3-3-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
Non-EPP Timings: 4-4-4-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)


Figured if nothing else it'd look really cool

That link is for 2x 1GB kit, not 2x 2GB kit. Which are you getting, 2 or 4GB?

[Methious]

4 gig kit, 2x2gig. Must have picked up the wrong link, I was on about 20 sites reading. EPP profile is the same on these though, 4 gig might produce different results though being harder on the memory controller. Haven't had time to run memtest86 on it before it goes into my machine. He had it in a 1.8v machine and of course it wouldn't boot, then put it behind the old memory and jacked up his XP when the machine tried to boot. I don't think he damaged it but better safe than sorry, I've got the original receipt so if it has to RMA it's not a big deal.

If I find the right set I'll post it's specs up, sorry about the link, and thanks for catching that.

[Methious]

Here's the right specs on the OCZ Reaper, Thanks again to KenC for noticing I picked up the wrong link. Soon as I get some spare time I'll get it tested and in, kinda waiting for the mosfet heat sinks so I can get it all in one shot. They shipped USPS so I might not wait. I went ahead and tweaked the 2 gig set of Mushkin Enhanced I had on hand, it's running at 4-5-4-12 rock stable (5-5-5-12 stock), Sisoft sandra at 8500 at stock, tweaked settings 9100 (rounded down to nearest whole 100, not gonna split hairs with it) After I tweaked I reran LightsMark2006 for fun, at stock on the XFX 8800GT 625/900 I normally run 350 FPS with no over clock. Haven't had time to mess with it much but for some reason (might be unrelated I don't know) the FPS jumped to 360. I repeated the test 6 times in total, 3 at 5-5-5-12 and 3 at 4-5-4-12 and the results were consistent. Be interesting to see if I get any more with the Reaper Ram. The model number of the 2 gig kit of Mushkin Enhanced is 996527, for a value oriented set of ram it over clocks well, and runs pretty good timings.

Time permitting I'll back it down to stock, test on a less GPU oriented bench, and set it to the tighter timings and retest.

Located Here: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/m ... gb_edition

800MHz DDR2
4-4-4-15
(CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
Available in 4GB (2x2048MB)Dual Channel Kits
Unbuffered
OCZ Lifetime Warranty
2.1 Volts
240 Pin DIMM

Special Features

Patent-pending Reaper HPC Heatsink*
2.2V EVP**
EPP-Ready

Part Numbers

4GB (2x2048) D/C Kit PN - OCZ2RPR800C44GK

[Methious]

You know you hate Fedex when you have parts coming and won't even check the tracking because you know their going to lie to you again (mosfet heat sinks shipped).

[Methious]

I finally got the OCZ Reaper trade done, got it tested and installed. Recent ice storm slowed the guy down from picking up his machine but he picked it up today and was happy with it so now I'm drivin some reaper in Swamp Thing.

Here's some test data from the Mushkin kit I was using, and data from the Reaper kit. Pictures are worth a thousand words and more fun so it's pictorial.

Mushkin @ 5-5-5-12 Stock settings @ 3.2 GHZ cpu speed


OCZ Reaper @ 4-4-4-15 Stock Settings @ 3.2 GHZ cpu speed



Mushkin @ 4-5-4-12 Tightened Settings @ 3.2 GHZ cpu speed (timings closer to the stock Reaper timings)


Mushkin @ 5-5-5-12 Stock @ 3.52 GHZ Cpu Speed


Reaper @ 5-5-5-15 Loosened @ 3.52 GHZ Cpu Speed


Reaper @ 5-5-5-15 Stock Timings @ 3.6 Ghz Cpu Speed (Dropped multiplier to 15 raised FSB/HT to 240, lowered HT from 5 to 4, vcore 1.45, vdimm 2.05v)


Previously 3.6 GHZ was a little iffy with the mushkin, with the Reaper and just a few hours (2) I hit 3.6 with a lower multiplier higher FSB/HT with just a little tinkering and timings just slightly loosened. They perform really well at 4-4-4-15 and 5-5-5-15. At 5-5-5-15 they ran well at 1.95v, to hold the tighter timings 4-4-4-15 they needed 2.0v which is .1v below the rated 2.1. I must say I'm impressed and sure that with more time to test and play with timings after they break in I can get them way past the 900mhz I had them at today which was the highest I felt comfortable with having been run that short a period.

Other than performing better than the Mushkin, which for the price was no slouch by any means, they just flat look Phat.

[Methious]

Now a guy can't just say the OCZ Reaper looks Phat with out putting a pic or two on top. It's the OCZ Reaper 2 X 2 Gig Kit that runs at 4-4-4-15 DDR2 PC6400 (800 MHZ). Those timings on a 4 gig kit are pretty amazing for the price range!

Single Module Reaper


Dual Module




Installed






And for the heck of it the place where I keep it caged

[Methious]

Then there's the condemned parts room I pull from, condemned because I've been to busy/lazy to clean it through my tax time rush preparation. I condemned it this past summer after I killed a Copper Head (snake) that crawled out from behind a stack of builders I had in the floor at the time.

Adapters, External Drives, Cable to Port adapters, Cd cleaners, Bag O Ram (about 50 sticks)


Power Supplies, Optical Drives, Cables, Card Readers


Disk Collection (about half of them) Stack of Cpu's on the corner


Last 30 days parts boxes


Test bench totally in need of clearing


Antec Server Tower that needs to go on the covered bench, and extra dolby 5.1 speakers, parts laptop in white bag (it's a Sony anyway)
And oh yea BEER for the parts room mini fridge!


Yea soon as tax season rush is over I'll have time to get my test bench back and straighten it up, if I don't get to close to the mini fridge. That's about a third of the stuff I have stored in there, there's a whole closet of bare bones, a generator, several nail guns, 10 or 12 model rockets, 3 mini helicopters, and a full sized desk, it's pretty tight in there. After tax season though it empties out a lot.

Some of the current crop

[Resnik]

You are the master of all pack Rats.
*chuckle*

All jesting aside, Your rig/Desk is pretty clean..

[Resnik]

Is that a 22'' or a 24'', Dell LCD?

[Methious]

19" on the Dell LCD. Probably sell it out this tax time and go 22 inch. It works and looks nice enough but I'm just not much for Dell any thing. Got it as a quickie replacement for a 19" Acer I've repaired 5 times. Acer didn't survive a move across country well, screen data cable came loose and had to be reseated every month or so taking a couple of hours each time to get it to stop pixelating.