Lots of great 939 procs out now, but you may be best to hold tight for a few more weeks. The new Venice 90nm cores will be hitting the shelves soon, and early indications show that these should be the best bang for the buck in overclocking.
The 939 Winchester 90nm cores were the best, however the newer chips have been very poor in terms of overclocking headroom, compared to the chips pre-christmas 2004. If you can find a week 47-50 chip, they do pretty well, but unless you can actually inspect the chip before buying, chances are you'll get a newer 05 chip from most large retailers.
There is a new 130nm 3500+ chip out, the product code has 'AS' in the number. These are essentially A64 4000+ and FX55 chips that did not make the cut, they have half of the L2 cache disabled, for a total of 512K, and downclocked to 2.2GHz. Some of the CAA2C steppings seem to be doing really well. Most will do 2.6GHz without much extra voltage, and some of the lucky buyers have been getting 2.7-2.9GHz with good cooling. These chips run hotter than the winchesters, so that is also a key factor (good cooling a must).
The DFI NF4 boards are currently hold the 939 overclocking crown, however they are picky boards, and it will take A LOT of work and tweaking to get them to behave the way you want them. Lots of tweakability there. I've been very happy with my NF4 ultra -D. On a negative note, you'll have to migrate to PCI-Express graphics card with one of these boards. If you want to keep your AGP card, the MSI Neo2 NF3 would be a good bet, although I dont have any experience with that board. There is also an Epox NF3 250GB board that is fairing well..
I notice you have BH5, are you planning to bring that over to your A64 rig? You should be able to push that much higher than you do currently on the 939 platform
Yeah. I'll be keeping the BH-5. I about o buy another 512MB corsair BH-5 stick, for a total of 1024MB.
I would stay away from multiple DIMMs. If you use three DIMMs, you will have to give up dual channel operation. Using more than two DIMMs on the 939 platform will also be much harder on the memory controller, and will more than likely limit your overclock. 2x256 BH-5 should overclock really well on 939 (especially with the DFI, which allows very high vdimm). If you want to move to 1GB, I would sell off your BH-5 (which is actually worth a lot of money these days) and pick up a matched pair of 512MB sticks. You'll be much better off that way.
Are early chip on new cores better?
Hard to tell if the early/initial chips (venice/san diego) will OC better than the ones coming out in future weeks. It usually works opposite to that. I know when the newcastles hit the scenes, the later weeks did much better than the early ones. As a general rule of thumb, newer, later produced cores OC better, however as we have seen with Winchester, this is certainly not always the case.. Luck of the draw sometimes I'm afraid. Chips with identical steppings often perform very differently.
Those twinmos dimms you linked use the 'UTT' ic's which are not BH5, but behave in the same 'voltage scaling' behavior. You'll need 3.2+ volts to really bring that memory out of it's shell. Beware, some of those twinmos 512's are not using the UTT ic's. If you want a guarantee of getting 'good' voltage scaling ic's, check out the OCZ Gold VX series of memory. A little more expensive, but they pretty much all do 250FSB at 2-2-2-5 with 3.5Volts.
If you prefer high FSB, TCCD is still where-its-at. OCZ Platinum Rev.2 PC3200 is a good choice, as well as some of GSkills' offerings. TCCD has the potential to do 300+MHz FSB (DDR600) with some loose timings.
Unfortunatly, many A64 chips have limiting memory controllers, so reaching 300+ MHz at a decent cpu overclock is difficult. Hopefully the new venice memory controller improvements will help. There was some testing being done at XS, and it seems that the new 3500+ venice didn't have any trouble operating at 320MHz 1:1!. My winchester for example will not clock well with anything above 260MHz 1:1 unless I use a low multiplier.
TCCD has been discontinued by samsung, so they will become more and more scarce. Thankfully these new UTT and similar chips are in huge supply, and turning up in all sorts of value ram (even one of OCZ's value ram products are using these unbinned VX chips, but you have to check the product code). Just remember, that if you dont have a DFI NF4/3 board, you'll pretty much have to get an OCZ DDR booster to take advantage of that memory. TCCD only requires 2.7-2.9volts, so you should be fine with that..
Definatly get 2x512 over any other combination of three sticks.. You'll get much better overclocks, and dual channel operation (which does make a difference of 10-15% in A64, as opposed to NF2, where the improvement is almost nil).
Those twinmos dimms you linked use the 'UTT' ic's which are not BH5, but behave in the same 'voltage scaling' behavior. You'll need 3.2+ volts to really bring that memory out of it's shell. Beware, some of those twinmos 512's are not using the UTT ic's. If you want a guarantee of getting 'good' voltage scaling ic's, check out the OCZ Gold VX series of memory. A little more expensive, but they pretty much all do 250FSB at 2-2-2-5 with 3.5Volts.
Twinmos BH-5 & CH-5 is back, Komplett had them in stock last week but it sold out very quickly. They claim they're getting more in stock but they've put the price up. Also the CH-5 stuff is supposed to be alot better than the old ch-5.
Thanks for the link. The price is £46.00 now for TwinMOS Speed Premium PC3500 512MB CL2.5 Winbond BH-5, 32*8/16chip, 433mhz, 184-P, what was it before?
As far as I know, the only retail mainboard that gives 3.5 volts in the DFI Lanparty NF4 boards. Without that board, you'll need to get an OCZ DDR Booster, which in some cases, can provide up to 3.9 volts. Unfortunatly, not all boards work with the booster, so you'd have to check with OCZ first.
Thanks for the link. The price is £46.00 now for TwinMOS Speed Premium PC3500 512MB CL2.5 Winbond BH-5, 32*8/16chip, 433mhz, 184-P, what was it before?
Thanks.
Well when I linked to it I think it was around £50 so it looks like the price has gone down again, but originally it was £43 iirc.
Brainpower is just a non JDEC standard PCB, which is supposed to allow for better overclocking, and better tolerance for higher voltages. Most OCZ products are produced on Brainpower PCB. TCCD modules on Brainpower PCB for example are usually better overclockers than standard jdec pcb.
Having had a brief scan of posts over at xtremesystems the Twinmos stuff you're linking to at Newegg is no longer Winbond UTT.
Also BH-5, like UTT, is only really good once you start pumping loads of volts through it, but I guess you're familiar with that as you have some already.
Does anyone know if the OCZ DDR Booster Diagnostic device is compatible with the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe 2.0?
Since I can only give it 2.9V max, the overclock isn't looking too good
On my Corsair BH-5, I could give it 2.9V and get up to 235MHz with 2-2-2-11, on the Twimos BH-5 i'm giving it 2.9V and it's struggling to do 225Mhz at 2-2-2-11.
The new BH-5 must need more juice to get higher overclocks.
But i've heard that only a few of the old BH-5's did 250Mhz at 2-2-2-11 at 3.3V, but that the minimum this Twinmos should do is 250MHz at 2-2-2-11 at 3.3V+.
Comments
The 939 Winchester 90nm cores were the best, however the newer chips have been very poor in terms of overclocking headroom, compared to the chips pre-christmas 2004. If you can find a week 47-50 chip, they do pretty well, but unless you can actually inspect the chip before buying, chances are you'll get a newer 05 chip from most large retailers.
There is a new 130nm 3500+ chip out, the product code has 'AS' in the number. These are essentially A64 4000+ and FX55 chips that did not make the cut, they have half of the L2 cache disabled, for a total of 512K, and downclocked to 2.2GHz. Some of the CAA2C steppings seem to be doing really well. Most will do 2.6GHz without much extra voltage, and some of the lucky buyers have been getting 2.7-2.9GHz with good cooling. These chips run hotter than the winchesters, so that is also a key factor (good cooling a must).
The DFI NF4 boards are currently hold the 939 overclocking crown, however they are picky boards, and it will take A LOT of work and tweaking to get them to behave the way you want them. Lots of tweakability there. I've been very happy with my NF4 ultra -D. On a negative note, you'll have to migrate to PCI-Express graphics card with one of these boards. If you want to keep your AGP card, the MSI Neo2 NF3 would be a good bet, although I dont have any experience with that board. There is also an Epox NF3 250GB board that is fairing well..
I notice you have BH5, are you planning to bring that over to your A64 rig? You should be able to push that much higher than you do currently on the 939 platform
Are early chip on new cores better?
Thanks.
I would stay away from multiple DIMMs. If you use three DIMMs, you will have to give up dual channel operation. Using more than two DIMMs on the 939 platform will also be much harder on the memory controller, and will more than likely limit your overclock. 2x256 BH-5 should overclock really well on 939 (especially with the DFI, which allows very high vdimm). If you want to move to 1GB, I would sell off your BH-5 (which is actually worth a lot of money these days) and pick up a matched pair of 512MB sticks. You'll be much better off that way.
Hard to tell if the early/initial chips (venice/san diego) will OC better than the ones coming out in future weeks. It usually works opposite to that. I know when the newcastles hit the scenes, the later weeks did much better than the early ones. As a general rule of thumb, newer, later produced cores OC better, however as we have seen with Winchester, this is certainly not always the case.. Luck of the draw sometimes I'm afraid. Chips with identical steppings often perform very differently.
What's a good overlockable RAM these days?
BH-5 or TCCD?
I saw these articles the other day saying BH-5 was back :wow: :
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55575
http://www.hothardware.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=14&threadid=25811&enterthread=y
Thanks.
If you prefer high FSB, TCCD is still where-its-at. OCZ Platinum Rev.2 PC3200 is a good choice, as well as some of GSkills' offerings. TCCD has the potential to do 300+MHz FSB (DDR600) with some loose timings.
Unfortunatly, many A64 chips have limiting memory controllers, so reaching 300+ MHz at a decent cpu overclock is difficult. Hopefully the new venice memory controller improvements will help. There was some testing being done at XS, and it seems that the new 3500+ venice didn't have any trouble operating at 320MHz 1:1!. My winchester for example will not clock well with anything above 260MHz 1:1 unless I use a low multiplier.
TCCD has been discontinued by samsung, so they will become more and more scarce. Thankfully these new UTT and similar chips are in huge supply, and turning up in all sorts of value ram (even one of OCZ's value ram products are using these unbinned VX chips, but you have to check the product code). Just remember, that if you dont have a DFI NF4/3 board, you'll pretty much have to get an OCZ DDR booster to take advantage of that memory. TCCD only requires 2.7-2.9volts, so you should be fine with that..
Definatly get 2x512 over any other combination of three sticks.. You'll get much better overclocks, and dual channel operation (which does make a difference of 10-15% in A64, as opposed to NF2, where the improvement is almost nil).
Happy Shopping
Thanks.
Which motherboard gives 3.5Volts?
Twinmos BH-5 & CH-5 is back, Komplett had them in stock last week but it sold out very quickly. They claim they're getting more in stock but they've put the price up. Also the CH-5 stuff is supposed to be alot better than the old ch-5.
Linky to BH-5
Thanks.
As far as I know, the only retail mainboard that gives 3.5 volts in the DFI Lanparty NF4 boards. Without that board, you'll need to get an OCZ DDR Booster, which in some cases, can provide up to 3.9 volts. Unfortunatly, not all boards work with the booster, so you'd have to check with OCZ first.
Well when I linked to it I think it was around £50 so it looks like the price has gone down again, but originally it was £43 iirc.
Is the Venice core out yet?
Can someone give me a link where to buy it from?
Thanks.
Thanks.
What's Brainpower PCB?
Thanks.
Brainpower is just a non JDEC standard PCB, which is supposed to allow for better overclocking, and better tolerance for higher voltages. Most OCZ products are produced on Brainpower PCB. TCCD modules on Brainpower PCB for example are usually better overclockers than standard jdec pcb.
Thanks.
You know the BH-5's on Komplett. Are they the same as this on Newegg?
Which is better?
Hmm not sure but there's along thread about this over on xtreme systems, sorry but I don't have time to read it all.
I think UTT is only good with alot of volts, 3.3V+.
I think the Newegg Twinmos is the CH-5 Twinmos in Komplett.
Can anyone confirm the above information?
Thanks.
Also BH-5, like UTT, is only really good once you start pumping loads of volts through it, but I guess you're familiar with that as you have some already.
I'll let you know how it runs. It's out of stock at the moment, so it might be about 2 weeks :shakehead
Here are some pics of the new BH-5:
1A4T means BH-5 AA4T means CH-5/UTT
Can't wait to see how far these can go!
Since I can only give it 2.9V max, the overclock isn't looking too good
On my Corsair BH-5, I could give it 2.9V and get up to 235MHz with 2-2-2-11, on the Twimos BH-5 i'm giving it 2.9V and it's struggling to do 225Mhz at 2-2-2-11.
The new BH-5 must need more juice to get higher overclocks.
But i've heard that only a few of the old BH-5's did 250Mhz at 2-2-2-11 at 3.3V, but that the minimum this Twinmos should do is 250MHz at 2-2-2-11 at 3.3V+.
I changed the bios to a CPC OFF bios, and now I can get 235 stable at 2-2-2-11, which is the same as my old BH-5.
Once I get my A64 system though, with a Venice core, and DFI MB, i'll really be able to see how far these beauties can go.
EDIT// I also think that it couldn't handle 2.9V before because I didn't burn it in, but now I've had it Prime for about 14 hours on toture test.
I've also done the memory bandwidth benchmark in Sandra for around 12 hours.