Looking for a new MB

timwhit

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AT&T=American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
3M=Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
NCR=National Cash Register Company
 

Fushigi

Storage Is My Life
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timwhit said:
AT&T=American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
I don't believe they do Telegraphs anymore and, last I heard, they were divesting themselves of long distance. Didn't they sell their cel market to Cingular? If so, does AT&T still do telephony at all?
 

Mercutio

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They're moving out of residential long distance completely. They'll preserve the service but will no longer market it or actively seek new customers. Like with dialup ISPs, there's no money in home service.

I had the surreal experience of being at BP/Amoco's Naperville Research Center as a contractor the morning that it became a single corporate entity called "BP".

In effect, the change happened over night for the British employees and in a single morning for US workers. Literally, every single real employee of the company was sent to a 4-hour filmed presentation explaining the new brand (which does not stand for "British Petroleum") and its corporate symbol. In that four hour span, workers and artisans came in and removed EVERY symbol of the old BP and Amoco from the entire campus and replaced each of those items with something with the green and yellow sunburst. 95% of the time, the new stuff matched the old; if the old thing was antique brass, so was the new. They even changed some of the landscaping from the old Amoco red and blue to the green and yellow.

It was like being in the land of the pod people that day. I really don't have time to detail how completely surreal it was.
 

Jimshady

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Well I guess I'm the only Asus lover. I've made the mistake of trying out boards by MSI and Gigabyte, but now I stick with Asus and love them! I've only had one minor weirdness problem with Asus, otherwise they have been great!
 

Jan Kivar

Learning Storage Performance
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ddrueding said:
So you are running the MSI K8T Neo FSR with a CG DTR chip as well? My CPU temp is reading as 36C, with your corrections that would place it @ 2C above ambient with a 5v Panaflo...wow.
No, I'm using the nForce3 version - MSI K8N Neo Platinum. And I'm using a regular A64, no mobile version. From what I've read at MSI forum, this new v1.4 BIOS has a better support for those mobile A64s. Something about being able to change the default VID for the CPU. Haven't really looked at mobile A64s as the availability is non-existant here.

If I don't do the correction I'm running 47°C idle, and over 70°C load when running at default 2 GHz@1,5V. Somehow I don't believe that. With the v1.4 BIOS I'm currently running 34°C (with some load), and if I fire up Prime95 I end up at 36°C (running 1GHz@0,85V).

Cheers,

Jan
 

Mercutio

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Jimshady said:
Well I guess I'm the only Asus lover. I've made the mistake of trying out boards by MSI and Gigabyte, but now I stick with Asus and love them! I've only had one minor weirdness problem with Asus, otherwise they have been great!

I have NEVER heard anyone claim that a gigabyte board was a mistake. I'd really like to know your basis for that valuation.
 

sechs

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Fushigi said:
timwhit said:
AT&T=American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
I don't believe they do Telegraphs anymore and, last I heard, they were divesting themselves of long distance. Didn't they sell their cel market to Cingular? If so, does AT&T still do telephony at all?

Divesting themselves of long distance? There isn't really anything left *except* long distance. The cell phone business was spun off some years ago (ticker symbol AWE), and is in line to merge with Cingular (which is SBC's and Bellsouth's cell business). The computer and equipment businesses went many years before as NCR and Lucent. The cable business was sold to Comcast, and Liberty Media was spun off in the process.

As much as I can tell, AT&T only resells communication and data services to business and does long distance, both of which have every-shrinking margins. They have started offering consumer VOIP, but this just seems to be a way to get people to use their long distance without becoming a local exchange carrier.
 

Jimshady

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Mercutio said:
Jimshady said:
Well I guess I'm the only Asus lover. I've made the mistake of trying out boards by MSI and Gigabyte, but now I stick with Asus and love them! I've only had one minor weirdness problem with Asus, otherwise they have been great!

I have NEVER heard anyone claim that a gigabyte board was a mistake. I'd really like to know your basis for that valuation.

Ok it could of been the power supply of that particular machine. It was a good board until the blue fire incident. *shudders* I'll retract the statement of Gigabyte being a mistake, I would probably buy them again to tell you the truth, second to Asus of course.[/b]
 

Bookmage

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The best ASUS board I've ever had is the CUSL2 P3 mobo based on the Intel 815 chipset. Aside from the 512MB limit, its been stable and flawless over the past few years and I know many people who still use it or have passed it off to their kid and upgraded. For the life of me, I can't think of a good Socket A mobo other than the A7V8N series mobo with all the bells and whistles and I did consider getting that board for a socket A system. In recent years, I've seen more MSI, Epox, Gigabyte, Albatron, Asrock(arent they the same as ASUS?), and Soyo work like they're suppose to. ABit still is a hit or miss thing and I don't anyone who uses FIC, Soltek or Biostar.

I've know more people who've picked up the MSI mobo for an Athlon 64 or an ABit board and only heard of people picking up the ASUS board. I believe its the MSI K8T Neo and the Abit KV8 Pro? Not sure, although I've heard the nforce 3 boards are better.
 

iGary

Learning Storage Performance
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ddrueding said:
Well, the K8T800 chipset seems to be getting a little long in the tooth. Time to evaluate a new board...

If you were looking for an iNTEL X86 mobo, probably the most fabulous non-Xeon® mobo around is the i875-based Supermicro P4SCT+II.

It has PCI-X slots, plenty of SATA ports, an AGP 8x slot, dual-GbE, and more.

You can use either the last-generation 130 nm P4 (Northwood) or the newer 90 nm P4 (Prescott) Pin Grid Array processor packages, with the 3.0 GHz / 800 MHz FSB Northwood being the currently-recommended choice (at less than US$180 without heatsink -- excellent price/performance ratio, without the Prescott heat).

P4SCT+II_spec.jpg
  • Key Features

    1. Intel® Pentium® 4 Support up to 3.4 GHz, Celeron® up to 2.8 GHz

    2. Intel® 875P Chipset

    3. Up to 4GB DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM

    4. 1 x Intel® 82547GI CSA, 1 x Intel® 82541 Gigabit Ethernet Controller

    5. Intel® 6300ESB Serial ATA Controller

    6. Marvell® Serial ATA Controller

    7. 3 x 64-bit 66MHz PCI-X (3.3V), 2 x 32-bit 33MHz PCI (5V) slots

    8. ATI RageXL 8MB PCI Graphic Controller

    9. 1 x AGP Pro 8x 1.5V



    http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/P4/875/P4SCT+II.cfm
 

time

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ddrueding said:
Even locking the A64 to 800Mhz @ 0.9V gives quite acceptible performance for my needs. Any guess on how much power it's taking?
If it's a Newcastle, 12W.

Jan Kivar said:
Dunno about that, but I tried to run my HSF without the F. Running 1 GHz@0,85V with the Zalman fan unplugged I managed to do 48°C while running Prime95.
...
I'd also like to mention that the temp readout is wonky (showing way too much), so the mentioned value has been corrected by yours truly. It shows roughly 15°C-18°C too much, and I've understood that this is the case with pretty much any A64 board w/ a Newcastle (CG) core CPU.
There's no such problem with the nForce3 250 based GA-K8NS Pro. At 2GHz and 1.5V with ambient of 22C, reported CPU temp got up to 39C with a burn-in program (sorry, not Prime95). With Cool 'n Quiet enabled (1GHz x 1.1V = 22W), it idles at 25C - regardless of whether the fan is connected or not - so I suspect that's the internal case temperature (within one to two degrees).

Eerily, the heatsink seems cold to the touch ...
 

Jan Kivar

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time said:
Jan Kivar said:
Dunno about that, but I tried to run my HSF without the F. Running 1 GHz@0,85V with the Zalman fan unplugged I managed to do 48°C while running Prime95.
...
I'd also like to mention that the temp readout is wonky (showing way too much), so the mentioned value has been corrected by yours truly. It shows roughly 15°C-18°C too much, and I've understood that this is the case with pretty much any A64 board w/ a Newcastle (CG) core CPU.
There's no such problem with the nForce3 250 based GA-K8NS Pro. At 2GHz and 1.5V with ambient of 22C, reported CPU temp got up to 39C with a burn-in program (sorry, not Prime95). With Cool 'n Quiet enabled (1GHz x 1.1V = 22W), it idles at 25C - regardless of whether the fan is connected or not - so I suspect that's the internal case temperature (within one to two degrees).
Um... What CPU? Mobile? What heat sink/fan/voltage?

A64s have working HALT/SLEEP modes, so they don't use (=waste) that much power when idling when compared to AXP - Intel's products have mastered the power states better in the past.

IIRC I had similar experiences with the "no fan at idle" -temps. If the new BIOS keeps the temps in spec, I might try the onboard fan controller. I'll do no good, as stopping the CPU fan with SpeedFan results in no lower overall noise. My PSU seems to make the most noise ATM.

With Zalman's fan @ 5V, I manage 57°C (2 GHz@1,5V), and 47°C (2 GHz@1,3V). Now when I got it completely idle, it's doing 35-36°C idle (2GHz@1,3V) and 30-31° (1 GHz@0.85V). Ambient 23-24°C.

Cheers,

Jan
 

time

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Jan Kivar said:
Um... What CPU? Mobile? What heat sink/fan/voltage?

Newcastle 3000 (2GHz). It's a desktop CPU, but is there any design difference anyway?

Stock AMD cooler, normally spins at around 3100rpm unless the CPU temperature gets over 40C or so. I'd say it's quiet at this speed and silent below 2500rpm.

I tried a few tests with reduced CPU voltage and fan speed. This CPU isn't stable below 0.925V, so I ran it at 800MHz/0.95V, which should use the same power as 1GHz/0.85V. The slowest I could run the fan with SpeedFan was 1400rpm, below which it stalled. The rear case fan is 120mm @1400rpm and the power supply has both an 80mm outlet and 90mm extraction fan (this last one being the source of most of the noise in the PC :()

As a side note, Gigabyte has positioned the CPU further down than normal on this board, which means it doesn't align with the P4 vent (which I removed and blocked off). However, it moves the CPU more into line between the front intake grill and the twin exhausts of the power supply and rear case fan. This appears to create a better "tunnel" effect around the CPU cooler and keeps case temperature to as little as 0.5C above room temperature. I'm very pleased. :)

With ambient of 26C, the motherboard reported 27C CPU temperature at idle. Taking the case cover off dropped it to 26C. 8) I checked with a probe and confirmed that's the temperature of the air in the case.

After running the burn-in program for at least half an hour, CPU temperature rose to 30C with the CPU fan at 1800rpm, 31C at 1400rpm, and 40C with the fan switched off.

To give myself some excitement, I cranked the CPU back up to 2GHz/1.5V and with the fan still off, ran the burn-in until CPU temperature reached 60C (equating to 43C ambient by my reckoning). Sure enough, when I renabled the fan, it sputtered into life at about 5000rpm, then ramped back down to 3100rpm as the CPU temperature fell.

It looks like AMD has a lot in reserve with this CPU/cooler architecture. A far cry indeed from Socket A!
 

ddrueding

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Ordered the ASUS board...if I have any problems I'll be sue to let you guys know so I can recieve my "I told you so" in good form.

I'm now lookng at one of these beasties for cooling, and a fanless PSU....all I need is a better way to cool my HDD.....

NCU2000bigp4.jpg
 

Jan Kivar

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time said:
Newcastle 3000 (2GHz). It's a desktop CPU, but is there any design difference anyway?
I asked as one can run the faster versions (3200+ etc.) @ 2 GHz.

time said:
After running the burn-in program for at least half an hour, CPU temperature rose to 30C with the CPU fan at 1800rpm, 31C at 1400rpm, and 40C with the fan switched off.
Your fanless temps seem amazing, given that the stock AMD cooler is a tad smaller than the Zalman. But from what You tell there seems to be quite a breeze inside the case compared to my setup: I have only one 120 mm Nexus (should spin ~1000 RPM @ 12V) pulling the air out. The PSU area is "separated" by a piece of cardboard, so minimal (hot) air from below should evacuate from there. Oh, and the R9800Pro has an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer at low.

Cheers,

Jan
 

Clocker

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ddrueding said:
Ordered the ASUS board...if I have any problems I'll be sue to let you guys know so I can recieve my "I told you so" in good form.

I'm now lookng at one of these beasties for cooling, and a fanless PSU....all I need is a better way to cool my HDD.....

Hi dd-
Just incase you are interested, I just installed a HT-101 on my Barton and the temps dropped about 6-7C compared to a FalconRock with a ~4000RPM 80mmfan on it (I could hear it from across the house). The HT-101 is very quiet and exhausts the hot air from the sink directly up into the bottom of my CoolMax PSU where the 120mm adjustable speed fan can evacuate it. It's all very quiet and I'm very happy with it

The only down side, I didn't realize it has the 'uv sensitive plastic' and the LED fan. Wow...I'm actually a computer punk now (OK...so it is only 'official' now)! :p
 

ddrueding

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I just finihed installing my ASUS K8N-E Deluxe motherboard, and this thing is awesome. Not only did it go in without a hitch, not only did it perfectly detect my mobile CPU with the shipping BIOS, not only did I not need to use a f-ing floppy to install the OS on the native SATA ports, but the fan detector evencorrectly identified my Panaflo 92mm "L" fan - something that no other motherboard to date has done. Sweet.
 

Jan Kivar

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ddrueding said:
I just finihed installing my ASUS K8N-E Deluxe motherboard, and this thing is awesome. Not only did it go in without a hitch, not only did it perfectly detect my mobile CPU with the shipping BIOS, not only did I not need to use a f-ing floppy to install the OS on the native SATA ports, but the fan detector evencorrectly identified my Panaflo 92mm "L" fan - something that no other motherboard to date has done. Sweet.
Now try this.

Cheers,

Jan
 

ddrueding

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Jan Kivar said:
ddrueding said:
I just finihed installing my ASUS K8N-E Deluxe motherboard, and this thing is awesome. Not only did it go in without a hitch, not only did it perfectly detect my mobile CPU with the shipping BIOS, not only did I not need to use a f-ing floppy to install the OS on the native SATA ports, but the fan detector evencorrectly identified my Panaflo 92mm "L" fan - something that no other motherboard to date has done. Sweet.
Now try this.

Cheers,

Jan

Sounds cool, I relied there.
 

ddrueding

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Jan Kivar said:
ddrueding said:
I just finihed installing my ASUS K8N-E Deluxe motherboard, and this thing is awesome. Not only did it go in without a hitch, not only did it perfectly detect my mobile CPU with the shipping BIOS, not only did I not need to use a f-ing floppy to install the OS on the native SATA ports, but the fan detector evencorrectly identified my Panaflo 92mm "L" fan - something that no other motherboard to date has done. Sweet.
Now try this.

Cheers,

Jan

For those that like to play, this is really cool. Go check it out.
 

time

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I followed Jan's link earlier but only just got around to trying out the downloaded software on an A64. As you say, David, really cool. :)

It's funny, because when I delivered the bad news to LiamC about Cool 'n' Quiet's limitations, it struck me that surely someone would write an alternative that allowed you to specify voltages and multipliers. This isn't as well packaged (yet), but it sure fits the bill - and then some!

I haven't tested it exhaustively (and probably won't - I've spent way too much time experimenting as it is), but it looks flawless so far. I didn't set it up for an overclock - but that's the obvious use for what I'll dub third gear ("maximum"). I set second gear to 1000MHz at 1.1V (i.e. the Cool 'n' Quiet default for CG CPUs), and first gear to 800MHz at 0.8V.

For the CG (Newcastle), I believe that equates to just under 9.5W (same as your mobile chip, ddrueding - the only difference would be required voltage as frequency increases). Holy smokes!

AMD doesn't need a special design to compete with Pentium M (7W) - they can just use selected desktop chips. Awesome!
 
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