Athlon64 2800+

[NewsGroupie]

Greetings,

I've been a fan of AMD since the K5 days (Intel before that) and am in the
process of upgrading from a Duron 1400+ Pro @ 1.01 GHz with 512 MB of DDR to
an Athlon64 2800+. I'm only upgrading the mainboard itself, and it's a cheap
one being the ECS 755-A2. So cost is an issue. My first question is am I
going to see a jump in performance going from one budget chip to another? I
understand that even the lowly 2800+ has a lot of advantages over my current
Duron and it's VERY limited cache.

Also, the current memory I'm running is 333 MHz (two sticks, 256 MB each).
This should work for the new board, I assume? I'm not even sure it's running
at full speed now. Maybe somebody could enlighten me. My specs (WCPUID &
CPU-Z):

AMD Duron 1400+ (Spitfire) @ 1016.39 MHz
System bus: 213.98 MHz
System clock: 106.99 MHz with a 9.5 Multiplier
Front Side Bus: 107.0 MHz

Is there anything else I need to take into consideration when swapping the
boards? Power supply? Case ventilation? What should be different from the
current setup?

Thanks!

JW, spent the weekend digging out in...
Massachusetts

 

[Wes Newell]

Greetings,

I've been a fan of AMD since the K5 days (Intel before that) and am in the
process of upgrading from a Duron 1400+ Pro @ 1.01 GHz with 512 MB of DDR
to an Athlon64 2800+. I'm only upgrading the mainboard itself, and it's a
cheap one being the ECS 755-A2. So cost is an issue. My first question is
am I going to see a jump in performance going from one budget chip to
another? I understand that even the lowly 2800+ has a lot of advantages
over my current Duron and it's VERY limited cache.

You should see a considerable jump.

Also, the current memory I'm running is 333 MHz (two sticks, 256 MB
each). This should work for the new board, I assume? I'm not even sure
it's running at full speed now. Maybe somebody could enlighten me. My
specs (WCPUID & CPU-Z):

Yes, you can use PC2700 ram.

Is there anything else I need to take into consideration when swapping
the boards? Power supply? Case ventilation? What should be different
from the current setup?

You'll need a stronger PSU more than likely. unless you already have one
over 450W.

 

[NewsGroupie]

Thanks for the reply.

I guess the current supply is only 250W. How would I know if I need a new
one or not?

 

[Wes Newell]

I guess the current supply is only 250W. How would I know if I need a new
one or not?

You'll know because you probably won't even be able to boot with a 250W
PSU, and I doubt that it has the 4 pin +12v connector either. My old 400W
would only keep the system up a minute at most, when it did boot. Most
times, it'd crap out out right after post or at bios screen. Here's one
that's cheap and should work fine.

http://store.mrtechus.com/60ulapatxcop.html

 

[Stew]

WARNING!! do not purchase a cheap power supply you are asking for trouble.
Cheap power supplies are the number one cause of phantom trouble or
seemingly un-diagnosable trouble A good brand 350w is far superior to a
cheap 600w (junk)
There are no regulations on how manufactures report power ratings so if you
think you can get a quality supply for $18 think again. I have seen far too
many problems with poor cheap power supplies.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html
http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/20011012/index.html
http://www.directron.com/psu.html
http://www.amdboard.com/psu.html

 

[Mitch Crane]

http://store.mrtechus.com/60ulapatxcop.html

Shit. Single 12v rail. It may give no trouble in that system or it may not
and the user may be pulling his hair out trying to figure out what's wrong.
There's a reason a 600 watt PSU is only $18.

 

[Stew]

If a cheap 600w PS were a car it would be a same as a golf cart painted to
look like a BMW.

 

[Wes Newell]

Shit. Single 12v rail. It may give no trouble in that system or it may not
and the user may be pulling his hair out trying to figure out what's
wrong. There's a reason a 600 watt PSU is only $18.

There sure is, it's called overhead, overstock, overseas, etc. And
compared to ones that cost $100 it's called a bargain. And if $18 is
too much for you, the 500W for $12 works fine too.

 

[Wes Newell]

WARNING!! do not purchase a cheap power supply you are asking for trouble.

Why, are you going to come around and beat the crap out of them? Or just
talk them to death with BS?

Cheap power supplies are the number one cause of phantom trouble or
seemingly un-diagnosable trouble

More BS. User setup.

A good brand 350w is far superior to a cheap 600w (junk)

And a good cheap 600W PSU is far superior to a branded piece of junk 600W
too. So?

There are no regulations on how manufactures report power ratings so if
you think you can get a quality supply for $18 think again. I have seen
far too many problems with poor cheap power supplies.

Damn, and all this time, I thought those seals meant something.

http://www.ul.com/

OTOH, I haven't experienced any more problems with the
hundreds of cheap PSU's I've used vs. the few expensive ones. The only one
that I've seen fail here at home was an Enermax, and it was a friends, not
mine. All my cheap suckes from the last 5 years are still running, with
the exception of one that I struct a metal screwdriver into to try and
start a stuck fan. Yep, I slipped, but it cost less than $20 to replace.
that was a few years ago. The replacememnt is still running.

 

[Mitch Crane]

There sure is, it's called overhead, overstock, overseas, etc. And
compared to ones that cost $100 it's called a bargain. And if $18
is too much for you, the 500W for $12 works fine too.

The bargains are somewhere in between. Garbage, no matter how cheap, is
never a bargain.

 

[Mitch Crane]

Damn, and all this time, I thought those seals meant something.

http://www.ul.com/

I'm not sure a UL sticker on a PSU means anything other than it probably
won't start a fire or electocute the user.

OTOH, I haven't experienced any more problems with the
hundreds of cheap PSU's I've used vs. the few expensive ones.

Be real now, you know you've never bought anything expensive.

 

[Stew]

I Laughed.
Fool yourself if you must, all PS come from low wage countries and are sold
through the same wholesalers but the quality is much different. Junk is
junk.
Someone has to be at the bottom and 18$ is low.

 

[Stew]

I laughed once more, UL is a no label of quality manufacture or endorsement
of performance simply that the device will not catch fire. My lamp has a UL
sticker so by your meaning its the worlds best. I As I said may times there
are no regulation for manufactures when making any wattage ratings or
performance claims. If your 600w PS was a motor it would be a lawn mower
motor claiming to be a Viper V10 Junk is Junk and a 600w $18 PS is junk,

 

[Mitch Crane]

There sure is, it's called overhead, overstock, overseas, etc. And
compared to ones that cost $100 it's called a bargain. And if $18
is too much for you, the 500W for $12 works fine too.

Have you looked at the specs on that PSU? 24A on the single +12v rail (no
separate rail for the CPU). I also note that the +5v is rated at 50A,
which is probably overkill for most people just needing more power for
their CPU). You're getting a 600w supply, but you're getting virtually
nothing useful over my petite 425w supply. In fact, you're getting less.

I think this sort of thing explains you statement below (from further up
the thread):

You'll know because you probably won't even be able to boot with a
250W PSU, and I doubt that it has the 4 pin +12v connector either. My
old 400W would only keep the system up a minute at most, when it did
boot. Most times, it'd crap out out right after post or at bios
screen.

A good 400w PSU would have probably given you no problems. It wouldn't
have to be a $100 one, just something reasonable. Since you probably paid
$9 for that one, I'm not surprised.

 

[Wes Newell]

A good 400w PSU would have probably given you no problems. It wouldn't
have to be a $100 one, just something reasonable. Since you probably paid
$9 for that one, I'm not surprised.

I agree. This was a no name no label PSU that came with a barebones system
I won with a $50 bid. It is not a PSU I would have bought seperately.
since there was absolutely no labels on it except one small one with only
400W on it. But that doesn't mean all cheap PSU's are bad. This one is
still running my old XP system after about 3 years now. So was it bad? I
don't think so, just way overrated, or a very weak +12v rail.

 

[Sept1967]

People dont like it, but that is true. Cheap manufactures use the spike MAX
output, as the model wattage. Not the comfortable running wattage. A cheapie
350w can only run at 350w at a short limited spike time.

Interesting power supply reviews-

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/psus/index.x?pg=1

http://techreport.com/reviews/2003q3/psus/index.x?pg=1

My Athlon64 3000 w/ 1Gb PC3200 - is running in a Chenbro Hornet mATX case,
with an Enermax mATX 265w power supply. System has an ATI 9800Pro, 120Gb WD
SATA, LiteOn 8x DVD+/- RW , 250Zip IDE, and even a green CCD light.
ThermalTake Silent Boost cooler, and 60mm Stealth case fan. Runs great, no
problems. Can run HL2 for hours without a hitch.

 

[Dave]

Here we go, another flame war about budget priced PSUs.

Yawn!!!

Dave