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Athlon 64 Motherboard Triple Threat Round-Up
SpinnerBait writes "Soon after AMD released the Athlon 64 to the public, eager motherboard
manufacturers unveiled their latest motherboards for AMD's new baby. Some are
offering basic packages that boast features and performance, yet forgo the
extras found in premium bundles. Other manufacturers are offering snazzy new
packages with all kinds of extras and unique features. The only thing left to do
is decide which one is for you. HotHardware has an
article posted up, that
showcases and benchmarks three top Athlon 64 motherboards, from Asus, MSI and
Shuttle. These boards are looking more refined every day."
This is stil a problem. My nforce2 boards (Epox 8RDA+) are only 8 months old, made in Jan 2003, well after this was known to all the motherboard manufacturers, and already have buldging capacitors. I am currently sending them back for free repair. It only costs me $9 to ship it there and $11 for them to ship it back each time.
Morphing Software
Tyan already have at least *six* different motherboards for AMD's 64-bit platform.
Most of them are for Opteron though, but that means that there is a lot of experience within Tyan for the platform, so the A64 boards will be good from the get go.
Funny, looks like the P4 schooled the Athlon 64.
that heat sink is removable and you can get NSB chipset fan kewlers, you know.
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
Sounds like you want something like the Tyan K8W which has AGP 8x, PCI-X and supports 16GB of memory.
Sure, it is dual processor, but if you are wanting PCI-X and 16GB of memory support, then you probably want dual processors. I suppose you could live with one processor and 8GB of memory though.
64bit CPU is a lot slower than 32bit CPU with the same technology anyway.
It depends on what you're doing. If you're handling a lot of 64 bit integers, then it isn't. In any case, AMD64 is not the same technology as ix86; the massive increase in registers and additional parallel processing units can add a lot of speed in certain situations.
Also unfortunate is the price - AUD$1000+ down under. What good is a well-performing dollar when you still get these prices, I ask you?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Chaintech ZNF3-150, FIC K8-800T, and MSI K8T
Chaintech ZNF3-150 = nVidia nForce3
FIC K8-800T and MSI K8T = VIA K8T800
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
That is only because the largest DIMMs available ATM are 1GB. More then 3 DIMMs can not support fast memory (200MHz+). Their only choice is to limit to 3 DIMM slots or allow rediculous slow memory timings.
mine didnt come wiht the wifi or the ram (but its the same ram I bought..very nice) but the onboard networking is incredibly fast and low resource for onboard networking...nice job asus!
Bottles.
So why no link to our reviews. :)
ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
Actually NetBSD is the furthest along in terms of AMD64 maturity -- not GNU/Linux. FreeBSD also has an AMD64 port in development.
-JemThose are "2GB kits", which is marketing-speak for a box with two 1GB DIMMs in it. Real 2GB DIMMS are $1600 each, which is beyond the budget of the hardware review sites and most of their readers.
The last one is actually a single 2 gig stick, costs $1175.
My Tyan board has a short heatsink on main motherboard chipset (is it really a Northbridge?). It barely gets warm to the touch. The AMD64 moves most of the Northbridge features into the CPU, cooling isn't much of an issue now.
Actually the memory controller is on the CPU so there any limitation should be with the CPU and be common to all three boards. I really can't see where the artificially low max memory counts are coming from, the Athlon64 supports either 4 registered DIMM's (8GB total), or 3 unbuffered DIMM's (6GB total). Of course most people who are buying an Athlon64 instead of an Athlon64 FX or Opteron are not going to spend the huge sums necessary for 2GB registered DIMM's =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Doh, hate to reply to myself but now that I have read a bit more into the Athlon64 data sheet I see where things are happening, for DDR400 DDR the Athlon64 is limited to 2 unbuffered DIMM's:
e _papers_and_tech_docs/24659.PDF
-- Up to three unbuffered DIMMs according to the loading described in Table 3 on page 16
-- Up to four registered DIMMs (note DDR400 not available on registered DIMMs)
The controller provides programmable control of DRAM timing parameters to support the following
memory speeds:
-- 100-MHz (DDR200) PC-1600 DIMMs
-- 133-MHz (DDR266) PC-2100 DIMMs
-- 166-MHz (DDR333) PC-2700 DIMMs
-- 200-MHz (DDR400) PC-3200 DIMMs (unbuffered DIMMs only, two maximum)
So with cheap unregistered DIMM's you are only going to get to either 2GB at DDR400 or 3GB at DDR333. I guess AMD's engineer's didn't figure it was worth the cost to support more ram on their lower end chip where the typical user would never get near the limit due to costs anyways.
This is all from http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/whit
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yes and AMD is going to make things REALLY confusing by introducing and Athlon64 FX on Socket 939 which will be a single channel version of the Opteron, so there will be three socket formats for new AMD chips, the 754 for the Athlon64, 939 for the Athlon64 FX, and 940 for Opteron and older FX chips (geeze, talk about confusing, I'm a tech and I hate this kind of stuff). Add in the older boards for Athlon XP's and MP's and you can see where most mere mortals would throw up their hands and have someone else build their PC despite the fact that it's cheaper and fairly easy to actually put your own PC together.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'll make some educated guesses at the answers to your questions:
1) The boards weren't designed for pros really. They were designed for home enthusiast types that just want to have the latest shit. 4GB will be plenty. If you've need for more memory on x86, there are boards to accomadate you for the Opetron or the Xeon.
2) Again, the target of the boards and of the site. These really aren't aimed at the pro market. I mean the only people who, at this point, will exploit the 64-bit features of the chip are those doing custom software (like scientific analysis tools) on UNIX (or Linux). Everyone else it just a latest greatest junkie and is probably running Windows playing games. I mean it's not even really a target for the DB market since it lacks larger memory (the main reason to want 64-bit) and Oracle isn't on x86-64 yet AFAIK.
3) Thing with S/PDIF is, you've got to have a decoder. They output Dolby Digital or DTS and then something has to decode that for you. Well, many people don't have the setup for that and don't want to buy a decoder (they aren't cheap). Hence, analogue outputs are nice.
4) Again, the target audience of the boards and the site.
Remember that a lot of computer technology (and much else) isn't motivated by need or logic, it's motivated by desire. Want to be the first r0xx0r d00d to have a 64-bit system? Here you go, and at a more consumer price point. Is it useful if you spend all day running 32-bit software? No, but much of what people buy isn't useful.
If you want to see what benefit 64bits gives you when compared to 32bits, then click here. A 34% improvement in a real-life app when using 64bits.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
But you're right, Mandrake will also release an x86-64 version of 9.2.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
"how many AMD cpus have you killed?"
....well... is non-existent."
I've installed hundreds without having damaged a single one. The ones I've seen die in the several years I've worked with them were always due to fan failure or power problems. I've seen at least two Celerons suffer heat death also.
" what good is performance if it's more fragile than a paper chain tethering a bull in a china shop? If it's dead, performance
That's quite the large 'if'. Are you installing your CPUs with a hammer? I've had plenty of mishaps installing CPUs before, but never had one damaged because of it. I'm truly at a loss as to just what it is you could possibly be doing to have so many problems.
"And the warranty policy about thermal grease and non-stock heatsinks, well...that's just bs."
This is like saying that Ford should warranty repair the engine in your 2003 Mustang after you replaced the motor oil with Diet Coke following a reading from some website. The warranty states that the product will perform correctly under normal operating conditions. That you have altered said conditions inately voids any warranty. Any warranty work provided thereafter is simply a curtousy. Your misuse of AMD's (or anyone else's) product is not AMD's problem. Either adhere to the warranty conditions or do not expect to receive warranty work; it's that simple.
"Besides, I like my P4 that has thermal throttling that works and responds fast to the temp."
This is such a lousy idea. Let me ask you this: when your CPU is overheating, what will you do to correct it? The correct answer is: nothing. Why? Because your CPU gives no indications of overheating. Assuming you have an issue with your CPU fan, your computer will simply seem slower and slower over time, making you think it's time for an upgrade. On an AMD or PIII system, the computer crashes when there is a problem. This is known as a 'symptom'. If you do not have any symptoms, chances are that you will never solve the problem because you simply won't know about it. I'd rather have chronic crashing which leads me to the source of the problem than to have some vague problem such as: 'it's running slowly'.
"Of course, I don't plan to abandon AMD cpus forever; I'm just more cautious and less enthused about new products. (I still have my dual athlon XP->MP (Barton core) project in the works but it's been slow)."
Again with your CPU modification. You expect to be able to modify the product yet continue to receive warranty assurance on it. Let me let you in on a little secret: if you modify your P4 in any way, you will void your warranty - just like an Athlon.
"Hell, I've love to have that P4 3.2 with the 2MB of L2 cache."
I'd love to have one as well, if such a creature existed. Unfortunately, if it did, it would cost an enormous amount of money. Thus, Intel's compromise was to remark a Xeon with 2MB L3 as a run-of-the-mill Pentium 4 EE (Extremely Expensive). On the other hand, I could buy an Athlon64 FX-51 for about $150 less and get far better performance which will increase over time as applications are better optimized.
And just so you don't think I won't address the quality issue, I'd be happy to do so. Just take a look here. Recall after recall, bug after bug, Intel proves beyond any doubt that good marketing erases years of ineptitude.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
$399 for Athlon 64 3200+ on pricegrabber.com...so no real difference there except more RAM addressing for the Athlon. :-)
BTW, I'm sure Intel is pissed at that price for the P4 3.2 GHz. Most of them are still priced over $600, and several were over $700. ;-)
Those kind of dollars are reserved for Athlon64 FX and Opteron these days...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Can't they leave off the serial/parallel and ps2 ports?
Sure. Go buy one of the Abit legacy free boards (not yet available for AMD64 -- doubt it ever will be). Better be quick though -- they haven't been selling well because they shut out a large portion of the market and don't give you anything that Asus or other brands don't have as well, while costing more than the competitors as well.
Removing the floppy connector, ata-133 and on-board audio would be great.
No, that'd be pretty flaming stupid. Remove parallel ATA and you cannot put in any kind of optical drive -- SATA is not designed to work with them. The parallel ATA->serial ATA convertors do not work with them. And there's no plans to release SATA optical drives at this time. Removing the floppy might be possible, except that you're lacking another bootable device now and there are still some devices that come with device drivers on floppy only. As for onboard audio -- if you have a high end audio setup that could actually benefit from improved sound (which, as onboard audio improves and computer speakers continue to suck rocks, is less and less likely) then go for it. You'd save maybe $5 by removing the chip. What's the point?
A64 board with 8 DDR slots
If you want Opteron, it's available. If you don't want Opteron it's not. The Athlon64 and Athlon FX lines cannot support that many slots.
PCI Express
Available.
dual Gb LAN
Not available on any motherboard that I've heard of for x86.
8 usb2 ports and 4 FW800 ports on the backpanel
Available, but not all on the backpanel. Ever heard of a hub?
8 SATA connectors would sweeten the deal
Don't think I've seen a board with more than 4 SATA connectors. Not even sure it's allowed by the standard.
What I find humorous about all of this is your alleged high-end bias, and yet you want SATA. If you're actually doing professional audio work (as you claim later) then you really should be using SCSI for the hard drives at least.
You're just plain wrong. Bandwidth (bits/second) = Bus Width (bits) * Frequency (/second). Whether you have a 64-bit processor or not has nothing to do with how much data you can stuff through a bus (for example, the original Pentium had a 64-bit data bus, even though it was a 32-bit processor--this is because 64-bit refers only to the size of the integers/addresses that the CPU can handle). The reason why we still have 32-bit PCI (and I think AGP is actually a 64-bit bus) is for compatibility reasons; every time you add more wires, you have to replace all your expansion cards (unless backward compatibility is designed in, and you still don't get the benefit of the new stuff). Faster buses (generally using higher frequencies, rather than widths) are being designed, but you'll just have to wait for those. Anyway, there isn't really a critical bandwidth shortage on the consumer end yet; servers have been using more exotic versions of PCI for years already.