Athlon X4 620: Poorman's workhorse

Just got my X4 620 from SCAN today, running naked

CPU (AMD Athlon X4 620) -> £72.5
Motherboard (GA-MA78GM-UD2H)-> £30
PSU (OCZ 400W)-> £30
OCZ DDR2-1000 2x2G -> £40
Harddrive -> Spare Seagate 7200.9 drive lying around :mrgreen:

Total Cost -> £172.5!

Undervolted from 1.4V default to 1.1V, prime95 @ 98.9W from the wall :drool:
This is getting so close to beating my beloved T8400 laptop @ 43W in terms of power/watt, as well as twice the processing power at much lower than half the hardware cost.

The stock AMD heatsink is doing an amazing job at 38'C full load with the included paste. Probably don't even need to bother with giving it some AS5. And it is extremely quiet even without the case. Most importantly it only took me 5 minutes to assemble :juggle:

Haven't been more excited going back to AMD.

good to hear you're having fun with it :)

My Sempron 140 is in a tiny HTPC case and is running at 30 C with the stock cooler, at 1.1V - don't have a watt meter though so haven't been able to check the power draw yet :( It looks like the Athlon IIs can all run well below rated voltage though, which is great news for people after low power, cool running systems.

Good stuff Arthur. :thumbsup:

Am going for a similar spec.

I just built a machine using an Antec NSK 1380, 785g Chipset and an Athlon II 240 and it\'s brilliant. I\'ve recycled one of my other HDD\'s for it and that\'s by far the loudest part of it.
It\'s only got 1 2GBstick of DDR3 1333 RAM in it that it shares with the Onboard GFX and it\'s fast enough to play left4dead with medium detail. By far the loudest part of this machine id the HDD in it.
I love it. Total cost was less than £200.

Wondering if anyone got the same board?

I\'m trying to optimize mem timing, and it kept resetting to SPD value :(

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Originally Posted by badass

I just built a machine using an Antec NSK 1380, 785g Chipset and ...

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Talk about coincidence ;) My case is the older (and IMNSHO better) precursor to the 1380, the Aria. Basically the same case but with a built in card reader and front firewire. The thing that's really impressed me with my Sempron is just how cool it stays considering the only airflow through the case is made by the PSUs 120mm fan running at just over 1k rpm. And given mine and arthur's experience of undervolting these processors, I think they have to become top recommendations for HTPC now - particularly with the 45W quads coming out soon - undervolt one of those by > 10% and you should be looking at a sub-35W draw from the processor...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

I just built a machine using an Antec NSK 1380...

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Got my Athlon II 240 in a Fusion, with the M3N78-VM the socket is nice and close to the dual 120mm fans (Scythe models, attached to Zalman fanmates and dialled down so I can't hear them above ambient) so I can run a Scythe Mini-Ninja without a fan on it, and my temps are LOW... can't actually recall CoreTemp going above 30... it probably does at some point, but not by much!

Hi Arthur

Your success underclocking your X4 inspired me, so this evening I've played about with my Sempron a bit more. I've now got it running unlocked (as an Athlon II X2 4400e) @ 1.05v, stable through a wPrime 1024M. With just the stock cooler, in an Antec Aria, it was rock solid @ 36C throughout. Once I've got a plug-in power meter I'm going to take some readings at stock volts and undervolted, locked and unlocked, to see exactly how much it's costung / saving me, but I reckon it's going to be pretty impressive. Many thanks for the inspiration :D

I got one of these and i have to say it is a wolf in sheeps clothing, as the saying goes, managed to get mine prime stable at 3.5ghz, and benchie stable at 3.7ghz, for sub £80 its a bargain. If you can't stretch to a 955 get one of these and clock the gonads off it.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/...nchresult2.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Talk about coincidence ;) My case is the older (and IMNSHO better) precursor to the 1380, the Aria. Basically the same case but with a built in card reader and front firewire. The thing that's really impressed me with my Sempron is just how cool it stays considering the only airflow through the case is made by the PSUs 120mm fan running at just over 1k rpm. And given mine and arthur's experience of undervolting these processors, I think they have to become top recommendations for HTPC now - particularly with the 45W quads coming out soon - undervolt one of those by > 10% and you should be looking at a sub-35W draw from the processor...

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Just looked up the Aria. I'm slightly jealous. :)
I'm likely off to my parents house for a week around Xmas but my P182 is too big to lug around and I can't be bothered. I'm just going to nick my 4870, stick it in this case and takes advantage of Steam's ability to have games on multiple PC's :mrgreen:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

Just looked up the Aria. I'm slightly jealous. :)

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Would it help it I told you it was ~ £12 cheaoer than the nsk1380 currently is ;)

Yeah, forget to mention in all my undervolting that I'm running my EVO on the 20-pin motherboard power plug that came with my Aria psu - never bothered upgrading or getting an adapter. Works perfectly. Makes you wonder why they changed it really...