90nm Athlon64s, Overclocking and Motherboards.

[Stewart]

Right, firstly, the new 90nm Athlon64s overclock very well indeed. The 3000+ it seems, is getting an average overclock of 45%, which makes it about as fast as an FX-55, whilst costing £120.

Mad bargain.

Anyway, the new 90nm Winchester core 3500+ CPUs do about the same, but I have heard the Asus A8V Deluxe rev2.0 939 boards do not work if you just out the Winchester in, and need to be flashed, but of course, you'd need a working CPU to do this.

Does anyone know any more? What boards work best with the Winchester CPUs? Which work out of the box?

Anyone know anymore?

[skuzgib]

Mad bargain.

Too right.

Apparently rev 2 of the board will not need to be flashed, so its best to contact whoever you're buying it from too see which they have.

[Stewart]

You've heard that the Asus A8V Deluxe rev2.0 doesn't need a flash? Hmm, so far one person has told me they do and one they don't.

Must find out for sure...

[Lee H]

AFAIK the Rev 2.0 are the updated ones with the PCI/AGP locks and there is no updated required for the clocking of the processor, you just simply adjust the clock speed to the speed you require ( within limits ) and it should run happy as larry all day long.

[Stewart]

No mate, what I'm asking is, do the current 939 motherboards, Asus A8V Deluxe rev2, Abit AV8 3rd Eye and the MSI thingy work with the new 90nm Winchester Athlon64 CPUs out of the box?

So, if I buy a Winchester CPU and a new 939 motherboard, does it work, or does the BIOS have to be flashed to the latest version, requiring a Newcastle core CPU to get it working to do it?

[Rave]

NForce4 launches on Thursday. Some of the boards that the Inquirer previewed look totally mint, especially the Asus one, and I say that as someone who's not an Asus fan.

Rich :¬)

[Stewart]

Launches on Thursday and you can actually buy one...

[Zak33]

I think this is gonna be a SUPERB CHANCE to upgrade soon guys

Anyone wanna but a Celery 366 at 550 ?

[Alistair]

Vaul when my 3200 winchester arrives from lowestonweb, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to tell you if it works on the Asus rev.2 board.

[Lee H]

It is great news and with the AMD price drops as shown on the following page it looks like AMD are going all out war on Intel and trying to get everyone to switch to them ;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/amd_price_cuts/

Now the 3500+ looks a nice price as does the 3400+.

Vaul - sorry dude, brain was on overload as I was trying to "multitask". The 90nm CPU's will work fine without an update to the motherboard.

Now all I need is a price for a Dual PCI-E based Nforce 4 939 motherboard from Abit and I'll be a happy chap once payday arrives

[spazman]

An nForce4 mobo and Athlon64 3000+ are on my christmas list.

[Stewart]

Vaul when my 3200 winchester arrives from lowestonweb, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to tell you if it works on the Asus rev.2 board.

Top man. I really want to know, from someone who actual owns a Winchester and an Asus rev2 what the score is. I'm getting conflicting reports from people.

[Stewart]

Vaul - sorry dude, brain was on overload as I was trying to "multitask". The 90nm CPU's will work fine without an update to the motherboard.)

So, out of the box 3xxx+ Wincheter Athlon64 and out of the box Asus A8V Deluxe rev2, will POST no problems, without the need for a BIOS flash, and therefore a Newcastle core CPU?

100% sure mate?

Are Scan actually flogging the Winchester core Althon64s and the Asus A8V Delxue rev2?

[Lee H]

So, out of the box 3xxx+ Wincheter Athlon64 and out of the box Asus A8V Deluxe rev2, will POST no problems, without the need for a BIOS flash, and therefore a Newcastle core CPU?

100% sure mate?

I've just spoken to our system-build team who have been building a LOT of 3500+ and 3800+ systems and asked about the 90nm CPU's and if there are any issues with these regarding BIOS etc and they have not come across any.

Hope this helps

[Stewart]

Cheers.

Hopefully Alistair can give us a horses mouth yes or no soon.

[Rave]

Launches on Thursday and you can actually buy one...

True. Doesn't really matter to me in any case TBH, I can't afford a new board + processor. If I was in the market for a high end system though, I wouldn't buy a board without SATA II and PCIe. Once those arrive, there won't be any compelling reason to upgrade for a long time as far as I can see. I don't even think that DDR2 will be a big upgrade for A64 when they eventually support it, it's not a bandwidth starved processor as it is.

Rich :¬)