Turion MT-32, FSB 296MHz with PowerNow on DFI LanParty UT NF3 250GB.

Ciao! I'm from Italy and I would post my experience with this wonderful CPU. The research is about a silent PC, but duty squeezed....
It is not complete, yet. I'm waiting for new RAMs, and so I will update this post as soon. I will test it again also to see if there are any possibility to grew more.
However, I think the result about this CPU is not compromised for now.
Before of all, I had used an old SK6 heatsink with a 80X80X25 fan on it and Artic Silver Ceramique as thermal paste.
I installed CPU AMD drivers, enabled CnQ from BIOS and start 290MHz @ 123% Vcore Special (I've left VCore setting on "auto", like a normal CnQ CPU). I don't think interesting explaining the previous steps before of 290MHz ;)...
Lapping the SK6 I had the best result (very surprising for me), here are the screenshots:

Before of lapping (idle, min voltage)

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/2255/prima0wd.th.jpg

Before of the "bad lapping" in full load (screenshot at the sharp moment at the end of 1MB superPi)

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8...ante7bc.th.jpg

AFTER THE GOOD LAPPING IN FULL LOAD (same moment as above for the screenshot)

http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/1...pato1bv.th.jpg

I had always acclaimed this little monster of heatsink, but I had never beleft that it could reach such as performances.

So I had raised the clock setting the VCore Special up to 126%, temperatures are not critics at all, and it increases very much the stability. This Turion was able to boot up at 305MHZ

@FX57 :eek:
http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/7...5mhz9cj.th.jpg

but Prime95 is istantly overstressed (it says generically "for hardware problems"). I had tried to set less aggressive latences for the RAM, but the error persists, also diminishing its frequency. Then I had brought back the RAM to the initial speed and latences, and so I had analyzed the CPU. I had climbed down 1 by 1 each MHzs of the FrontSideBus and I had arrived to the execution of prime95 (one of the best CPU-stress-software I know) at 296MHz without any interruptions for more than 1 day (I had bored about it so I had closed it manually...how long is it? :yawn2: ) with medium temp of 46°C and peaks of 48°C. Therefore, now the CPU runs at 296x9 with voltages that oscillate between 1,616V<1,632V<1,648V in full load, and in idle at 296x4 @1,200V.
The voltages of the full load are indeed "dancers", but the overwhelming majority of the time the voltage is that in the middle.

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/1...02064ma.th.jpg http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/2...02066yb.th.jpg

and MemTest for windows for 1hour and 30 minutes
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/2626/memtest5tt.jpg

Because in PC Health BIOS setting I had chosen to start the fans at 40°C I had decide to slow down that noise, so I had set 50°C as temperature to make fan at max speed (I rely on SK6 lapped, and I will show you that I am right). So I've repeated the superPI test:

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/6...tola1mr.th.jpg http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/2...tola8al.th.jpg

The fan NEVER GO OVER 2000 RPM, even with Pirme95.

Here are others benchmarks.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4...est37rg.th.jpg http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/9...est28wi.th.jpg http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3...est29vo.th.jpg

http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/2...21795fr.th.jpg http://img485.imageshack.us/img485/9...mark5fg.th.jpg

This is what shows Central Brain Identificator. Look at PR :eek:....

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7...rone5js.th.jpg

The

Nice :)

Do you have a picture of lapped cooler?

I've been thinking about buying a Turion, just because they are so cool (both awsome and cold that is). But I didn't think that they could overclock that high.

Nice review :) Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UTF Nightmare

Nice :)

Do you have a picture of lapped cooler?

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They are not so clear...sorry.
I hadn't posted them before just for this reason.
The photos are before, after the first (bad) lapping and after the second (good) lapping.

http://img489.imageshack.us/img489/8...fore2xr.th.jpg http://img430.imageshack.us/img430/4189/bad9zh.th.jpg http://img430.imageshack.us/img430/4092/good5xv.th.jpg

nice job on the lapping, damn the pics are indeed not to sharp :D

you call that good lapping ?

how do you like that ^^

http://img.techpowerup.org/060305/DSCN1940.jpg


Its bad, that there are just few people ocing some Turions :-/

so i dont know if 2,6 / 1,6v is good or bad

Quote:

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Originally Posted by $ilver

you call that good lapping ?

how do you like that ^^

http://img.techpowerup.org/060305/DSCN1940.jpg


Its bad, that there are just few people ocing some Turions :-/

so i dont know if 2,6 / 1,6v is good or bad

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Well, according to the temperatures it is not just a good lapping.... :yepp:
You show a not-copper heatsink in you pic and my pics are not so sharp. The color of a copper lapped heatsink is not like a mirror, but it reflects perfectly as you can see in my pics.
You should also know that the lapping purpose is to flat the surface. ;)

have you tried without power now on? should be able to get a higher clock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LorD_Kvadd

I've been thinking about buying a Turion, just because they are so cool (both awsome and cold that is). But I didn't think that they could overclock that high.

Nice review :) Thanks

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;)

If you leave it at default voltages you don't need fan on the heatsink.... It works from 0.96V to 1.20V max and the temperature (with this SK6 at least) doesn't go over 38° in full load...
Using Prime95 the max temperature is 41°C at default voltages without fan.
But it is just a test, you see, I would never leave the CPU without a fan :nono: .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

have you tried without power now on? should be able to get a higher clock.

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Yes, I have. The clock is the same.
The main hindrance is the RAM as you can see in my first post (see Everest).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Willis

Not bad :)
yet i would have been more when it had dual channel equipped ^^

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Yes. :rolleyes:
Sk754 limit...

Good work:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marcoland

;)

If you leave it at default voltages you don't need fan on the heatsink.... It works from 0.96V to 1.20V max and the temperature (with this SK6 at least) doesn't go over 38° in full load...
Using Prime95 the max temperature is 41°C at default voltages without fan.
But it is just a test, you see, I would never leave the CPU without a fan :nono: .

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I see :) Are there any compability issues with the turion and desktop s754 motherboards? Since Turions arn't officially supported by the manufacturers. I'm thinking of buying a MSI K8n Neo Platinum (love that board :P) again and thinking of using a Turion with it. Do you think it would boot allright?

Only time I've had a CPU cooled without a fan was with a Duron 700 which ran on a lower vcore (1.39V if I remember correct), but that was some time ago :) and only for experiment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LorD_Kvadd

I see :) Are there any compability issues with the turion and desktop s754 motherboards? Since Turions arn't officially supported by the manufacturers. I'm thinking of buying a MSI K8n Neo Platinum (love that board :P) again and thinking of using a Turion with it. Do you think it would boot allright?

Only time I've had a CPU cooled without a fan was with a Duron 700 which ran on a lower vcore (1.39V if I remember correct), but that was some time ago :) and only for experiment.

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This is a list of working mainboards:
http://angelfall.s39.xrea.com/area2ch/turion-e.html

The problem is not the compatibility (all socket754s are compatible with Turion if their BIOSes support the Revision E), but the voltage control (I mean PowerNow! support). I've found just in DFI site the direct support not just for generically Rev E, but exactly also for Turion64.

Take a look also here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article300-page1.html

Here is a shot of my Turion in action on a dfi-250gb mobo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ryan.crest

Here is a shot of my Turion in action on a dfi-250gb mobo

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Hi ryan.crest!
Can't you run at the max multiplier?
I have a 9x max and you 11x :eek:
Perhaps is the cache L2 that limits your overclock?
Wich BIOS version do you use? TicTac version?

That's remarkeable ryancrest...usually they max out at 2.5/2.6 :eek:

Perkam

wow ryancrest, thats amazing.

deffiently a nice chip you have there. how much was it?


can i ask why you run 8.5x multi though?

I got the chipfrom newegg a month or so ago, my max is 3.1 on water, its's stable for 3d and stuff but i have to give the chip to much voltage, that is the only run i ever did on the cpu, now it's in my closet in a box, the dfi bios i used was just the normal newest dfi bios, ram was in slot's 1 and 3, i used that multy because the half multy's dont effect turion's and there single chan ram, this way i could run my tccd @ 290 and not be effected by the fsb/multy i wanted.

Ohh and just incase any one was wondering..it has 1 hell of a nasty cold bug...like..BAD..anything under 12*c and she wont do anything..shame really i love that rig.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ryan.crest

I got the chipfrom newegg a month or so ago, my max is 3.1 on water, its's stable for 3d and stuff but i have to give the chip to much voltage, that is the only run i ever did on the cpu, now it's in my closet in a box, the dfi bios i used was just the normal newest dfi bios, ram was in slot's 1 and 3, i used that multy because the half multy's dont effect turion's and there single chan ram, this way i could run my tccd @ 290 and not be effected by the fsb/multy i wanted.

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Wonderful, my regards!
But I'm not searching just the performance. I play the games and run some graphical softwares (I'm an engineer student), so I need powerful CPUs, but I use also P2P and Office. When I am not in front of my PC, the CPU consumption is around 24W...(@ 1.2V). I had tryed some lower voltages, and the best score was at 0.900V -> 13W :eek: . Stable, but no performances...
So I've searched an ideal config, and now I am quite satisfied. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by $ilver

...i dont know if 2,6 / 1,6v is good or bad

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Also according to what you say and to take advantage of the low TDP of the CPU at the minimun voltage I have decided to downclock and to downvolt. At 2,55 / 1,43V the results are not so far.
I've decided to remain with these new values, at the previous minimun (1.20V) the consumption was around 24W, now at 1.07V it is around 15W...
Thank you, $ilver ;)

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/3...21573wr.th.jpg http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/7...htt37qt.th.jpg

Helped by RMClock ;)

1- low voltage, no stability
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6...watt9wt.th.jpg

2- low voltage, stable
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/8...watt7mu.th.jpg

1- high voltage, not at the max possible speed
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5...watt9ie.th.jpg

2- high voltage, max speed stable at that voltage
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/2...auto6hm.th.jpg

i recently saw a set of benchmarks from ANDtech or somewhere, where the 2.4g beat the 2ghz new dothan in nearly all of the tests. I know its 400mhz faster in clock speed, but a pretty good result for amd.

Nice read there marcoland! I have a very similar Turion experience to share :toast:

Got my new MT-30 0543XPMW from eBay two days ago.
I gonna use it for my HTPC/internet rig, but just thought to give it a quickie clock and test before all my parts arrive.

Here is what i used and below are my results.

The MT-30 1.6GHz (200x8), 1MB L2 Cache, stock 1.2v, with Arctic Silver 5

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/997...ure17pr.th.jpg

3 year-old Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu @ 1350RPM
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4822/top13qq.th.jpg http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/1525/base25ja.th.jpg http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/4765/base13wj.th.jpg

Your lapping doesn't stand near mine ;)

DFI LanParty UT nF3 250Gb, official BIOS 23/6 with PowerNow! disabled, chipset cooled by passive Zalman NB32J heatsink.

And the rest: borrowed Corsair 512MB BH-5 stick, Antec TruePower 480Watt PSU...

I started with stock 200MHz bus / stock 1.2v vCore, testing with SP2004 for stability every 25MHz bus increasements.
And i ended up with 2600MHz (325MHz x 8, 2/3 divider) clock, still using only stock 1.2v vCore! The temps were real sweet, under SP2004 load i never exceeded 42C with Zalman 7000A-Cu @ lowest RPM.
Here are the screenshots and pictures after 3 hours SP2004 Small FFTs run:

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/7...rsss1is.th.jpg http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/9...oto18nz.th.jpg

My idle temps were 34-35C, while my ambient was ~30C.
I noticed that my board overvolts to ~1.215v under load, and undervolts to ~1.18v at idle.

I was able to boot at 3200MHz (400MHz(!) x 8), using 1/2 divider, however the system was extremely unstable - i couldn't even load CPU-Z to take a suicide screenshot. That would be a 100% overclock for me.. :rolleyes: :slobber:
I gave up the idea very quickly, cause of the uncomfortable 1.6v vCore i had to use to get there..

I was able to score 3000MHz (375MHz x 8) pretty easy, using 1.450v vCore:
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=81677

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/397...ssss0em.th.jpg
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/872...hoto0nm.th.jpg

Although i could run SuperPI 1MB, SP2004 crashed instantly. Still a WR for Turion AFAIK, and from the x8 multiplier CPU :woot: :cool:

More to come when my water-cooling and rest of the hardware arrive...
It was an easy ride for me thus far :)

Badong