AMD n00b here, a little help?

I currently have a really crappy am2 board w/ a 3800+ as a back up pc for my q6600 rig... so here's the deal...

I do folding and remembered the 790fx msi K9A2 board that allows for 4 dual slot video cards (folding goodness). I could purchase this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130136

Not too bad, $150. I don't know if this is better than asus or any other board for that matter.

I would drop my 3800+ in there for now until I could afford a quad. I have seen a lot of high end OC's w/ the high end chips. Do the low end chips OC almost as well? As well, what about power ratings.... I saw 65w 1.8ghz quads. Is there anyone out there OCing those?

I'll sum it up..

1. What's a good OCing board that'll let me use 3 or 4 video cards?*

*The slots don't all have to be set up for dual slot cards, but its a nice feature.


2. Cooling wise, if I go w/ a high end chip, is aircooling fine for 3.2ghz +? If so, whats a good heatsink? I have a rocketfish from bestbuy, the big rebranded lian li, so room is not an issue what-so-ever.

3. I have two 4 gig kits, a 2x2gig ddr2 800 geil evo & 2x2 g skill ddr2 1000 kit. Will either of these suffice for OCing a phenom?

I would like to make a jump over to AMD b/c although intel is faster, the boards that hold 4 video cards would be more beneficial than CPU folding and even then I can still fold on the phenom. I haven't been in the AMD camp since 2005 w/ my dual opty set up and then I couldn't OC them, so I haven't kept up. Sorry for the n00bness.

I'm a big proponent of ATI GPUs for gaming but if your interest is in Folding@Home then I would suggest maybe a 3 slot Nvidia 780a based motherboard with three 9600GTs or something similar folding for you. You'll get more PPD. I don't know about the stability of Nvidia's chipset business though so that may be risky. I sure wish F@H had optimized the code for ATI GPUs FIRST rather than throwing their resources at CUDA. CUDA gets the job done though so I can't knock 'em for that.

Also since you're going to take the time to build an AMD system, the SB750 motherboards are supposed to be out August 6th. You may want to wait until next Monday to make a solid decision.

Now to actually answer your questions.
1) Make sure you have a strong PSU to drive 2+ GPUs plus an overclocked CPU and motherboard.
2) High end air cooling will allow 3.2Ghz on a Phenom, especially if you have an SB750 backing your overclocking endeavors.
3) That ram will get the job done for overclocking. DDR2-1066 is better but oh well, you already have 8GB of high quality DDR2-800!!!

I've yet to see any overclocking on that Phenom 9350e except for a Tweaktown review....(http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/152...ore/index.html) and I don't trust Tweaktown all that much. The 9350e is 2.0Ghz though so it'll probably get the job done. Price wise though, may as well look at higher clocked Phenoms like 9550 or 9650s.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Synthetickiller

I currently have a really crappy am2 board w/ a 3800+ as a back up pc for my q6600 rig... so here's the deal...

I do folding and remembered the 790fx msi K9A2 board that allows for 4 dual slot video cards (folding goodness). I could purchase this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130136

Not too bad, $150. I don't know if this is better than asus or any other board for that matter.

I would drop my 3800+ in there for now until I could afford a quad. I have seen a lot of high end OC's w/ the high end chips. Do the low end chips OC almost as well? As well, what about power ratings.... I saw 65w 1.8ghz quads. Is there anyone out there OCing those?

I'll sum it up..

1. What's a good OCing board that'll let me use 3 or 4 video cards?*

*The slots don't all have to be set up for dual slot cards, but its a nice feature.


2. Cooling wise, if I go w/ a high end chip, is aircooling fine for 3.2ghz +? If so, whats a good heatsink? I have a rocketfish from bestbuy, the big rebranded lian li, so room is not an issue what-so-ever.

3. I have two 4 gig kits, a 2x2gig ddr2 800 geil evo & 2x2 g skill ddr2 1000 kit. Will either of these suffice for OCing a phenom?

I would like to make a jump over to AMD b/c although intel is faster, the boards that hold 4 video cards would be more beneficial than CPU folding and even then I can still fold on the phenom. I haven't been in the AMD camp since 2005 w/ my dual opty set up and then I couldn't OC them, so I haven't kept up. Sorry for the n00bness.

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ASUS has one too but, yes the K9A2 platinum has the advantages of dual slot coolers but you wouldn't need then if you either go with 3870 from saphhire,

The Toxic they have 512mb And 1gb, both are gddr4 cards (they have 4 single slot 3870's) or the get the new 4850/70. (if you want)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102761 ( i hope my link works.)
all current 790FX are have the sb600 which can cause idle errors on phenom's, but not on X's or semprons.

each phenom chip is totally different not all clock well, some hate 64 bit too.

the True is what mostly everyone is using, there some others too like the vandetta. (I'm not though)

get some fans for the PMW/VR, & NB they tend to get warm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mechromancer

I'm a big proponent of ATI GPUs for gaming but if your interest is in Folding@Home then I would suggest maybe a 3 slot Nvidia 780a based motherboard with three 9600GTs or something similar folding for you. You'll get more PPD. I don't know about the stability of Nvidia's chipset business though so that may be risky. I sure wish F@H had optimized the code for ATI GPUs FIRST rather than throwing their resources at CUDA. CUDA gets the job done though so I can't knock 'em for that.

Also since you're going to take the time to build an AMD system, the SB750 motherboards are supposed to be out August 6th. You may want to wait until next Monday to make a solid decision.

Now to actually answer your questions.
1) Make sure you have a strong PSU to drive 2+ GPUs plus an overclocked CPU and motherboard.
2) High end air cooling will allow 3.2Ghz on a Phenom, especially if you have an SB750 backing your overclocking endeavors.
3) That ram will get the job done for overclocking. DDR2-1066 is better but oh well, you already have 8GB of high quality DDR2-800!!!

I've yet to see any overclocking on that Phenom 9350e except for a Tweaktown review....(http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/152...ore/index.html) and I don't trust Tweaktown all that much. The 9350e is 2.0Ghz though so it'll probably get the job done. Price wise though, may as well look at higher clocked Phenoms like 9550 or 9650s.

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none of those boards look to have 4 slots ? yet.....

780a is a bit better no sb600 to cause troubles. still would go with MSI only board I seen with DVI on it.

tweaktown got 277ht for the 9350e & others got 238HT. at the same volts.

get 9950 they seem to matured better.

not like ram can't be overclocked.

on side note if you get 3 280 GTX you'd have to buy a ultra 1600watt power supply to run it with the phenohog. lol

A quick question: why would he need an nVidia chipset based mobo for, except for SLI support? I thought that folding was his main concern and that SLI isn't a necessity for that. I can be wrong though.

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Originally Posted by Devil's Prophet

A quick question: why would he need an nVidia chipset based mobo for, except for SLI support? I thought that folding was his main concern and that SLI isn't a necessity for that. I can be wrong though.

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This is my first thought.

I have a p35 mobo (intel) and i ran 2 nvidia cards, but no SLI.

I am not interested in sli in any way...

I just want 4 cards to fold on. I'll probably have 1 or 2 monitors max for that computer.

I have an enermax galaxy 1000watt. 17 amps per rail (5 rails). When 8800gts gets cheaper, I'll throw 3 more of those in (have one already). Only requiring one pci-e connector, my 1000 watt should handle it fine, right? Otherwise, I'd get a 3 slot board. I don't want to spend money on a PSU.


I know this is an AMD board, but I have no intersted in ati cards. Thier PPD is aweful compared to nvidia and my primary concern w/ this rig is folding, internet, and spreadsheets, not gaming. I can't believe I'd build a not gaming pc, but it will happen..

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Is the MSI K9A2 one of the best OC'er out there or is there something that really beats it? I just want a good OC. Most of the time, the CPU will not even be utilized b/c all the folding will be done on video cards and the cpu can handle vista and any program on there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mechromancer

Also since you're going to take the time to build an AMD system, the SB750 motherboards are supposed to be out August 6th. You may want to wait until next Monday to make a solid decision.

Now to actually answer your questions.
1) Make sure you have a strong PSU to drive 2+ GPUs plus an overclocked CPU and motherboard.
2) High end air cooling will allow 3.2Ghz on a Phenom, especially if you have an SB750 backing your overclocking endeavors.
3) That ram will get the job done for overclocking. DDR2-1066 is better but oh well, you already have 8GB of high quality DDR2-800!!!

I've yet to see any overclocking on that Phenom 9350e except for a Tweaktown review....(http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/152...ore/index.html) and I don't trust Tweaktown all that much. The 9350e is 2.0Ghz though so it'll probably get the job done. Price wise though, may as well look at higher clocked Phenoms like 9550 or 9650s.

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I have to wait till then to order a board anyways, so maybe I'll look into it then. I don't want to spend more than 150 though, unless there's a VERY good reason. I also don't want to remove any stock cooling. I'd only buy a 3rd party cooler (TRUE probably) for the CPU.

My ddr2 800 kit OC's like flies ****, pardon my french. The gskill kit will do 1066 though, so I can drop that in there if I need to.

I might consider the more expensive 9850s or even 9950s. Since they will be idle a lot, the power draw isn't that high, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Devil's Prophet

A quick question: why would he need an nVidia chipset based mobo for, except for SLI support? I thought that folding was his main concern and that SLI isn't a necessity for that. I can be wrong though.

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all current 790FX are have the sb600 which can cause idle errors on phenom's, but not on X2's or semprons.

if he just need 4 pci express slots there was an intel board with 4 pci express slots MSI P6N Diamond LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

if it doesn't matter that he dosen't want or will use SLI he could 4 9800GX2 on that board.

it's been done on an intel board.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Synthetickiller

I have to wait till then to order a board anyways, so maybe I'll look into it then. I don't want to spend more than 150 though, unless there's a VERY good reason. I also don't want to remove any stock cooling. I'd only buy a 3rd party cooler (TRUE probably) for the CPU.

My ddr2 800 kit OC's like flies ****, pardon my french. The gskill kit will do 1066 though, so I can drop that in there if I need to.

I might consider the more expensive 9850s or even 9950s. Since they will be idle a lot, the power draw isn't that high, right?

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I have evo one ram but there 1066mhz kit. I bolted a 60mm fan to threw the heat sink vents lol

looks like all deneb ( the new 45nm chip ) test have been done on this board must be good then.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by demonkevy666

all current 790FX are have the sb600 which can cause idle errors on phenom's, but not on X2's or semprons.

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For what it is worth, my buddy's setup doesn't (though he's not idle very much) and another friend that actually just bought my DFI M2RS doesn't seem to have that issue either (though it was rampant with the first screwed up chip I had, really wacky but the replacement is doing fine).

For hitting over 3GHz, seems that with the phenoms it is a crapshoot. Some will barely OC, others seem to just fly. The newer ones are doing better though than the old first run B2s (in general).

Admit it, you saw that one guy's rig and you just have to copy him :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SparkyJJO

For what it is worth, my buddy's setup doesn't (though he's not idle very much) and another friend that actually just bought my DFI M2RS doesn't seem to have that issue either (though it was rampant with the first screwed up chip I had, really wacky but the replacement is doing fine).

For hitting over 3GHz, seems that with the phenoms it is a crapshoot. Some will barely OC, others seem to just fly. The newer ones are doing better though than the old first run B2s (in general).

Admit it, you saw that one guy's rig and you just have to copy him :D

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yeah but I wanted 4 1gb gddr4 2900 XT's, or 4 1gb gddr4 3870's, but I got the crap shoot phenom 9850 >_<

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SparkyJJO

For what it is worth, my buddy's setup doesn't (though he's not idle very much) and another friend that actually just bought my DFI M2RS doesn't seem to have that issue either (though it was rampant with the first screwed up chip I had, really wacky but the replacement is doing fine).

For hitting over 3GHz, seems that with the phenoms it is a crapshoot. Some will barely OC, others seem to just fly. The newer ones are doing better though than the old first run B2s (in general).

Admit it, you saw that one guy's rig and you just have to copy him :D

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SparkyJJO,

I also had the idea of 4 cards from this guy.

The q6600 looked good to me as an option b/c I could fold on that too, but I'd rather save money on the board, spend 40 bucks more on the CPU for basic stuff, and have 4 card w/o dropping 300+ on a baord.

If i get a new intel board, i'll want to do an entirely new build since it would be better than my current p35 set up and I can't afford that right now.

I'm trying to stay away from expensive temptations. ;)

I'd also like to try an AMD since the price range is right for what I want to do.

Are any of the sb750s supposed to have four 16x slots? I don't care if they run 16 or 8x as long as the main one is 16x. If they don't, I won't consider them.

I would imagine so, but to be honest I haven't heard :shrug:

SparkyJJO, do you see my master plan unfolding before your eyes? I'm trying to combat MikeB12's invasion in the F@H ranks!:ROTF:

Hehe http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/gr_devil.gif

So guys, assuming the sb750 does not have four pci-e 16x slots, the MSI would be the best choice?

Also, whats the problem w/ 64bit? I'll be running vista x64, thats why I wanna know.

64 bit tends to be harder to OC in I guess, more stress on the CPU since you are using its full capability perhaps? :shrug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Synthetickiller

So guys, assuming the sb750 does not have four pci-e 16x slots, the MSI would be the best choice?

Also, whats the problem w/ 64bit? I'll be running vista x64, thats why I wanna know.

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SB750 is just a southbridge of course someone will make a board with 4 slots. The time frame is what is important, I'd only buy the MSI SB600 board if I couldn't wait for the newer ones to hit.

The problem with Vista 64 is that it has not allowed for the same overclocks that 32bit OSes have been able to get.

i run a 9850BE on the MSI k9a2 platinum @ 2.9 on vista x64 with no problems

What stepping is your X2? F2s may not OC well at all. Same but little better is the G1 65nm stepping. G2 or F3 should do around 3GHz minimun.
OT have they actually updated the FAH ATI client for the rv770 GPUs?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMojoZ

SB750 is just a southbridge of course someone will make a board with 4 slots. The time frame is what is important, I'd only buy the MSI SB600 board if I couldn't wait for the newer ones to hit.

The problem with Vista 64 is that it has not allowed for the same overclocks that 32bit OSes have been able to get.

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I'm going to wait about 2 weeks till I have the money to buy it. If there's nothing out then, I'll just get the MSI K9A2.

I have to run 64bit for folding, otherwise, there's no real point, plus I am happy w/ vista's stability. Go figure!

Yeah, I agree there is nothing I'd rather run than 64 bit Vista/2008. Since the 790GX boards are avaliable right now, hopefully the 790FX SB750 boards won't be too far behind.

The SB750 thread seems to show Asus model having four slots (similarly grouped as M3A32-MVP Deluxe). For those wondering about 4 slots with SB750.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Synthetickiller

Also, whats the problem w/ 64bit? I'll be running vista x64, thats why I wanna know.

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64 bit uses the full 64 bit addressing system, this in turn uses your CPU to its full potential, this in turn produces more heat than a 32 bit instal,

32 bit overclocks usualy allways show better results, but if you dont overclock then its nothing to worry about,

sit and wait for 790fx+750sb with 4pcie slots
don't worry about Mike too much:rofl:


EDIT**

I should warn you that having an AMD QC is no easy task,
it's time consuming,requires a lot of patience and learning,
and will most likely give you a lot of Grey hair.
This is not a joke, I mean it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MoF

The SB750 thread seems to show Asus model having four slots (similarly grouped as M3A32-MVP Deluxe). For those wondering about 4 slots with SB750.

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I only an asus w/ 2 or 3 slots. i saw no board w/ 4 slots or any that can hanld 4 dual slot video cards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SocketMan

sit and wait for 790fx+750sb with 4pcie slots
don't worry about Mike too much:rofl:


EDIT**

I should warn you that having an AMD QC is no easy task,
it's time consuming,requires a lot of patience and learning,
and will most likely give you a lot of Grey hair.
This is not a joke, I mean it.

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Socketman, I have two ideas.

Get a low end quad and OC it enough to feel like I at least did something...

or

Buy a good dualcore now, OC that thing to kingdom come and wait for the 45nm quads (deneb) hoping they'll oc much better.

Intel boards capable of running 3 or 4 cards, cost 300 USD or more. There's no way I'm spending that much.

I like the idea of a challenege. I wouldn't be on here if I always wanted the easy way out. Can't hur to learn right? And grey hair might just make me look distinguished.

I'll both you specifically if I end up getting an amd quad, don't you worry. ;)

Just wanted to give you heads up;)

I am not sure if it's possible to run 4 cards (threads) on a dual core.
With a quad,even at "low" speeds you'll have 4 threads (1 per card) and
as far as I know NV folding client does not need high speed cpu unlike ATI.
On my dfi nf4 939 I get the same ppd with cpu at 2.4 and 3.0 on XP
With Vista it barely uses the cpu from what I hear (I should really get it soon:rolleyes:)

I think charged3800z24 wants to sell his K9A2 maybe you guys could talk:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=197265

or like I said wait for a new one but that will cost more


I don't really know how NV cards would get alone on ATI/AMD board
but don't see why not.

I've been running vista since 07. I have 2 pc's w/ it now, and I have another legal liscence I can still use, though I'm greedy and want it for a 3rd pc.

Point is... its awesome IMHO. Very stable and mature at this piont. I've only had issues w/ mozilla and I'm still not sure why. Ran fine, but thats another story. For folding, it works wonders for GPU.

I would think, and I could easily be wrong, but since each core is not using 100% for folding, can't it balance 2 on one core? I'll run it by the folding forum and see if anyone knows anything about it.

I would also think that since each nvidia card is running indepently and its soley software driven, no sli or anything, what issue would there be?

I'll have to talk to charged and see whats up. If I can get the board at a good price & set up a paypal, I'm golden.

thanks for the heads up:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Synthetickiller

I only an asus w/ 2 or 3 slots. i saw no board w/ 4 slots or any that can hanld 4 dual slot video cards.

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4 slots:

http://www.tcmagazine.com/images/new...erboard_01.jpg

But as I already said, they are arranged similarly to M3A32-MVP Deluxe, so it can't fit four dual slot cards. At least one of them needs to be single slot. Or you will have to settle for 3 cards with this board if you need dual slots.

So far MSI is the only one with a board that can handle four dual slot cards as far as I know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MoF

4 slots:

http://www.tcmagazine.com/images/new...erboard_01.jpg

But as I already said, they are arranged similarly to M3A32-MVP Deluxe, so it can't fit four dual slot cards. At least one of them needs to be single slot. Or you will have to settle for 3 cards with this board if you need dual slots.

So far MSI is the only one with a board that can handle four dual slot cards as far as I know.

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That's why the MSI caught my eye.

The 8800gt makes an aweful whining noise when folding. Not sure why, but its annoying and I can't sleep with something like that. That's why I need 4 dual slot, plus it allows all the hot air to be exhausted.

If I don't go quad-video cards, I'd go for 3 cards, I'll have to see.

I need something stable, not looking for anything insane OC wise, although I'd feel bad not OCing the chip. ;):up: