Llano in the house... (as Charged :-) )

[Daveburt714]

I have an A6 X3 3500 for my bedroom HTPC, running VMware Worstation with a SQL Server and a vCenter 5.0 server. It has 8GB DDR3-2133@2000Mhz and I have it overclocked to 3200Mhz. I must say, it's working perfectly since the first day, and it's the more efficient server in my house (I also have an X3 and an i3).

I don't really need to, but I was planning on upgrading it to Trinity when it comes out. But for HTPC and some server stuff, this X3 even at stock speed is a perfect solution, and the price is excellent.

Thanks for the confirmation on the A6 X3 3500 Andi64...

I've been thinking about this for a week now and decided I'm going to go ahead and go for it...
Pretty sure I can take the parts from the old rig and sell it on Craigslist (maybe even make a few bucks.)
It'll be an MSI 785g board, X2 550 with 4Gb of 1333 CL9, and a 640Gb PATA drive, well worth $200 IMHO...

Here's my new cart:
http://cart.microcenter.com/cart.asp...icrocenter.com

I'm going to go for power efficency since this rig is on 24/7, so I added the 80+ Corsair PSU and the LoVo Samsung mem which I know will (at least) do 1600 9-9-9 @ 1.35.

Hopefully it'll be a nice upgrade for me, and a decent deal for someone who's looking for a cheap rig...

Should be a win/win situation for Mom/Joe six pack...
Dell be damned!

[S1nn3r]

So Amazon.co.uk currently has the 3670K for £65 and that's without the £10 cash back(Im not sure if that Amazon price is with or without the cashback, looks to good to be true you see) and Asrock A55 PRO3 is around £45.

So thats an overclockable quad core with a motherboard with USB3 and SATA 3 for around £100. With of course the caveats of FM1 being a dead platform and reliance on overlocking the crap out of the 3670K to make it realy worth while. On the other hand this - Miwo: "the BEST you will possibly do with any unlocked LLano or Athlon II derivative is about 3.6GHz stable on air. That is about slightly worse (-5%) performance, than a STOCK PHENOM II 975" Id be happy with that level of performance for around £100 I think.

Its tempting to do this just to see how far I can push the whole value for money thing. Even though AM3 make more sense. And yes, i cant seem to shake Llano outa my head for some reason.

[Daveburt714]

Its tempting to do this just to see how far I can push the whole value for money thing. Even though AM3 make more sense. And yes, i cant seem to shake Llano outa my head for some reason.

I've had that same feeling, and with the prices so low I broke down and bought the above configuration...

Have to say I'm pretty impressed with this little low power Llano X3 (for my purposes).
Guess I was expecting it to be sluggish, but for an HTPC/Server settup it's pretty snappy!
Plus the video quality and performance is MUCH better than the old system...

For a gaming rig I'm sure the AM3+ settup would be the better option, but this was DEFINETLY an upgrade for the server
from the X2 550/785g configuration I was using before. Plus it saves me about 30w when idle...

[Lightman]

I'm using A6-3650 (2.6GHz/320shaders) in my HTPC for some time now. In XP MCE I originally had on my box you had to turn off C'n'Q to comfortably watch x264 movies due to independent core clocking and processes jumping between unloaded 800MHz cores.
My Vista Business install solves this problem completely and power efficiency is just great for HTPC box with everything I need from my living room box, including causal gaming on pad. Most console ports work well even in 1080p at the console quality (Medium on PC).

Now to OC bit!
Dead main rig board forced me to temporarily use my HTPC as main ring so I've putted HD6970 into it and started OCing.
Because I have cheap Gigabyte A55M-S2H board I wasn't expecting miracles, but I was pleased with stable 140MHz base clock (AHCI). Memory clocks really well and hitting over 1950MHz with 9-9-9 timings and 1.5V from my Vengeance 1833 9-10-9 sticks was effortless.
Sweet spot I settled for: 137MHz base, 1830MHz mem (1333 div) giving me 3200MHz @1.3V. Power efficient and quick enough for BF3 at Ultra 1920x1200 (HD6970).
Pushing it higher didn't make sense with voltages required to hit 3.4GHz stable from my POV and HTPC being on small AIR cooler.

Great little platform and flexible enough to replace my main rig when needed!

Now AMD bring me FM2 I really was waiting for!
Just my 2c

[S1nn3r]

I'm using A6-3650 (2.6GHz/320shaders) in my HTPC for some time now. In XP MCE I originally had on my box you had to turn off C'n'Q to comfortably watch x264 movies due to independent core clocking and processes jumping between unloaded 800MHz cores.
My Vista Business install solves this problem completely and power efficiency is just great for HTPC box with everything I need from my living room box, including causal gaming on pad. Most console ports work well even in 1080p at the console quality (Medium on PC).

Now to OC bit!
Dead main rig board forced me to temporarily use my HTPC as main ring so I've putted HD6970 into it and started OCing.
Because I have cheap Gigabyte A55M-S2H board I wasn't expecting miracles, but I was pleased with stable 140MHz base clock (AHCI). Memory clocks really well and hitting over 1950MHz with 9-9-9 timings and 1.5V from my Vengeance 1833 9-10-9 sticks was effortless.
Sweet spot I settled for: 137MHz base, 1830MHz mem (1333 div) giving me 3200MHz @1.3V. Power efficient and quick enough for BF3 at Ultra 1920x1200 (HD6970).
Pushing it higher didn't make sense with voltages required to hit 3.4GHz stable from my POV and HTPC being on small AIR cooler.

Great little platform and flexible enough to replace my main rig when needed!

Now AMD bring me FM2 I really was waiting for!
Just my 2c

Interesting.. did you try BF3 Muliplayer on that setup ? seeing as its a fair bit more CPU intensive then Singleplayer would be interested to know how well the lil llano with a discrete card coped with that on Ultra.

[Lightman]

Interesting.. did you try BF3 Muliplayer on that setup ? seeing as its a fair bit more CPU intensive then Singleplayer would be interested to know how well the lil llano with a discrete card coped with that on Ultra.

Multiplayer only
64 players maps mostly work great! I mean it is slower than my old X6 1090T or current i5 2500 but not to a degree I would have to turn down settings. There are moments it gets CPU limited but it happens only for a fraction of a second so it doesn't change overlay experience too much (sufficient to say yesterday and Friday I had 2 MVP1 and 2 MVP3 withing 2 hour session of Hardcore gameplay). What is important though is 8GB of RAM for this game as when playing on my HTPC 4GB config I had terrible HDD swapping on fresh Vista install. Maybe W7 is better in that regard ...

If you want I can make short YT video of gamplay using my mobile.

[S1nn3r]

Multiplayer only
64 players maps mostly work great! I mean it is slower than my old X6 1090T or current i5 2500 but not to a degree I would have to turn down settings. There are moments it gets CPU limited but it happens only for a fraction of a second so it doesn't change overlay experience too much (sufficient to say yesterday and Friday I had 2 MVP1 and 2 MVP3 withing 2 hour session of Hardcore gameplay). What is important though is 8GB of RAM for this game as when playing on my HTPC 4GB config I had terrible HDD swapping on fresh Vista install. Maybe W7 is better in that regard ...

If you want I can make short YT video of gamplay using my mobile.

Video would be interesting to see if you can get decant quality video.

My current CPU is a Core2Duo E6600 , barely playable in MP on Low preset, so anything that can get me playable at at least Medium Setting CPU wise is an improvement so this is interesting to hear indeed. I have a 6870 for the new build that should do the job GPU wise Ive just been horribly deadlocked as to what to do about CPU/Motherboard.

[Lightman]

Video would be interesting to see if you can get decant quality video.

My current CPU is a Core2Duo E6600 , barely playable in MP on Low preset, so anything that can get me playable at at least Medium Setting CPU wise is an improvement so this is interesting to hear indeed. I have a 6870 for the new build that should do the job GPU wise Ive just been horribly deadlocked as to what to do about CPU/Motherboard.

Here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L75P29nbqp8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGGo0GaZ0S4

Hope this helps a bit.

[S1nn3r]

So i did a thing ..

Bought the A6 3670K from Amazon, £56 with the cashback just to good a price to pass up for a quad core cpu with the performance offered after over clocking.

Also bought an Asrock A75 PRO4/MVP, Nice looking board and Asrock's A75 boards are pretty well regarded(least that's the impression I get from the limited reviews ive read) with Lucid MVP as well so the on-board GPU on the 3670K isnt totally wasted even if its just for virtual vsync or something. Was going to get the A55 Pro3 but I figure I should spend extra and get native SATA3/USB3 to avoid any issues with third party controller drivers.

Need a recommendation for a cooler, one that uses the standard AMD clip fitting for ease of installation and is around £15-£20,is quiet and can handle the OC of the A6.

[S1nn3r]

Need a recommendation for a cooler, one that uses the standard AMD clip fitting for ease of installation and is around £15-£20,is quiet and can handle the OC of the A6.

Am actually struggling with this much more then Id like so could really do with some suggestions, also to add a bit more information my my case has a max cooler height of 165mm. Also by ease of installation I mean pretty much impossible for something to go wrong as my last CPU cooler install was a nightmare that I do not want to repeat so this part is very important.

[Lightman]

Am actually struggling with this much more then Id like so could really do with some suggestions, also to add a bit more information my my case has a max cooler height of 165mm. Also by ease of installation I mean pretty much impossible for something to go wrong as my last CPU cooler install was a nightmare that I do not want to repeat so this part is very important.

I would go for something reasonably big as 125W heatpipe AMD boxed cooler from Athlon X2 6000+ is noisy with OCed Llano under full load.
Check them for instance:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arcti...d-939-am2-am2p

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...m3-am2plus-am2

http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-...46720-11&src=3

http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-...46720-11&src=3


Can't say which will work best for you, but all of them should be much more efficient and quieter than AMD Box cooler. Have fun with your new build and don't forget to let us know how it turned out!

[leo5111]

I would go for something reasonably big as 125W heatpipe AMD boxed cooler from Athlon X2 6000+ is noisy with OCed Llano under full load.
Check them for instance:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arcti...d-939-am2-am2p

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...m3-am2plus-am2

http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-...46720-11&src=3

http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-...46720-11&src=3


Can't say which will work best for you, but all of them should be much more efficient and quieter than AMD Box cooler. Have fun with your new build and don't forget to let us know how it turned out!

any of those 4 will smoke the stock Heatsink like a Cigarette so cant realy go wrong

[S1nn3r]

Am wondering what the differences are between AC Freezer 64 Pro and the AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 are besides the mounting. The 64 Pro is the better choice in terms of airflow with being able to be mounted so it exhausts out the rear of case on AM3/FM1 whereas the Freezer 7 Pro can not, and my case does not have top exhaust. Also with these being rather more budget coolers how should I expect them to handle an overclocked A6 3670k ?

[Lightman]

Am wondering what the differences are between AC Freezer 64 Pro and the AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 are besides the mounting. The 64 Pro is the better choice in terms of airflow with being able to be mounted so it exhausts out the rear of case on AM3/FM1 whereas the Freezer 7 Pro can not, and my case does not have top exhaust. Also with these being rather more budget coolers how should I expect them to handle an overclocked A6 3670k ?

AC Freezer 7 coolers are pretty good and really best bang for your pound. If you think of getting day to day 3.5-3.6GHz overclock with 1.5V then you probably should look to invest in better cooler like Freezer 13 or better. If you want 3.3-3.5GHz with 1.45V AC F7Pro should do the job quite well.

BTW from Freezer 13 description:
Utilizing a 92 mm PWM fan spinning up to 2,000 RPM, the Freezer 13 CO brings maximum cooling capacity of 200 Watts
That's plenty for Llano!

[S1nn3r]

AC Freezer 7 coolers are pretty good and really best bang for your pound. If you think of getting day to day 3.5-3.6GHz overclock with 1.5V then you probably should look to invest in better cooler like Freezer 13 or better. If you want 3.3-3.5GHz with 1.45V AC F7Pro should do the job quite well.

BTW from Freezer 13 description:
Utilizing a 92 mm PWM fan spinning up to 2,000 RPM, the Freezer 13 CO brings maximum cooling capacity of 200 Watts
That's plenty for Llano!

I see, what about the Freezer 7 Pro R2 vs Freezer 64 Pro issue ? as like I said my case for this build has no top exhaust so the Freezer 7 Pro would be exhausting into the case and not out the back of it because of the mounting setup. F64Pro doesn't have this issue.

[Yeroon]

Hi all,

It seems some of you really know your llano overclocking, and I've got an oc issue that has me stumped.
Built a small form factor pc for mild gaming/internet browsing spet 2011. I tried to overclock it back then, but I ran into the same issue I am now, which is that at ANY extra base clock, tf2 starts to crash. I can usually get it stable for IBT, OCCT cpu test, 3dmark11, but the furmark/occt gpu tests will fail after short periods of time (<2 min).

System build:
Asrock A75m-ITX
a8-3850
G.skill 1866 1.5v 2x4gb
Scythe Big shuriken 2 rev b with a gelid 120x25mm fan for more better airflow vs slim scythe
InWin Case, seasonic 300w replacement PS. Fan crapped out in stock one.

Not going for any big oc numbers, just basically trying to get a little extra boost in performance. I was playing around the 104-110 mark, but if i can go more with a lower multi and get more GPU frequency I'd be ok with that...

CPU does maximum IBT @ stock frequency load at 1.2 volts, 3.4 passed at 1.3v
Northbridge seems to like lower volts ? I had 3dmark crash at 900mhz/1.2 volts but passed with 900/1.00. Still crashes in tf2 <5 min when oc'd.
Board does 100-136 base clock, 1866 max ram setting (9.33 x base?), NB/GPU volts (although HW only ever shows 1.113v gpu) ram volts, APU PCIe VDDP volts (1.21), and SB volts.

I have tried going up volts, down volts, up frequencies, down frequencies, tested each one by itself, and whenever I go to play, I get a hard crash.

Test programs:
MemTest
IntelBurnTest
OCCT 4.3 ?
Furmark
Prime95
3dmark11
3dmarkVantage
CPUZ/GPUZ

Hoping someone here can shed some light on this,

Yeroon

[The Stilt]

@ 136MHz BCLK your SCLK (GPU) is working at 816MHz.
Even the bios might allow GPU overclocking on all APUs, the non "K" parts are locked.
Which means the CPU multiplier cannot be raised from the P0 value and the SCLK divider cannot be lowered.
The SCLK appears to be changing, however the the lower dividers (higher CLK) than stock are ignored.

You might want to try if the TF2 still crashes while the DRAM is in single channel mode.
You will lose roughly 50% of the FPS, however it will tell if the trouble is DRAM/IMC related.
If it is, you can probably fix it by disabling the bank interleaving (not sure if it is available in bios by default).

Also is your HDD running in AHCI mode?

[Yeroon]

I get bank interleaving and channel interleaving i think. I know theres 2 different ones. I'll have to check and try that out.

HD is in IDE mode, I can bclk to 136 (dropped multi of course) and everything runs fine but TF2. I will let you know how the mem interleaving/single channel go.

Thanks!

Yeroon

[S1nn3r]

Still really struggling to work out what to do about CPU cooler. With how badly this particular part went installation wise last build(so bad it put me off building for 2 years) I am rather confused as to what to do here. I want something simple to install and can be mounted in the correct orientation for exhausting out the rear of case on AM3/FM1 and be able to handle the OCed A6 and not sound like a leaf blower in the process. Have been looking at the Arctic Freezer 64 Pro, and Coolermaster TX3..

Oh and here is what I actually have ether in hand on on the way so far -

Have received -
Mem - 8GB Samsung 30nm
MB - Asrock A75 Pro4/MVP
GPU - XFX 6870 DD Cooling
PSU - 530w Bequiet Purepower L7
Case -Bitfenix Merc
Optical - Pioneer S19LBK

Waiting on delivery -
CPU - A6 3670K

To be decided -
CPU Cooler
Storage(SSD/HD)

[Yeroon]

Channel interleaving off seems to cure the crashing when overclocked. Problem is, it sucks like that....


Check out the zalmann coolers with the AMD hold down clip. Most of their cpu coolers with the round nub in the middle of the cpu block should accept it. Some come stock with it in previous versions. The 9900 NT used to come with it, its not factory AMD simple but its close. It still uses the clip brackets it just uses a manual tab instead of the cam lock.


http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Pr...ad.asp?idx=373

[Daveburt714]

Still really struggling to work out what to do about CPU cooler.

To be decided -
CPU Cooler
Storage(SSD/HD)

FWIW Man, Llanos don't really run all that hot...
I'm running that A6 3500 OC'd with a stock 965 (heat pipe) box cooler and have no temp problems at all (~43c load while blending).
Granted, my OC is pretty mild (HTRef @ 112/Turbo @ 26x), but compared to the FX chips power draw/heat is easily managable...
BTW: The VID on my chip was set really high (1.425), it runs just fine with a .10 undervolt even OC'd.
Seems to be a common thing with Llano... Not sure why they set the VID's so high.

I know your wanting to push pretty hard. Just wanted you to know they're not "heaters" like the FX chips...
Also not sure why your so intent on finding something that will blow toward the rear case fan (as long as your case breathes OK).

This is way outside your price range, but these are nice coolers, they look good, mount easily and have the added advantage of blowing air down onto your Mem & PWM sections.
Fan speed is also controlled by the mobo so they run really quiet under normal use and don't make all that much noise under full load.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835233025

I'm not saying this IS the cooler you want...
Just think you may be sweating it all a little too much.

[charged3800z24]

Dave,

I like the one you mentioned, but I use this with my Liano setups (Media Center PCs) ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835220033 )
I didn't over clock them so didn't even need a fan on the Heat sink. I use this case ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811204035 ) and the things run very quite and never over heat!

[Daveburt714]

That case looks sweet Jay!
My HTPC case is a little older and cost quite a bit more (Thernaltake DH 101):
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/produc.../vf7000bns.asp
It's served me well and I like it, but I'll keep that one in mind!

Back OT though, the fact that you can run your Llano stock with a fanless cooler kinda proves my point that they're not heaters like the FX chips...

Maybe I'm bored (likely!), but the 3500 is a fun chip to play with, performs pretty darn good, and the prices are so cheap now I'm thinking about going back and buying a 3870/Mobo combo for $150 just to torture it...

[S1nn3r]

3670K came today from Amazon, no none mentioned how little and cute the box these come in is smallest retail CPU/Cooler box ive ever had anyway. Also ordered the final 3 items on the list ..

Cooler: Coolermaster TX3 Evo
Storage:
OS - 120GB Sandisk Extreme SSD SATA3
Media - 500GB Western Digital Caviar Green SATA3

I have some other things to sort out before I can start build in addition to waiting for the above to arrive but all being well should have this thing up and running by end of next week.

Total including all shipping for this build is £574.64 .. which I think is pretty damn good for what I have crammed into it, 8GB RAM,OCable Quad Core,SATA3,USB3,fast SATA3 SSD and with all good quality components. Though we shall see once its built if this low budget gamble will pay off, this is the least ive ever spent on a new build by about £1000 or more.

[Yeroon]

Any of you getting better results overclocking with higher freq ram (2133 vs 1866 @ 1.5v)? I tried running my ram at lower speeds (1600 and 1333 times whatever the base increase) and 1.5v w/ channel interleaving on and even with loose timings it wont support overclocks in tf2. Considering stepping up to 2133 ram if it'll help me get even a decent overclock with better timings. I thought I had a good 112 with loose timings at 1792 and passed 3dmark11 at 1262 points played tf2 1h+, booted to next day and couldn't finish the test/play tf2 longer then 5min. No changes.

Also, what freq are your NB's set at while being stable? My limits change based on mem speeds but at 1866 settings I get 900 as highest setting, 800 at 1600 and I don't remember the 1333 limit, but 720 is default for 1866/1600 with 1.2/1.1125v respectfully, and 654-1.1125v for 1333. Scores goes up down with this, but games still crash with lower settings.

I figure 2133 should also transfer over to a trinity build in the future if this fails to be good enough down the road. I find the overclocking fun but when it all ends up being fruitless and back at base clock and loose timings just to play tf2, it gets frustrating.