The 2600+ is official boys

[Leo]

Although I don't think I quite fully understand your post SPQQKY (as far as I know no Northwood uses 1.7v) I'll attempt a reply. Excuse my curt nature today, I've had a somewhat rough day at the Superior Courthouse .

To start, generally 1.7v will give you no trouble at all. I believe Intel has specifically stated the maximum safe voltage for a Northwood is 1.75v. I tend to agree with them as most people I see with degradation problems are running 1.8 "real" volts and beyond. Generally, 1.7v will get you into the 3 GHz area with a somewhat decent chip/cooling.

The new TBreds do have nice OCs but one thing I never understood, who's to say the higher voltage won't kill these chips after some amount of time? I am not saying that TBreds necessarily have the same voltage issues that Northwoods do but with the exception of a few people - those who ran 2.0v+ core and such - Northwoods didn't see voltage degradation problems in relatively large numbers until recently, several months after their release. Yes, some people do lose their chips rather quickly but their numbers are statistically insignificant.

All I'm saying is the 2200+ hasn't been out for all that long and hasn't been purchased in the great #s that Northwoods have. I have a gut feeling (perhaps unjustified) that a few months after the 2400+ and 2600+ are released and people start really pushing them as they have done with NWs, we'll be seeing more degradation problems. It comes with the territory I guess...

[Ewok]

Originally posted by LBJGH
My point was that most motherboards max out at 1.85v so by AMD delivering a CPU with the stock voltage of 1.65v it gives the end user more voltage to play with.

Well thats fair enuff but if they had been able to get the tbreds good enough that they could have used the 1.5v which was planned, how much extra voltage would THAT give people? The end user happens to get more voltage to play with but that wasnt by design, they should infact have had a lot more to play with than they do but there ya go.

Its also unclear exactly what voltages will damage these tbreds through electro-migration, if we can work this out when we got something to reliably compare against a P4, because with the P4 we know intels spec is right, and that anything over 1.75v is going to damage it, with AMD's they dont seem to have a spec and its unclear exactly what voltages will damage the chips, personally I wont count any overclock as a proper overclock unless its with a voltage that isnt going to kill the chip in 1 week, 6 weeks or 3 months time due to electro-migration. This is exactly what that twat tom did by putting 2.2v through a 0.13 chip, I will personally guarantee that chip will not last a week after that anal reaming, yet theres no mention of THAT in his article is there. The days of ramming huge volts up a chips arse are now over, so we need to know exactly what IS safe before making any speed comparisons on overclocked chips, then its possible to make a fair comparison. Right now I dont think enough people have tbreds of any kind or for long enough, to be able to work out what voltage is safe for these chips, and AMD isnt helping by not giving a spec to say whats safe and whats not, like intels spec.

SPQQY - intel hasnt changed their planned voltage from 1.5v, and 1.7v is NOT killing northwoods. Anything over 1.75 which is intels stated maximum voltage, is killing them, so intel has it spot on. I've seen 100% primed and stable 2.26 chips running at 3.3ghz and 1.7v, I dont think intel needs to up the voltage to improve their yields, infact its pretty clear they are getting better than expected yields, this is why they have moved up release dates for the 2.8 and 3ghz chips.

"As we can see from some of the reviews, that they are gettings some really nice OC's on the new TBreds, so I don't think they could already be maxed out and that is why the higher voltage."

That statement somewhat contradicts itself, if the chips arent maxed out, they wouldnt need a default of 1.65v to get the desired yields. To get these "nice" overclocks people have been putting 1.9v and more into these chips, which is probably not going to do the chip any good. As stated, we dont yet know exactly what the safe voltages are because AMD hasnt bothered to tell us, but I would venture a guess that its going to be something close to the intel spec.

*edit* DOH leo just typed exactly what I was typing more or less

[LBJGH]

Well either way I can't afford a 2600+ or a new mobo and P4... that said my aged Radeon VIVO works ok with my setup but is a major bottleneck in overall gaming performance... now if only I could get my hands on at 9700pro

[mdzcpa]

A few comments:

Ewok has continued to drone on about how AMD "planned" on 1.5v core voltages for it's 13 micron process but failed to somehow achieve this goal. But I've yet to see any AMD white papers or official documents of any kind to support this. If it's just referring to what the engineers may have theorectically estimated the required voltage would be well before the Tbred was even taped out...who cares. Specifications like that change all the time during the tape out and pre production cycle. In fact, it's common.

Second, AMD may very well not experience the same type of rapid electro migration that the P4 suffers from. Intel's P4 has far more transistors and the resulting extreme close proximity of the gates to one another has been identified as the main cause of rapid degradation under higher voltages. This is certainly not a design fault, as Intel doesn't engineer in overclocking considerations. However, either way, AMD does not have such tight gate proximities and stands a much better chance of surviving under higher voltages based on this.

Third, my XP 2200 will run Prime 24/7 @ 1.55v air cooled with AMD HSF. I've done it. It works. Nuff said.

Fourth, the fact that AMD beleives it needs 1.65v to ensure stability of a 13 micron process still in it's infancy (for AMD) I again find this old news and quite common with new process technology.

Fifth, a have a few 2200's that have been getting 1.9v to 2.0v "rammed up their arse" since the middle of June without the slightest degradation. In fact, after a few weeks more overclock was gained. Granted, it's only been 2 months...but even so, I've seen P4s fall over much sooner than that.

Well...that's about it. No matter how you slice it, AMD has made it interesting again. And if you think about the fact that AMD is just buying time until the Hammer arrives it's really quite impressive. It may not be all that amazing indeed to have a 2 year old mobo support such a new processor with the limited supporting goodies....but it is damn impressive that a 1 year old first generation DDR mobo will be able to. There you will have your USB 2.0, firewire, DDR, RAID and other goodies. A drop in 2400 or 2600 upgrade will really help those running first generation DDR mobos with an original TBird or early Pally with very little lost in supporting features. A far cry from what Intel has been able to muster.

/mike decends the soap box stairs

[SPQQKY]

Although I don't think I quite fully understand your post SPQQKY (as far as I know no Northwood uses 1.7v) I'll attempt a reply. Excuse my curt nature today, I've had a somewhat rough day at the Superior Courthouse .

What's not to understand, ewok states that the new TBreds are over volted to acheive the new clocks and that they will probably die with high volts when OCed, even though there is no proof of that. If P4's are dying at 1.75v (for OCing purposes and not default)*sorry, not 1.7v*, then it would seem that they are over volted already as well. I am saying that they must not be TOO over volted if reviewers are still getting 500MHz more out of the chip. Lets not forget that these are the first we are seeing of these chips. Did the first XP 1600+ hit 1.9GHz and over like the latest steppings are? No, but in time we will see the improvements. Let's give it some time before we start speculating on what these chips are gonna do before we even get our hands on them. The bottom line is....I am happy that I can run a 2600+ and OC the shiznit out of it without having to buy a new mobo.

[LBJGH]

Well spoken Mike.... an IF a 333mhz bus AthlonXP is release including the 512k cache the games will really begin. It is still interesting to me how people keep singing the praises of the 3Ghz P4 but how little actual performance is gained over a 2Ghz T-Bred. I guess people still get sucked into the big number means really fast.

[Leo]

Originally posted by SPQQKY

If P4's are dying at 1.75v (for OCing purposes and not default)*sorry, not 1.7v*, then it would seem that they are over volted already as well.

What I don't understand is why you have the idea that people have to overvolt to get any sort of performance out of a P4. As I said, there are many many chips out there that have no problems hitting ~3 GHz with 1.75v or less. If a TBred needs 2.2v to gain the kind of overclocks we're seeing (I'm not saying all TBreds do, just saying it for the sake of argument) those overvolted chips might very well have problems competing with 3 GHz P4s for very long; 3 GHz P4s which are running at their "everyday" speed even when being benched. Mdzcpa pointed out some compelling evidence that Tbreds are more voltage hardy than Northwoods and they very might well be but pumping 2.2v into a chip is not going to promote longevity.

Originally posted by LBJGH
Well spoken Mike.... an IF a 333mhz bus AthlonXP is release including the 512k cache the games will really begin. It is still interesting to me how people keep singing the praises of the 3Ghz P4 but how little actual performance is gained over a 2Ghz T-Bred. I guess people still get sucked into the big number means really fast.

Bartons will have 512k cache and as for bus, once again, who cares? Not like any of us will leave it at stock.

The reason people sing praises of the 3GHz+ P4 is simple. No these people are not always "sucked into the big number". A well overclocked P4 (3 GHz and beyond) is going to be faster than nearly all TBred/Palomino chips running at their limits with a few exceptions. Fact of the matter is as of now, P4s own the ORB. A lot of the members here feel that if they have to pay an extra $50-$100 for a chip that takes them to the top, so be it. Real world performance difference, not much; 3DMark difference (not counting the limited 9700s and Kamu's LN2 experiments), 500-1000 points, quite large. Guess which scale most of us are working on.

Then there are people like me who simply bought a P4 to play with it. Messing w/ computers is my hobby and after going through 6 AMD CPUs and just as many motherboards (forgot my Duron in that last list ) I felt I needed a change.

Anyways I've hijacked this thread enough, I apologize. Feel free to PM me if you wish to continue this discussion.

[zakelwe]

I think AMD chips are better at F@H not because of AMD optimisations by Standford, but by the fact that the software seems to like a large IPc's and never seems to pop out of the cpu much, to RAM etc.

For example, even the lower amount of cache on a Duron does not handicap it much as they are the same speed as a Athlon and only 10% slower than a XP, clock for clock.

Distributed Folding is more level with Intel and AMD, whereas other DC projects are favoured on Intel cpu's.

Whatever, we want both companies to be trading blows, not one out for the count. It's better for the spectators you know

Regards

Andy

[N8]

Sux a good thread got crapped on by a few simps....

Thx for the info, MrIcee....it was hard to read the good stuff thru all the junk...The new Tbreds look rather promising.

[MrIcee]

Just a quick late night update fella's

From what I'm hearing..and seeing here online tonight...it looks like the expected arrival of the 2400 and 2600+ is sometime in October...at least this is an ETA I observed earlier. I also saw an ETA of Nov/Dec on the 2800+. Another month's wait is truly unfortunate.

Randi