Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[justapost]

Dropped my 4850e back last night, picked up 4450e X2 2.3G instead. Waiting for another MSI and DFI 790FX board now. Also dropped my 780G back and picked up the 740G instead.

Build cost:- £130

AMD Athlon X2 4450e 2.3G 45W - £40
Corsair 2x1GB 800 4-4-4-12 - £25
Gigabyte 740G - £35
Seasonic S12 330W - £30

First dime I spent on PCs since 15 months.. very happy with that

Nice that 740G is ~20€ ceaper here that the 780G and still sufficient for office usage. I wait for Asus Barebones like the PUNDIT with an 740G/780G chipset here.
As an alternative to Barebones I have build a machine with an Aerocool M40 Case ~50€ and 780G 75€ and S12 330W ~50€. It's ~50€ more expensive than the Pundith.
740G was not available at that time, will reduce costs to ~150€. Might be over all cheaper than the barebone. In the past nearly all of the barebones required a new psu during lifetime. Bad side that M40 Case has twice the sice of a barebone, so it's abit huge for the desktop.

I have a few benchmark results here with an BE2400 in the M3A in case you wanna compare. 4850e at 2GHZ/1V pulled max 1.3A here btw, posted a few results in the M3A thread.
The BE2400 and my 500BE require the same voltage than the 4850e for 3GHz, the 4850e howevere needs less vcore for 2.5GHz than the BE2400. I can not find specs for the 4xxx chips at the amd site, do you know the differences between the 4450e and the BE2400?

Extelleron noted that the Corsair HX 520 has no 18A limit on the 12V1-12V3. That might help on the MSI with only one 4pin connector.

Will you get an M2R or an M2RS?

[KTE]

You must've heard about AMD's latest financial state as well as how the US economy has plunged straight down with huge losses for the biggest banks, massive insecure lendings and very low consumer spending - Google and Cat are notably ones to make huge profits but assess their sheets - the profits are from increased overseas gains.
AMD updated its forecast before to $1.225bill expected revenue so they met the anlaysts renewed expectations when they broke news of $1.505bill revenue having $358mill net loss with "over 0.5mill quad-core sold this quarter" compared to the previous expectations of $1.552bill revenue. They also advised of lower than expected Q2 sales.

AMD in a statement attributed the shortfall to "lower overall average selling prices and significantly lower unit sales" from its computing solutions group, which encompasses desktop PCs, laptops, workstations and servers.

So our position for second quarter is we are cautious. We clearly still see I’ll call it the consumer pressures but we don’t need to forecast stronger or worse than at this point in time. We’ll just kind of try to hit it down the middle of the fairway.
And we’ve got a new product lineup which we believe will help us but again, I need to reestablish credibility versus throwing out a big number or a small number.

Again, our consumer exposure makes that a little tough but our goal is to hold share, not lose anymore share than we have and if anything, try to gain some of it back that we lost, particularly in the server space.

ASPs were flat in every lineup. Fab 36 is no where near full out production, which shows major player demand is less - until Q2 at least. With the cost of manufacturing increasing from B2 to B3 [combined costs withhout sales], old inventories still not sold, AMD blames slow sale of old products as well as the lack of SMB, OEM, HPC and general server K10 supply [none for 8 months]. Understanding industry and the tier one being what can decide ASP and profits single handedly, I don't know anyone who never expected far worse.

Stocks were around $5.60 Tuesday but shot up +$0.12 at close after the conference while Intel closed -$0.02 on the same day. Now stocks are a little down from the $6.39 jump to $6.11. There are positives as well as negatives to take. Their drop in share price from Nov '07 to Jan '08 based mainly on the TLB bug and no HPC, SMB, general server, notebook and OEM products, was massive to say the least.

I'm not going to say anything more but post links to the details, apart from... Shanghai decides it [read: server] and by Q1 '09 we'll know the state well enough.

Three reports:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3670491
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/amd-reports-narrower-loss-cites/story.aspx?guid={4ADE2FB6-EC5F-446C-A5B6-CE77F42380CB}
http://www.physorg.com/news127671130.html
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/...ing-it-on.aspx
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/...re-coming.aspx

Full financial breakdown of the last few years: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/I...06_643,00.html
Full Call Transcript with all info from AMD direct about why and for the future, what and when [highly recommended read!]: http://seekingalpha.com/article/7281...cripts_sidebar
Trading Report for (AMD) Detailed Technical Analysis + Free Market Timing Report: http://reports.finance.yahoo.com/w0?r=35588260:1

[KTE]

Nice that 740G is ~20€ ceaper here that the 780G and still sufficient for office usage. I wait for Asus Barebones like the PUNDIT with an 740G/780G chipset here.
As an alternative to Barebones I have build a machine with an Aerocool M40 Case ~50€ and 780G 75€ and S12 330W ~50€. It's ~50€ more expensive than the Pundith.
740G was not available at that time, will reduce costs to ~150€. Might be over all cheaper than the barebone. In the past nearly all of the barebones required a new psu during lifetime. Bad side that M40 Case has twice the sice of a barebone, so it's abit huge for the desktop.

Yeah I like the build, does me perfect. The case I'm using is an old OEM mATX case smaller than modern mATX cases, very tiny - shipped in K7 days with an OEM PC I purchased. I wanted the low power CPUs [no 35W here], I'll try tweak them to stay very cool (have you been able to tweak CnQ on 2400?). I'm wanting to add no fans apart from HSF at lowest speed and make it a standard, stable, cool, very low power WISE build.

Your EU prices are a little more expensive than were here - but bear in mind I got the stuff through supplier discount or I'd have to pay more than I did.

You know something, AMD 4050e, 4450e, 4850e are in very short supply. All OEMs and SMBs are taking every new batch that comes in to UK distributors within 9-12 noon each day. The prices are like I've never seen on lower end produce.

When I bought it, 4850e, I paid £48 and then 4450e at 9am a few days ago, I paid £40 incl. 17.5% VAT.
There were 23x 4850e, 21x 4450e and 18x 4050e at that time at that supplier. The staff told me OEMs and SMBs had taken other stock on pre-order.
Then I checked 2 hours after, they were all sold out by 12 noon.
Then the supplier changed state to available from non-available at 2.15pm expecting delivery from AMD next morning.
Now the prices were: 4050e £58, 4450e £66 and 4850e £74.
That's roughly £28 above what they should each be on a lowest end product, a lot of price gouging.

I have a few benchmark results here with an BE2400 in the M3A in case you wanna compare. 4850e at 2GHZ/1V pulled max 1.3A here btw, posted a few results in the M3A thread.

I gave my BE-2350 system to a friend a while ago [with HD 3650]. It was perfect for her and she's having a rough patch, being something I got for free, it was no big deal, she liked it. I left it at 1.30v 2.8G, pulled less wattage than 1.35V 2.6G 5000+ BE at stock. They're better binned and have lower current requirements. Compared to Intels offering, they're superior in nearly all aspects; better in perf, price, power and heat. Closest Intel offered is Pentium E2200 65W 2.2 GHz, more expensive and inferior platform for me and yet there's price gouging on the AMD 45W models, so it will get worse unless they can drop price much more. This one of many reviews shows the AMD low end dominating, kinda like top end is Intel dominated. The review also clearly shows how 1GHz HT is much less performance than 1.8GHz HT in Phenom, contrary to uninformed onliner conjectures for a few years now - which they be wrong about in most regards where they don't have actual test products. Difference being, the G35 costs £85 for me compared to the 780G being £50 and the E2200 is £56 compared to 4850e I paid £48 for. New updated WISE build is even better.

Thank you for the results, I'll check them out - comparison is always good to improve and learn

The BE2400 and my 500BE require the same voltage than the 4850e for 3GHz, the 4850e however needs less vcore for 2.5GHz than the BE2400.

I only booted the 4850e twice, it was stock 2.5G at 1.155v with 36.5A max rating.

Transistor count: 221 million
Die Size: 118 mm²
Nominal Voltage: 1.15/1.20/1.25 V
Max Thermal Power: 45W
Max Ambient Case Temp: 78°C
Max Processor Current: 36.5 A
Min P-State: 1.0 GHz
Nominal Voltage @ min P-state: 1.0 V
Max Thermal Power @ min P-state: 18.1 W
Max Current @ min P-state: 15.1A

I can not find specs for the 4xxx chips at the amd site, do you know the differences between the 4450e and the BE2400?

Exact same, the X2 4850e replaces the BE-2400. 256KB L1, 1MB L2, DDR2 800MHz supported but 200MHz higher at the same node with 45W instead of 65W maximum rating. That's the only difference.

Extelleron noted that the Corsair HX 520 has no 18A limit on the 12V1-12V3. That might help on the MSI with only one 4pin connector.

Thanks man. Yeah I know, it doesn't have an OCP on each rail so you can top the limit, that's why, but I didn't get it because there were none free around and I wasn't about to pay for one

Will you get an M2R or an M2RS?

M2R.

[batmang]

KTE, the next upgrade for me is going to be an ABS modular PSU. Saving for it. Once I get it I'm sure my OC results will be much better. I just got my second 3870 in this week and heres how its looking:



I'm pretty sure the PSU is the main reason my OC'ing is limited. I've never seen ANYONE else with a default vcore of 1.2v.
I went back to Vista 64 btw. XP just seems historic now that I'm using Vista all day at work.
Then I was coming home to XP, felt odd, hah.

[KTE]

My 9500 had a default vCore of 1.2v and so did quite a few others
My first and third 9600 was stock 1.25v but the second one was stock 1.2v, yours can probably drop volts stock.

By adding expensive GPU and so on with a very poor PSU, you're risking killing and damaging your system hardware any millisecond. It can totally destroy your system and is more important than your parts, it powers them. That's despite you being able to tell or not.

[Brother Esau]

Tye you have PM in a second

[justapost]

Yeah I like the build, does me perfect. The case I'm using is an old OEM mATX case smaller than modern mATX cases, very tiny - shipped in K7 days with an OEM PC I purchased. I wanted the low power CPUs [no 35W here], I'll try tweak them to stay very cool (have you been able to tweak CnQ on 2400?). I'm wanting to add no fans apart from HSF at lowest speed and make it a standard, stable, cool, very low power WISE build.

Your EU prices are a little more expensive than were here - but bear in mind I got the stuff through supplier discount or I'd have to pay more than I did.

You know something, AMD 4050e, 4450e, 4850e are in very short supply. All OEMs and SMBs are taking every new batch that comes in to UK distributors within 9-12 noon each day. The prices are like I've never seen on lower end produce.

When I bought it, 4850e, I paid £48 and then 4450e at 9am a few days ago, I paid £40 incl. 17.5% VAT.
There were 23x 4850e, 21x 4450e and 18x 4050e at that time at that supplier. The staff told me OEMs and SMBs had taken other stock on pre-order.
Then I checked 2 hours after, they were all sold out by 12 noon.
Then the supplier changed state to available from non-available at 2.15pm expecting delivery from AMD next morning.
Now the prices were: 4050e £58, 4450e £66 and 4850e £74.
That's roughly £28 above what they should each be on a lowest end product, a lot of price gouging.

I gave my BE-2350 system to a friend a while ago [with HD 3650]. It was perfect for her and she's having a rough patch, being something I got for free, it was no big deal, she liked it. I left it at 1.30v 2.8G, pulled less wattage than 1.35V 2.6G 5000+ BE at stock. They're better binned and have lower current requirements. Compared to Intels offering, they're superior in nearly all aspects; better in perf, price, power and heat. Closest Intel offered is Pentium E2200 65W 2.2 GHz, more expensive and inferior platform for me and yet there's price gouging on the AMD 45W models, so it will get worse unless they can drop price much more. This one of many reviews shows the AMD low end dominating, kinda like top end is Intel dominated. The review also clearly shows how 1GHz HT is much less performance than 1.8GHz HT in Phenom, contrary to uninformed onliner conjectures for a few years now - which they be wrong about in most regards where they don't have actual test products. Difference being, the G35 costs £85 for me compared to the 780G being £50 and the E2200 is £56 compared to 4850e I paid £48 for. New updated WISE build is even better.

Cheapest mobo for an E2200 I could fine here is ECS P4M900T-M2 for ~35€, E2200 costs ~85€ here. E2200 lacks hardware virtualisation support and that is a feature I won't miss on current cpu's. So i'd need somethin in the price category of an E6550 ~125€. 4x50e chips are easy to get in germany atm. 4850e is listed for 70-74€ (incl. VAT as all my previous mentinoned prices).

I only booted the 4850e twice, it was stock 2.5G at 1.155v with 36.5A max rating.

Min stable for 2.5G was 1.175V here (1.15 failed).

Exact same, the X2 4850e replaces the BE-2400. 256KB L1, 1MB L2, DDR2 800MHz supported but 200MHz higher at the same node with 45W instead of 65W maximum rating. That's the only difference.

You speak abbout BE-2400 beeing a 65W chip at 2.5GHz I assume because at 2.3GHz it's a 45W TDP chip.

M2R.

The only difference betwenn our testing setups will be the hd and the cdrom and the mobo branding. Good in therms of physical trials whom should be location independant.

[KTE]

Camp YGPM

Yorkfield has major supply issues, I've been avidly waiting [and a bit ticked today] since early October hypes but we knew it since a while with Intel 45nm being rushed and now into Q2 its become very apparent with very high prices for the few that are available here. Biggest UK retailer, etailer and distributor gave ETA for Q9450 (and likely Q9550): August 2008

I had said a long while back in September that the boasted hype and false desktop [low] price releases were just snakeoil marketing you should ignore until you see them and it was a premature hyped desktop launch to ruin K10 only, while they did not have the goods apart from top bins which they always have fabbed early. We would not see anything but to server and then OEM for a while - and this ETA is worse than you'll see for quite a long time considering no buggy chip. Demand must be poor in retail desktop too, that's because Q6600 G0 is a far superior offering ATM, overclocking better too.

BTW, I think for those playing it is a known issue for a while with Phenom.
Phenom takes a much smaller hit from XP to Vista than Intel C2 based CPUs.
Phenom improves much more from 32b to 64b than Intel C2 based CPUs
So you will see Phenom 9850BE start levelling and beating Q6600 even in Intels highlight benchmarks. If you take 64b into account, Phenom 9850BE at stock beats C2Q Q6600 at stock in Cinebench 10 multi-threaded and the system power full load is also nearly exact, despite 9850BE being much more of a power hog than the 95W models.

Cheapest mobo for an E2200 I could fine here is ECS P4M900T-M2 for ~35€, E2200 costs ~85€ here. E2200 lacks hardware virtualisation support and that is a feature I won't miss on current cpu's. So i'd need somethin in the price category of an E6550 ~125€. 4x50e chips are easy to get in germany atm. 4850e is listed for 70-74€ (incl. VAT as all my previous mentinoned prices).
http://geizhals.at/?phistgfx=324706&...e=90&width=640

Check 780V, it's even cheaper. EU and US has far better supply than UK or Middle East. I checked the Intel E7200 2.53GHz 45nm 65W out soon but it was £88 cheapest after supplier discount and running at 1.17v.

You speak abbout BE-2400 beeing a 65W chip at 2.5GHz I assume because at 2.3GHz it's a 45W TDP chip.

Sorry, you're right. I meant a 45W max TDP rating for BE-2400 at 2.3G whilst 4850e 2.5G is a same TDP lower binned chip with 200MHz more than BE-2400, yes.

My 2350 was 1.15v 2.1G stock. It clocked to 2.6G max on stock volts, after that required higher volts. Official spec details are as follows:

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350
Clock frequency: 	2.1GHz
L1 Cache: 64K instructions + 64K data per core
L2 Cache: 512 KB per core
Production: 65nm Brisbane, Fab 30 and 36
Quantity of transistors: 221 million
Core area: 118 mm²
Default voltage (Vcore): 1.15-1.20v
Max TDP: 45W
Max current consumption: 36.5A
Max Tcase temperature: From 61°C to 78°C
Min CnQ Frequency: 1.0GHz
Min CnQ Voltage : 1.10v
Max CnQ Current: 22.5A
Max CnQ TDP: 27.7W 

vs.

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4850e
Clock frequency: 	2.5GHz
L1 Cache: 64K instructions + 64K data per core
L2 Cache: 512 KB per core
Production: 65nm Brisbane, Fab 36 Dresden on 300mm wafers
Quantity of transistors: 221 million
Core area: 118 mm²
Default voltage (Vcore): 1.15/1.20/1.25v
Max TDP: 45 W
Max current consumption: 36.5 A
Max Tcase temperature: 78°C
Min CnQ Frequency: 1.0GHz
Min CnQ Voltage : 1.0v
Max CnQ Current: 15.1A
Max CnQ TDP: 18.1W

How the above differ from the X2 3800+ 2.0GHz 1.025-1.075v EE SFF 35W model is, it needed 1.5v for ~2.6G.

The only difference betwenn our testing setups will be the hd and the cdrom and the mobo branding. Good in therms of physical trials whom should be location independant.

I'll disconnect the CD drive don't worry But yeah, it'll be good to compare ocne again.

Like I said before, when I used a clamp ammeter to measure CPU 12V power, below 25W it was reading weird values and showing inaccuracy. I rechecked the line amps and they were far lower than the ammeter read, from 1.5A to 0.6A. These results are CnQ and CE1 results and it shows a very likely possible error in low end results I've seen and not been able to repeat in some online reviews for a while now. P-Tuner IME is a very accurate DCA tool at low wattages on each rail.

[KTE]

Barcelona 2356 2.3G 1P and 2P Linux 64b review: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ron_2356&num=1
Easy full benchmark access: http://global.phoronix-test-suite.co...964-29321-9146
Many other runs to compare with: http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/

You can benchmark all of those yourself by running their provided benchmarks in batch scripts: http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/

[justapost]

Check 780V, it's even cheaper. EU and US has far better supply than UK or Middle East. I checked the Intel E7200 2.53GHz 45nm 65W out soon but it was £88 cheapest after supplier discount and running at 1.17v.
Sorry, you're right. I meant a 45W max TDP rating for BE-2400 at 2.3G whilst 4850e 2.5G is a same TDP lower binned chip with 200MHz more than BE-2400, yes.

E7200 does not have hardware virtualisation support (wish, they'd manage to make this more transparent via the product name).
Skimmed over an Computer Base review and the power consumption in idle seems to be onpar with an downclocked X26000 at 2.2GHz. That downclocked X2-6000 still winns price/preformance wise.

My 2350 was 1.15v 2.1G stock. It clocked to 2.6G max on stock volts, after that required higher volts. Official spec details are as follows:

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350
Clock frequency: 	2.1GHz
L1 Cache: 64K instructions + 64K data per core
L2 Cache: 512 KB per core
Production: 65nm Brisbane, Fab 30 and 36
Quantity of transistors: 221 million
Core area: 118 mm²
Default voltage (Vcore): 1.15-1.20v
Max TDP: 45W
Max current consumption: 36.5A
Max Tcase temperature: From 61°C to 78°C
Min CnQ Frequency: 1.0GHz
Min CnQ Voltage : 1.10v
Max CnQ Current: 22.5A
Max CnQ TDP: 27.7W 

vs.

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4850e
Clock frequency: 	2.5GHz
L1 Cache: 64K instructions + 64K data per core
L2 Cache: 512 KB per core
Production: 65nm Brisbane, Fab 36 Dresden on 300mm wafers
Quantity of transistors: 221 million
Core area: 118 mm²
Default voltage (Vcore): 1.15/1.20/1.25v
Max TDP: 45 W
Max current consumption: 36.5 A
Max Tcase temperature: 78°C
Min CnQ Frequency: 1.0GHz
Min CnQ Voltage : 1.0v
Max CnQ Current: 15.1A
Max CnQ TDP: 18.1W

How the above differ from the X2 3800+ 2.0GHz 1.025-1.075v EE SFF 35W model is, it needed 1.5v for ~2.6G.
I'll disconnect the CD drive don't worry But yeah, it'll be good to compare ocne again.

Those where my results all passed 5-15mins prime so the final stable voltages might be ~0.05V higher.
Do you own an 78GB raptor? I might pick an WD 500GP.

Like I said before, when I used a clamp ammeter to measure CPU 12V power, below 25W it was reading weird values and showing inaccuracy. I rechecked the line amps and they were far lower than the ammeter read, from 1.5A to 0.6A. These results are CnQ and CE1 results and it shows a very likely possible error in low end results I've seen and not been able to repeat in some online reviews for a while now. P-Tuner IME is a very accurate DCA tool at low wattages on each rail.

My dmm can be used to measure amps but the docs say it must be measured without voltage applied.
I compared 4pin vs 8pin rails. With 8pin rails P-Tuner readings are very accurate dV=~0.01V. With the 4pin rail P-Tuner readed an ~0.08V higher value.
What really puzzled me was HWmonitor, 12V2 shows higher values than in P-Tuner and 12V4 (unused) seems to be used.

Thanks for the phoronix link. Comparing an 1.8GHz xeon with the opterons is abit suboptimal but I like their work on the benchmark package.

[KTE]

Yep, I saw all your data, thanks for the tests - P-Tuner works very good but HWMon can error very largely in its polling of those voltages.
E7200: never knew, thanks for the added data.

Review is just for the sake of seeing Barcelona numbers, since it's not a fair comparison. My main intention was to make those benchmark files known here, so we can use them and compare.

Sorry, I don't have a WD Raptor here. The two I had degraded and then died inside 2 months [heavy use], and when the 3rd died 21 days after so now I have a big cautionary dislike of them [data loss ], so I tend to stay away.

Why is it you ask? If its something let me know, I may be able to pick some up just for testing.

[justapost]

E7200: never knew, thanks for the added data.

What data? Here is the review. Here a translation.
I wonder if i should try an E7250(Socket 478) in an very old barebone.

Review is just for the sake of seeing Barcelona numbers, since it's not a fair comparison. My main intention was to make those benchmark files known here, so we can use them and compare.

Hmm even if there are no options in the bios it should be easy to modify the tlb-workaround patch in a way that he also modifies the p-states for 1.8GHz.
I wonder why there is still no CnQ support in the 2.6.24 kernel looking at how p-states are implemented it can not be so difficult to modify the k8 module to work with k10's. AMD must be really short in resources.

Here is a Link to an article about their latest released benchmark suite.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...=pts_030&num=1
They added SpecViewPerf9 and IOzone.

I tried to install ubuntu last week but it did not let me reisze my hd. Was short in time and will be then next three weeks, till i finished that typo3 page. Wanted to test compiz and hd2600 support and give you a short howto, but it might take a while.
I run compiz and fglrx on debian lenny on M2A-VM oboard gfx. That setup also worked fine and accelerated on the M3A with the HD2600XT. I can place that hd in the dfi/phenom setup, check if it works and send you the configs, in case you wanna try debian instead of ubuntu.

Sorry, I don't have a WD Raptor here. The two I had degraded and then died inside 2 months [heavy use], and when the 3rd died 21 days after so now I have a big cautionary dislike of them [data loss ], so I tend to stay away.
Why is it you ask? If its something let me know, I may be able to pick some up just for testing.

Got mine back from RMA and the replacement died on the second day.

Also two wd 500GB RE2 discs died last week here, one has a smart error after three days of normal usage the other felt down ~50cm and makes noises now. I'll RMA all three without feeling guilty. Was asking because with plugged of cdrom the disc is the only difference in testings. WD GP's look really good power consumption wise (http://techreport.com/articles.x/13379/14), did previous testings with two WD500RE2's in raid0 but i can not keep those for a longer time, so i'm looking for an suitable hd for the test setup atm, i might endup with an fast pata hd. Seems to be the robustest solution and not that bad in terms of performance.

[KTE]

So whats the average oc you guys using MSI board have settled on with B2 and B3?

Here's the new CPUs added to the compatibility list, check the BIOS version they need:

What data?

I didn't know E7200 didn't have virtualization support, I assumed it did.

Here is the review. Here a translation.

Thanks, already looked over the review.

I wonder if i should try an E7250(Socket 478) in an very old barebone.

DP boards?

Here is a Link to an article about their latest released benchmark suite.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...=pts_030&num=1
They added SpecViewPerf9 and IOzone.

Yeah great additions

I tried to install ubuntu last week but it did not let me reisze my hd. Was short in time and will be then next three weeks, till i finished that typo3 page. Wanted to test compiz and hd2600 support and give you a short howto, but it might take a while.

OK, I have my HD resized with GParted before installation, saves me much trouble. Mines triple boot so can't risk some data. Had Compiz working with other Intel install but not with the AMD install, damn too confusing and problematic. Keeps asking for install CDs which I don't have.

I run compiz and fglrx on debian lenny on M2A-VM oboard gfx. That setup also worked fine and accelerated on the M3A with the HD2600XT. I can place that hd in the dfi/phenom setup, check if it works and send you the configs, in case you wanna try debian instead of ubuntu.

That'd be cool, maybe I will install it; are you running Debian 4.0 amd64 install?
How many CDs does it require, not 21 I hope?
I normally use the Debian-NP bootable Morphix-based CD, have you used this?

Got mine back from RMA and the replacement died on the second day.

Yeah system builders, OEMs and SMBs' data shows Raptor as the most failure prone drive in the world, many of them do not even support it anymore for this reason - it costs them too much. I can't stand using anything which gives me hassles or instability, erratic behavior or deaths, I don't have the time for it either and I'm not bothered about HDD perf either - as long as its more decent SATA II perf.

Also two wd 500GB RE2 discs died last week here, one has a smart error after three days of normal usage the other felt down ~50cm and makes noises now. I'll RMA all three without feeling guilty. Was asking because with plugged of cdrom the disc is the only difference in testings. WD GP's look really good power consumption wise (http://techreport.com/articles.x/13379/14), did previous testings with two WD500RE2's in raid0 but i can not keep those for a longer time, so i'm looking for an suitable hd for the test setup atm, i might endup with an fast pata hd. Seems to be the robustest solution and not that bad in terms of performance.

I change systems and place of residence every 3-4 week so need something which is very robust, reliable and travel loving - I have very vital research and personal data I can no way afford to lose, so I've made compromises. I use 8 [2 in each] of these for normal builds, they work perfect and I've trashed them hard even in 50°C ambients [KSA] ->



I'm impressed they're still alive without a single error. They hold my OS/Apps etc, then I use one 80GB PATA drive on each system extra and all storage/movable files are on USB linked drives or mostly one 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 per system. All big files such as media be stored on that incl. research data and archives. All of it is basically the best working, error free, robust config I've settled on after around 4 years of trial and error - and suffering I've also had enough of RAID setups for personal builds due to the problems its given me across all systems especially during movement, I only want RAID 10 or RAID 5EE and only when there are no problems with that system using them. Quick, easy and reliable is what I look for, something extremely repeatable and consistent since I probably install OS/drives/software minimum twice a day on systems I have to work with professionally, and these drives are my spares I use to test on befre installing on professional builds I can't afford to muck up. If I have more drives free then 5-drive 5EE setup is what I aim for.

My Maxtor drives degrade very quickly too, like my Raptors.

[batmang]

My 9500 had a default vCore of 1.2v and so did quite a few others
My first and third 9600 was stock 1.25v but the second one was stock 1.2v, yours can probably drop volts stock.

By adding expensive GPU and so on with a very poor PSU, you're risking killing and damaging your system hardware any millisecond. It can totally destroy your system and is more important than your parts, it powers them. That's despite you being able to tell or not.

Hrmmm. I'm planning to get a ThermalTake modular PSU. I'm not sure what wattage to get though. Would 600W be enough? I don't want to damage the goods:


( I know, I know. 120mm Scythe fans are OTW.)

[KTE]

Yep, Corsair 620W [etc] would be good, especially for headrom oc'ing

Which TT do you have in mind?

[batmang]

I was looking at these modular PSU's:

Thermal Take 600W:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153049

Xigamatek 650W:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817815001

And the Mushkin 650W:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817812005

Basically, I'm looking for something that will power my current stuff, give me OC room, and maybe power 1-2 more HD's. I don't want anything overkill, I don't want to spend more money then I need to to put it bluntly.

[batmang]

^^... hrmm... NEVERMIND. I think I found the one I reallllly want.
Corsair 620W.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139002

CHECK OUT those cables!

[justapost]

Tye,

I only slept one-two hours last two days, Kali Yuga at work atm. I'll respond in length tomorrow.

I use debian lenny/testing on my desktop pc since a few years without problems.

If you have good internet bandwidth you can use the netinstaller or business-card images.

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/da.../amd64/iso-cd/

Netinstaller comes with the minimum required for a running system, Business-Card is just the installer. The rest is fetched from the net.

Packages in testing get frequent updates, aprx. 500GB per week. But it's stable here 98% of the time and fixed soon at the 2% something goes wrong.

[KTE]

This is also a good'an esp for the price - the Corsair always charges royalty like the PCP&C so I won't recommend them over a similar performing cheaper one.

I'll read up on some data I'm missing before saying any more

[KTE]

Thanks Achim, I'll try it.

500GB?

[Eternalightwith]

1. Does this motherboard has "Max ASYNC limit" setting?

2. What is the consensus between you and Tony on the Phenom liking high MHz or tighter timings?
3. Is it better to do 4gb (4 - 1gb sticks or 2 - 2gb sticks) or if going for 8gb (4 - 2gb sticks or 2 - 4gb sticks)

ETlight

[justapost]

Thanks Achim, I'll try it.

500GB?

Lol, installation finished.

I grabbed the netinstaller and did an fresh install on the 780G+4850e system.
fglrx drivers are in use, compiz is installed, now i need to modify xorg.conf.

bbs.



Few hours later: In short, I understand what you mean.

[batmang]

This is also a good'an esp for the price - the Corsair always charges royalty like the PCP&C so I won't recommend them over a similar performing cheaper one.

I'll read up on some data I'm missing before saying any more

Thanks KTE, you really are awesome.

[d412k5t412]

You guys have any idea when the SB710 or SB750 is coming out for the 790FX boards? I wonder if that will help out with any over clocking possibly?

[KTE]

I'll get back to ya with more time...

My WD Phenom HD [thoroughly tested as perfect as you see above] just randomly died on a P35 MB. The trigger was adding a PATA and SATA drive together, killed the drive totally and all my work 10 mins before backup schedule