DFI and 2.1ghz Dothan or FX-55 and Neo 2?

[computerpro3]

I am going to be finishing off my system on one fell swoop on the 15th. Keep in mind that I have already ordered a prometia Mach 1, so that will be cooling the CPU.

Now I was originaly planning on grabbing a fx-55 and jacking it up to around 3ghz..possibly up to 3.1 or 3.2. That would be blazing fast coupled with my mushkin v2 tccd.

But then I saw the dothan benches and how a 2.4ghz blew away the fx-55 in most gaming benches and games....and hit 2.6ghz on air.

So my question is threefold:

what is a dothan 2.1 likely to hit under a prommie, can a prommie be mounted on the dfi board, and which would you take, fx-55 or dothan 2.1ghz?

[Kunaak]

FX55.

the dothan is ok at 3dmark2003 and 2005, and ok at games.
but I'd still take a overclocked FX55 anyday over the dothan.

the dothans biggest problem is it's simplest problem.
it's limited to a ancient motherboard.

[Rabbi_NZ]

Off topic...

Kunaak,
jus clicked on your photo link. that's quality work dude, and great narration... didnt look at them all but will def get round to it.
d'you snowboard or are those your mates?

[Kunaak]

use to snowboard, but don't anymore, saw too many friends get killed every year in avalanches. so now, I just hike with my friends, and do the photos.
skateboards, and surfing is enough for me.

anyways, back on topic, if you wanna talk more about it, just PM me.

[Naughtyboy]

the dothans biggest problem is it's simplest problem.
it's limited to a ancient motherboard.

Well...as long as the performance that he´s looking for is on par and as long as the featuers he´s looking for is included...then I can´t se how the usage of an old techique can be a problem.
It´s working....and it´s working bloody well and fast.

[D_o_S]

Wait for DFI nF4 boards, and then get one with a FX55...

[MrQ3W]

Isn't there a good DFI board for Dothan coming out soon/now? or was it bad?

[Kunaak]

it sucks, the Aopen is the better of the two.

[jjcom]

yeah the Aopen board is a better choice if you want a P-M...I'd still take the overclocked FX-55...the high memory bandwidth, good benches and me just liking the FX-55

jjcom

[uclajd]

Why go the easy way? Go the Pentium M route. I like the idea of doing something different. AMD might be going against the mainstream, but AMD is the mainstream on XS.

A Pentium M 2.0 will cost you roughly 1/2 of an fx55 and when a decent M board comes out, you will pwn us all.

Oh, and I just spent the day video encoding and multitasking (really, I did) with my poor, maligned Pentium 4 @ 4.4 GHz. What do you plan to do with this rig? If all you do is game and bench, that's one thing. But if you do a lot of video or 20 things at once, you have to consider the P4. I can assure you that my rig video encodes faster than most AMDs (stick for personal bragging, not to defend mutlibillion dollar corporation of which I own no stock). Try surfing the Web and sending e-mail and listening to music while encoding video on any system, and you'll know what I mean.

FWIW, I am platform agnostic, and if the FX's had hyperthreading I'd likely have one under my Vapo right now. Could still happen...

EDIT: Don't forget the 533s P-M's are coming.

[shadowing]

Man, I'd go with the FX-55. It's pretty fast with great mobo support. The only reason to hate the Dothan is that there's no 64 bit support and bad mobos on it.

[WesM63]

I just went through a similar decision. I wanted P4-M cause no-one really has one.. but the options are limited.. really limited. A mATX board is just not good for a gaming system and the price/performance isn't there either.

I went with a Wenchester 3200+, glad I did, these things just totally rock for the price.

[computerpro3]

well the biggest consideration is


will the prommie work?

and all I do is game or bench. ANy word on when a new dothan board is coming out?

[uclajd]

well the biggest consideration is will the prommie work?

Well, it should fit the mounting bracket of the Aopen, but the 479 socket is lower/shorter than 478, so will it reach? Vapo evaporator can be adjusted downward. Can the Prommie evap be adjusted to reach a lower sitting chip?

and all I do is game or bench. ANy word on when a new dothan board is coming out?

Wow, can I have your life?

[Johnny Bravo]

Its a really interesting question if taken from a money point of view. I dont follow US prices so I'll give my example in terms of pounds. All the prices shown here are from Overclockers just cus they have all the things in stock. Because both can use DDR ram I will ignore it

AMD RIG
FX-55 = £558.07
DFI board = £105.69 (the cheapest of the three btw)

DOTHAN RIG
Dothan 2.0GHz = £293.69
Aopen board = £157.39

Clearly the dothan rig is cheaper (£212.68 cheaper!), and WHEN OVERCLOCKED can perform on par with the FX-55. However, the FX-55 can also be overclocked putting it back ahead easily. Alot of you raise the valid point that the FX is uniformally good at test whereas the Dothan excels only in certain programs.

The thing that people seem to forget is that buying into a new AMD rig may cost alot more than they expect. For instance, no AGP support so a new graphics card is needed. Those of you planning SLI better get wise to the fact that you will need a 600Watt PSU minimal (check threads here). There may be other extra costs to incur depending on how often you "upgrade" your hardware.

The point I'm trying to make is that if your starting off fresh and have the money then FX-55's make sense, but if your upgrading your hardware then there may may be more to choosing the Dothan route, as it will give you STOCK FX performance for alot less cash!

At the end of the day it's your money, so you may as well spend it how you like.

[charlie]

AND....

when benching is done, you can set up a sff uber-quiet rig with the Dothan.... ridiculously cool running!

C

[I²K]

I wanted P4-M

A P4-M can be used with most S478 boards

The P-M has on big Probleme and that is the bandwith. If there will be a MB wich allows lowering the multi and gives you >200MHz FSB, then the P-M will be a good choice.

[Johnny Bravo]

Actually out of interest can FX preformance be achieved from a relatively cheap A64 winnie, we're not talking Phase cooling here, just air. I remember a while back some of the 3200+ chips reacting ~2.7-2.8GHz, how does this relate to the FX performance?

[drunkenmaster]

a winnie, right one, for instance a 3500+ is most certainly likely to hit more than 2.6Ghz, i'm gonna pick up a 3500+ winnie i think when they come back in stock in uk. if you hit 2.7Ghz you'll be almost equal, behind in 3dmark2k1 as cache makes a big impact there, 2.8Ghz and should be ahead in a lot of apps.

as for needing a 600W psu, the gskill guy, always forget the name, is running a overclocked fx i think with two overclocked ultras and 4 sata hdd's on a ocz 520W. a winchester will run fine in any sff box with silent cooling, as will an fx, doesn't matter if on same silent cooling they run at 25C or 55C, its still running and its still same noise level. also why would you want a £130-550 chip in a sff, sff = £30 chip and it will do everything it needs too, but then i have a personal hatred for sff, replacing dead boards in them at work all the time is such a pain in the ass. shuttle = devil company

a chip that could be really interesting to play with is the 4000+ winchester version. we really need to , all across the forum stop saying things like " at half the price overclocked it can easily match the more expensive cpu" whatever you might be refering to. its the same for almost every cpu you could mention, thats life, more performance at stock costs more, and its not a fair increase per Mhz the last 5% will cost you 50 times as much as the first 95% of performance, thats life.

[Johnny Bravo]

drunkenmaster, which XPCs are giving you problems, i've used a host of them without problem?

we really need to , all across the forum stop saying things like " at half the price overclocked it can easily match the more expensive cpu" whatever you might be refering to. its the same for almost every cpu you could mention, thats life, more performance at stock costs more, and its not a fair increase per Mhz the last 5% will cost you 50 times as much as the first 95% of performance, thats life.

While I understand what you mean, and the last part of your statment is very true, the Dothan is a little different. Sure in days gone by if you strapped on a bigger louder fan, or watercooling then you got speed = the best there was on the market but at the price of a system thats either costed the difference ion cooling or is so loud your getting headaches just trying to use it. But he Dothan achieves these speeds with a stock cooler thats nothing special in itself. Its the fact that these uber speeds can be easily, quickly and, in the most part, uniformly across the board achieved regardless of what chip and stock speed you care to use.

Isn't the whole game hereto get something for less why pay the £580 odd quid for an FX when you can easily get it for £300. Granted in this example the Dothan isn't amazing at everything, as has been stated numerous times, but what it is good at is games and certian benchmark programs, which is what computerpro3 wanted from his system.

Anyway I'm rambling on here. While I can understand what your saying I think thats its still feasible to argue for a cheaper overclocked CPU vs more expensive stock CPU. What exactly will be bottlenecking CPU wise at the speed of an FX, and with the money you save on the CPU splash out on a fancy graphics card!

JB

[Geforce4ti4200]

dothans lack 64 bits, dual channel, ondie controller and their mobos for it suck. There good if you want a cool quiet pc but id personally get a winchester, perhaps a nice 3200+ at like 250x10 or whatever good its ondie controller is.

[Techmasta]

Get the P-M so when 64-bit apps become popular I can laugh at you!

[Stormgiant]

Get the P-M so when 64-bit apps become popular I can laugh at you!

By that time, he will be running a Dothan 4Ghz and you a FX70

[Der_KHAN]

AND....

when benching is done, you can set up a sff uber-quiet rig with the Dothan.... ridiculously cool running!

C

cmon an fx could do that as well

computerpro i recon that your decision is only about performance. in this case you should go with the fx

[Rippthrough]

Try surfing the Web and sending e-mail and listening to music while encoding video on any system, and you'll know what I mean.

FWIW, I am platform agnostic, and if the FX's had hyperthreading I'd likely have one under my Vapo right now. Could still happen...
.

You know, I never understood this HT arguement.
I thought all that hyperthreading did was install a new instruction in a stalled pipeline, which happens pretty often in P4's because of the length of the pipelines. Now if that's right then hyperthreading is, effectively, enabled permently on an FX system because the pipelines are much shorter and, comparitively, hardly ever stall .
Am I missing something here or has the marketing man won again?



EDIT: I think the FX will be faster, but the Dothan would be more interesting....