ASRock 775Dual-VSTA (AMD->Intel upgrade advice)

[qpan]

Hi,

I'm currently an AMD A64 (s939) user, and am feeling the slowness of my PC.

I was thinking of doing an all out upgrade, but i currently have an AGP graphics card (9700Pro) and DDR ram, which would mean i would litterally need to upgrade everything (i.e. buy a new PC).

This wouldn't be much of a problem, but DX10 graphics cards are on the way, and i don't want to fork out £150-£200 for a DX9 card which won't be able to handle the newest games in a few months...

The ASRock 775Dual-VSTA (~£36) motherboard allows me to use DDR1 and AGP graphics with the Core 2 Duo processor, so all i need to do would be to spend about £200 for an E6400 and motherboard.

However, the performance seems to be a bit slower than other core 2 duo motherboards - does anyone have any experience with this board or could offer me some advice about another suitable motherboard which would require me to temporarily partially upgrade until DX10 cards come out?

Cheers,

Qi

 

[Ty07allstar]

I would personally wait until the Geforce 8 series is released and then buy Vista. Then you could get Conroe and have the latest operating system and the latest card with DX10.

 

[FragTek]

There's one or two members here who have that board but aren't running C2D's on them (I didnt't think you could I thought it had an older chipset). They say they are great for the price, but I don't think this would be your best bet. You've lived with your computer for this long, I think you can probably wait a few more months, save up a few more dollars, and just go all out when the time is right and everything is available (ie. DX10 cards). I think you will be dissapointed with the ASRocks performance if you try and use DDR + AGP, and then when you go to upgrade you're still going to be dissapointed because the board really isn't a performance board in any sense.

My vote is to just wait until you can get your hands on a DX10 card, then buy a good C2D board and some good DDR2 to go along with.

 

[qpan]

Thanks for the advice guys. Yeah, ASRock have a couple of strange boards using i945 and even i865 chipsets which support core 2 duo processors!

Surprisingly, i only upgraded last year! Processor technology has really taken off in the last few months.

I will probably wait a few months to upgrade to DX10 then, but what i was planning to do was temporarily upgrade to Core 2 using the £36 ASRock motherboard, then buy a new board in a few months time along with other new components such as gfx card and ram.

But the extra £40+ (inc p&p) I spent on the asrock mobo could be put into a faster processor instead in a few months...

Will I notice much difference using a slower motherboard compared to my current setup? (AMD A64 3500+ stock - i tried overclocking, but even going up 200mhz caused occasional data corruption - think air flow in old case was bad - will try again with my new ThermalRock Eclipse )

 

[Ham]

If its a 3500+ venice then its somthing else in your system slowing it down. Yes, conroe own them, but 939 is still pulling strong.

Looking at your profile you have a ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (Wich is a hell of a board) so you can go PCI-E with no trouble. All you need to do is sort out a decent graphics card and overclock.

Also when was the last time you re-formatted?

 

[qpan]

Quite a while since i last reformatted (i.e. over 1/2 a year) but then my computer has been in storage for the last 3 months at Uni (i've been using my core duo laptop, which seems so much more responsive!).

I'll reformat over the weekend and try overclocking in my new case...

Hopefully that will suffice, but i have a feeling i have been spoilt on the two cores of my sony vaio laptop!

 

[FragTek]

Yeah a 3500+ is in no way near outdated yet, and is still a great processor, nothing to scoff at. I'd slap a better HSF on it, maybe get some better memory, and try clocking it again.

I can tell you what your bottleneck is right now though, definately that 9700 Pro. That's going to make just about any newer game run like utter crap. I would suggest possibly an intermediate card to hold you over until you do the full upgrade. I'd check out a 7600GT or a 6800XT, both are very well priced and will whip the pants off of that 9700. You'll see an instant improvement in gaming quality.

How much ram do you have and how fast is it, also what kind is it?

 

[Ham]

He has 1GB of corsair vaule. Read the profiles frag.

Id say get 2GB of high end stuff (OCZ Gold, Mushkin Redline) would also help, but 1GB of the same stuff would surfice.

 

[FragTek]

Wirelessly posted (LG Fusic: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.4719/1374; en; U; ssr))

He has 1GB of corsair vaule. Read the profiles frag.

Id say get 2GB of high end stuff (OCZ Gold, Mushkin Redline) would also help, but 1GB of the same stuff would surfice.

i was just inciting conversation

 

[qpan]

Is corsair valueram really that bad?

I suppose i can't complain, as i picked up 2x512mb for just £40 delivered from ebay last year!

How does a radeon 9700pro compare to mordern day cards? They only ever review current gen stuff against other current gen stuff, so i never know how it ranks (i.e. is it better/worse than a 7300gt?).

Whats weird when i over clock is that my motherboard won't post when i overclock the fsb by more than 10% (can't remember the exact mhz as its been i while since i tried - decided not to bother after corrupting several windows installations). I can decrease the cpu multiplier and the ram multiplier so that they are not limiting, and i have removed the PCI-E lock to the FSB... so even on like 1ghz cpu and 133mhz ram, it still won't post...

I got the ASRock motherboard because it has agp as well as PCI-E and also because its supposed to overclock like a mofo... maybe its my case though (my old one - my ThermalRock Eclipse arrives tomorrow) as with my old Athlon XP 2600, i couldn't even clock it to stock speeds, but then i did buy it off of ebay second hand.

 

[FragTek]

Wirelessly posted (LG Fusic: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.4719/1374; en; U; ssr))

Is corsair valueram really that bad?

I suppose i can't complain, as i picked up 2x512mb for just £40 delivered from ebay last year!

How does a radeon 9700pro compare to mordern day cards? They only ever review current gen stuff against other current gen stuff, so i never know how it ranks (i.e. is it better/worse than a 7300gt?).

Whats weird when i over clock is that my motherboard won't post when i overclock the fsb by more than 10% (can't remember the exact mhz as its been i while since i tried - decided not to bother after corrupting several windows installations). I can decrease the cpu multiplier and the ram multiplier so that they are not limiting, and i have removed the PCI-E lock to the FSB... so even on like 1ghz cpu and 133mhz ram, it still won't post...

I got the ASRock motherboard because it has agp as well as PCI-E and also because its supposed to overclock like a mofo... maybe its my case though (my old one - my ThermalRock Eclipse arrives tomorrow) as with my old Athlon XP 2600, i couldn't even clock it to stock speeds, but then i did buy it off of ebay second hand.

do u have a sata hd? if so what port is or are they plugged in to? ur board may not have a lock on the first 2 ports.

 

[qpan]

Wirelessly posted (LG Fusic: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.4719/1374; en; U; ssr))

do u have a sata hd? if so what port is or are they plugged in to? ur board may not have a lock on the first 2 ports.

Aha - yes, i do have sata drives (2 in fact) and unfortuantely I only have 2 sataI ports and 1 sataII port... I didn't realise changing my fsb would affect sata frequency?

 

[WC Annihilus]

The PCI-E frequency is what affects SATA drives. It has the same effect on SATA drives as the PCI/AGP frequency has on IDE drives. So if it isn't locked, it can screw with your SATA hard drives. Either the motherboard has an option to lock/unlock, the SATA ports are auto-locked, or the SATA ports are just unlocked. If the PCI-E frequency is unlocked, it will base itself upon your FSB speed and thus would be increased if your FSB were increased.

 

[qpan]

My PCI-E and FSB are asynchronous, (i have set it in bios) so they should be unlocked to each other.

I just upgraded my motherboards bios, and have for the first time managed to go past 230fsb! I can reach 250 no probs, but my CPU doesn't like running at 2.5GHz (10x multiplier) from 2.2GHz default. My PC restarts when i run 3dmark05...

The CPU temp is pretty low (39 degC)... is there any reason it should fail at such a low temp?

(My ram is underclocked so that it is not limiting).

Thanks,

Qi

 

[Ham]

Bumnp the voltage up 0.025 volts and try again. The voltage options on that board arn't fantastic, if i remember mine only went up to 1.55v.

 

[qpan]

Bumnp the voltage up 0.025 volts and try again. The voltage options on that board arn't fantastic, if i remember mine only went up to 1.55v.

Unfortunately i've already maxed out the voltage! It only goes up to 1.45 for me, as i have a Winchester core A64...

Looks like i can only overclock by 200mhz...

 

[WC Annihilus]

Just to bring the point up, have you changed your HT multiplier? You want to keep the HT frequency as close to 1000 as possible, but not over it (some boards can handle it, but those are mainly based on ATI's chipset R580 chipset)

 

[qpan]

Just to bring the point up, have you changed your HT multiplier? You want to keep the HT frequency as close to 1000 as possible, but not over it (some boards can handle it, but those are mainly based on ATI's chipset R580 chipset)

Yep - i'd put the NB HT down to 800MHz (i.e. 4x) which gives a true frequency of 1000MHz when FSB = 250. I lowered it to 600 and tried to put FSB up, but it didn't POST at 260MHz.

What does the SB HT do? Its on auto at the moment... does that make a difference?

I tried putting both NB and SB HT to 200MHz but still couldn't get to 260...

 

[Ham]

well if your handy with a soldering iron you could voltmod it. Theres a guide at OCworkbench about that but i wouldnt recomend it enless yopu can easily afford another board.

250fsb is nothing to be sniffed at however. the winchester cre dosn't clock as well as the venice core, but better than the newcastle.

You corse of action IMO should be to get some better ram, so you can get max fsb at 1:1.

As for the graphics card a good comparison is here:

Stolen from X-Bit labs, the image belongs to them.

As you can see the newer 6xxxs own the 9xxx series. And the 7xxxs are a step up again. Somthing cheap and chearful (7600GT/GS) would tied you over untill DX10 card start rocking the worlds foundations.

Strongest of all i recomend you get a new cooler. Ill leave it to the others to recomend specifics.

 

[qpan]

Sorry - apologies, I do in fact have a venice core! My old cpu had a winchester core. I heard they O/C well, which is why i'm quite disappointed in a 200MHx O/C.

Wow - my 9700Pro (similar performance to 9800Pro) is better than a 6600GT?

(according to this graph) - that's pretty good going! I thought that even the lowe end cards had overtaken it by now, but obviously not so!

Having said that though, 6.2 fps is hardly great ;-)