Official AMD Users Athlon64 box thread

[Jeff]

This is the official thread for any concerns, ideas, or remarks regarding the Athlon64 box we are trying to build.

The goal is to raise about 600 bucks.
Thus far, Vaughan has sent in 100 bucks and Alistair sent in 15.

600
-115
485 dollars is the amount needed for this project.

To donate money, click the PayPal button on the left side of the page under "Who's Online". If you want to send money via cash, check, or money order, PM me and we will work out the details.
If we can't raise enough money, then all money will be refunded.
Thanks
Jeff

[Anonymous]

Do we have a deadline? maybe we should aim to make it a team christmas present?

[Jeff]

http://www.d2lodhackers.com/therm.bmp

I think the end of January should be our deadline.

[Anonymous]

has the team for sure (or the people who donated) decided is they are FOR SURE buyign the athlon64?

[Jeff]

The whole idea was to buy the latest techonology. I guess it all really depends on how much money we get.

[vaughan]

The is idea is for our team to have an Athlon 64 bought through Distributed Purchasing ie donations.

[Arminiusc]

I think having the Athlon64 would be a good idea just to find out what projects it would be good for and if it is any better than the 32bit chips.
Sorry I can't help with the funding at the moment though due to being broke and the whole kids and christmas thing coming up.

[Bionic_Redneck]

$600 might be a little low if you plan to have windows64 or for that matter any legal copy of windows. by the time you buy windows, cpu, and motherboard I think that wouldn't leave much for case, drives, and ram although if you go with linux instead maybe it would be possible.

[Jeff]

I already have case, drives, ram, psu.

I was planning on running linux.

[Bionic_Redneck]

you should take a good look at prices. you could get a opteron and a single 940 socket motherboard for less than a athlon64 by itself. you might have to use registered ddr instead but leaves upgrade path open for possible dual cpus by just replacing motherboard purchasing another cpu in the future when prices drop.

[Anonymous]

mmmm double amd 64s :wink:

You should also borrow a copy of windows 64 and let people know how it runs compared to linux (yeah, yeah, linux will be faster...i can already hear mr bionic redneck yelling at his computer...)

[Bionic_Redneck]

Windows is still good for games and a heck of alot easier to install some hardware so windows does still have some merit but it's highly unlikely that he would know anyone with windows64 but even if he did that would be immoral not mention illegal to install the OS without paying for it unless it was specficlly meant to be a trial version. I think they might have such an animal reason being is they do have server 2003 trial so it should be logical to have a trial of windows64.

Doing some browsing on newegg I come up with the concusion that a dual opteron 240's would cost $821 but if you just got a single cpu MB for opteron the price would be under $400 and would still have the abilty to go dual in the future if you wanted.

[Anonymous]

Let's see, a nice motherboard the MSi master2-far is $230.00 and let's see, a opteron 240 is $192.00, so Bionic's right, around 4 hundred, and then upgrade later for dual. Unless you got a 242 for $300, but the speed differenece compared to money would be little.

[jlangner]

Well by the end of January (deadline), I would bet The AMD64 3200 will be down considerably.

BTW, I sent my $10.00, hopefully can send some more each month. Can we put the "meter" on the home page so we can see as soon as we enter. Might get more interest then.

Come on everyone. Even $10.00 will help!

[jlangner]

Any update? Did ya get my transfer thru Paypal. 1st time to use and wanted to make sure it went thru.

[Jeff]

I did get your money. Thank for for your effort!

[Anonymous]

Just got my opteron up and running :D, infact i'm on it right now, any suggestions on what burn-in to use???

[Anonymous]

Post screenshots!

[Bionic_Redneck]

I would run folding at home with the -advmethods flag. should use gromacs core w/ sse that really taxes cpu more than any other program that I know of.

[Anonymous]

screenshots of what?

[Jeff]

Run CPUMark or whatever. Some benchmarks and the system properties or something!

[Anonymous]

Its late tonight, but i'll run some tomorrow! Or a few pics won't hurt! Here's two pics on my webpage! http://kidsresource.us/opteronpics/

[Anonymous]

My CPU overclocked at 1540MHZ did ok, the results are http://kidsresource.us/opteronpics ,3dmark,pcmark, and sandra 2004 CPU and MEMORY!

[Bionic_Redneck]

a pr2318 isn't very impressive maybe with a 64bit os it would be higher but I wonder if sandra works right with opterons.

[Anonymous]

let me remind you, 1 opteron 240, and 1 stick of ONLY 256MB,(NEED A UPGRADE SOON) couldn't afford at time, and GeforceFX5200 (128MB) so it may notn be the fastest!

[chaz]

There's a Gigabyte refurb for Athlon64 at newegg for 75 bucks...

REFURBISHED: Gigabyte Motherboard for AMD 64-bit Processors Model - GA-K8NPRO
Specifications:
CPU: Socket 754 for AMD Athlon64 Processor
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce3 150 chipset / ITE IT8712F chip
RAM: 3x 184-pin DDR 400/333/266/200 3GB Max
IDE: 4x UDMA ATA 133/100/66 Max
RAID: GigaRAID ATA 133 RAID controller
SATA: Silicon Image sil3112A, Max 2x Devices
Expansion Slots:
- 1 x AGP (8x/4x-AGP 3.0 compliant)
- 5 x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)
Ports: 2xPS/2, 2xCOM,1xLPT,1xRJ45, 2xUSB, 2x IEEE 1394 and Audio Ports
Onboard Audio:Realtek ALC658 Audio AC'97 Codec (6-chan)
Onboard LAN: Realtek 8110S Gigabit LAN controller
Model: GA-K8NPRO

[jlangner]

Here is some info I found on another message board - Maybe helpful, maybe not.

Just because this topic has been asked alot and is confusing for those interested in an nForce 3, I wanted to make this quick thread too answer some of the questions going around.

Basically this is more for the noobs since alot of the "addicts" (like myself) around here have pretty much figured out what's going on.

The Socket 940 is the Opteron nForce 3 AND the new Athlon FX-51 board. Since the FX-51 is a scaled down Opteron it was only logical (and cheaper) to continue in the beginning using the same board. The board requires registered ram (normally comes also as ECC) which makes it a very expensive investment for the average user. While the Opteron is only rated at DDR333, the FX is rated up to DDR400. (EDIT) The board also supports up to DDR400 with a BIOS update for FX51's.

The Socket 939 is basically the same board as the 940 except that it does NOT require registered ram. This obviously makes the FX51 much more affordable and it's believed that it should be available around Q1 2004. Of course this is a FX51 only board since the Opteron requires registered ram to run while the FX51 does not.

Note: The 940 will still be produced and available after the 939 comes out. Partly because they don't want to get rid of the Opteron or cause early FX51 buyers to be screwed.

The Socket 754 is the Athlon 64 3200+ board and is already available like the 940 and does not require registered ram either. It is of course rated at 400fsb too. At the same time it is NOT interchangeable with the FX-51. So depending on which way you are going you'll have to buy a different motherboard. I believe the 754 also has slightly less bandwidth which would make sense if they're aiming for the 939 to be the gaming board.

Relating to dual/single channel: The 940 socket is already dual channel which I forgot , and the 939 will also be. Unfortunately the 754 is currently only single and the possibility of it becoming dual I think i small since AMD is pushing for the 939 to be their big bandwith/gaming board.

So those of you that want ultimate gaming experience without too high of a price tag, might have to wait until next year for the 939.... especially if it has dual-channel

I hope this helps some people out there that were confused on the subject. Here's some links that explain some of this also....

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTI0
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11789

[Jeff]

We are at 125 dollars right now. I don't see it happening in the near future.

You guys want me to refund yuor money?

[jlangner]

I am not in it for mega bucks, so I am fine. If we decide not to do project, keep mine for website.

[Jeff]

Thanks Jeff, and thanks to everyone else that donated

[shnal]

Come on guys, let's get into the spirit of things here. We're the "AMD Users" team, let's try to get an AMD Athlon64! Where's the team spirit? $5 or $100 dollars, let's all donate to this if we can afford it.

You have nothing to lose. If we do not get enough money by the deadline then you all get your money back.

Let's all make an effort here! :D

[vaughan]

I agree with shnal.