New computer - maybe

[Jeff]

What is SLI? I've seen it advertised, but haven't paid much attention.

After I went to bed, I realized that the new board was PCI-Express

[zooYork]

sli is 2 video cards to share the load of just one, its suppose to give you better performance in sli supported games (doom 3, far cry, riddick) but in some of the benchmarks ive seen, 1 card can do better. its your choice, but id wait till later this summer to see what ati has in store for its next gen cards. (similar to the one that they put in xbox 2) still overall thats a great system, your making me jealous now.

[Jeff]

Do you know anything about the Venice and San Diego Cores?

I can't decide which one to go for. I think the San Diego core has 1mb L2 cache.

[Empty_5oul]

wheres the link for those two, i can only find the san diego one on their site.

From what i have seen i think that one is better and the range of it extends further as i think the highest venice is 3800 where SD goes up to 4000.

edit--I have just had a better search and cannot find a venice at 3700+.

[zooYork]

venice core was made after the initial "clawhammer" core for reduced power, and it also introduced the sse3 technology into the amd 64 lineup.

the san diego core is an improved version of the venice core with a better integrated memory controller, the san diego is usually on the higher chips like the 3500, 3700, 4000, and the soon to be 4200. i think, i might be wrong.

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (socket 939) 90nm - SOI - L1 cache 128k - L2 cache 1MB @ 2.00GHz (San Diego) w/ DSL Technology & SSE3
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (socket 939) 90nm - SOI - L1 cache 128k - L2 cache 1MB @ 2.20GHz (San Diego) w/ DSL Technology & SSE3
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ (socket 939) 90nm - SOI - L1 cache 128k - L2 cache 1MB @ 2.60GHz (San Diego) w/ DSL Technology & SSE3

either way if you can afford it go for the san diego core, its an overclocking champ.

[zooYork]

better yet, i found a table and you can see the lowered vcore and the cores themselves.

[Empty_5oul]

is there a venice 3700+??
i cannot find one anywhere online

also how do you find out what you have, as i am running a 64 3200+ but i dont know what it is (i don't think it is winchester) - but hopefully it is.
Do i have to take my heatsink off to check and then translate the letters/code on the CPU or will it say on the box?

[zooYork]

i really dont think a 3700+ venice exists, 3700+ only exist in the 754 socket range and its a san diego or clawhammer core.

check to see if your chip supports sse3, most of the winchesters do not. also, if you have a motherboard monitor check to see if the vcore is below 1.41, im not sure but maybe the venice cores run below 1.41 like it shows in the table.

i made sure i got a winchester, as theyre more reliable and are better overclockers.

[Jeff]

Are SanDiego Cores good OCers?

3700+ San Diego :
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819103539

EDIT:

This is a socket 939

[zooYork]

didnt know there was one for 939, every time i googled it was always 754. oh well. doh

every review ive read people are oc'ing these things 200-400 mhz stable on air. of course though they have good memory to do it with.