New(ish) rig.

[oddfellow]

Just upgraded my pc

Went from:

AthlonXP 3200+
1024MB DDR400
MSI KT6V-LSR - VIA KT600 motherboard
AGP Radeon X800 256MB

To:

Athlon64 3200+ (venice)
2048MB DDR400 (2x 1GB in dual channel mode)
AS-Rock SATA-dual - ULi1695 motherboard
AGP Radeon X800 256MB

The new motherboard has both AGP8x and PCIE16x graphics cards slots. This means I can keep my AGP Radeon X800 for a while, and upgrade to a new PCIE graphics card later, without needing to replace the motherboard.

I'm still messing around with it right now, and I'll try some overclocking at some point, but currently, it's not massively faster than my old set up, which is pretty much what I expected (it is 200Mhz slower after all). The main reason I did it is to ease my upgrade route when I want a new graphics card, and to be ready for all the 64bit goodness which lurks around the corner.


Anyway, I have no experience with Athlon64's, so how much do you guys think I could overclock it?? Bearing in mind I'm not really interested in using water, I'd rather keep it simple.

 

[digitalwanderer]

For OCing, wait for Snipe to find this thread. I'd appreciate hearing some of your opinions on that dual slot rig, I almost picked one up my last upgrade and am real curious to hear how it performs for you.

 

[oddfellow]

The board seems real good. Especially since it was so cheap!

Quality is good. It has a decent ammount of features. AGP is working perfectly; In fact, better than every VIA chipset I've had, since smart gart hasn't disabled anything (fast wries etc).
If you read reviews, performance is on par with nForce4 boards. It even has that upgrade slot thingy to support AMD's new M2 socket. The only thing I don't like is that it only has 3 PCI slots, and one is right next to the AGP slot, pretty much rendering it useless and effectively leaving you with only 2 useable ones.

I've been interested in this board (more precisely this chipset) since I first heard about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I started a thread about it ages ago.
I heard rumours of Asus and Abit boards using this chipset and I was waiting for those, but they never materialised so I went for the AS-Rock. Seems like a good choice.

 

[Skrying]

Abit does too have a board with this chipset, their board thought doesnt include both a PCIe slot and a AGP slot, instead it just has the AGP slot.

 

[oddfellow]

The only S939 Abit boards that have ULi chipsets are using the M1689 chipset not the M1695

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Just upgraded my pc

Went from:

AthlonXP 3200+
1024MB DDR400
MSI KT6V-LSR - VIA KT600 motherboard
AGP Radeon X800 256MB

To:

Athlon64 3200+ (venice)
2048MB DDR400 (2x 1GB in dual channel mode)
AS-Rock SATA-dual - ULi1695 motherboard
AGP Radeon X800 256MB

The new motherboard has both AGP8x and PCIE16x graphics cards slots. This means I can keep my AGP Radeon X800 for a while, and upgrade to a new PCIE graphics card later, without needing to replace the motherboard.

I'm still messing around with it right now, and I'll try some overclocking at some point, but currently, it's not massively faster than my old set up, which is pretty much what I expected (it is 200Mhz slower after all). The main reason I did it is to ease my upgrade route when I want a new graphics card, and to be ready for all the 64bit goodness which lurks around the corner.


Anyway, I have no experience with Athlon64's, so how much do you guys think I could overclock it?? Bearing in mind I'm not really interested in using water, I'd rather keep it simple.

The mobo can OC well. You will need a new moded BIOS to set HTT above 274. The moded BIOS alows HTT400. One thing to boost profromans is to set your memory in BIOS to comand rate of T1 (Defaut is T2). This mobo can have trouble with T1 but give its a try and see it it will boot and run stable. The profromans boost should be 10% to 20%.

Here is the moded BIOS if you want it.
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/asrock/bios/ocwbeta3.zip

 

[Kurt]

Just returned mine. No worky with ASUS V9999GT.

Guess I'll be waiting for PCIE/M2/X2 to become affordable mainstream before taking the plunge (again).
I couldn't tell much difference going from a +2500 XP to +3700 A64 anyway.