Looking forward to seeing what it can do!

The boards I used, when Athlon 64 was king, were Asrock uATX boards. The cheaper socket though, 754? The chipset was something basic from Nvidia with built in graphics. Something 600 or 700 I can't remember. They were a lot more mature than the early stuff that's for sure. And AFAIK S754 wasn't that much slower and you could also get Venice chips and all of that.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Looking forward to seeing what it can do!

The boards I used, when Athlon 64 was king, were Asrock uATX boards. The cheaper socket though, 754? The chipset was something basic from Nvidia with built in graphics. Something 600 or 700 I can't remember. They were a lot more mature than the early stuff that's for sure. And AFAIK S754 wasn't that much slower and you could also get Venice chips and all of that.

Yes the single channel platform was called socket 754 and single channel diddnt perform much worse than D.C with single core CPUs, thats why I was planning to build a s754 Nf3 build.
I think your chipset must have been the late version of Nforce4-4x with built in graphics. It was called Geforce 6100 + Nforce 410 or something like that. I like that chipset.

Skyscraper wrote:

It was called Geforce 6100 + Nforce 410 or something like that. I like that chipset.

That sounds right. Here is an Asrock board very similar to what I had: http://www.asrock.com/mb/NVIDIA/K8NF6P-VSTA/

Loved these boards. Very stable and good for gaming.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Pentium III-S is a beast and the massive amount of cache plus high FSB / memory throughout helps a lot. Do run the memory at CL 2 though. Pretty much all PC133 modules have SPD setting of CL2 at 100 MHz.

Memory timings do seem to matter with Pentium III. Unfortunately, the Intel-made board that the Coppermine is sitting on does not allow me to change any CPU or memory related settings.

Pentium M and Opteron Suicide Runs

I was able to get the Opteron 185 running at 3.13GHz by bumping up the voltage. It took a scary amount of voltage to get there (1.6v, up from 1.35v), which is a little strange considering that this CPU has no problem running at 3GHz at stock voltage. This was purely for record breaking; I immediately took it back down to 3GHz after the Doom 3 run. To further increase performance I replaced the dual 8800GTS setup with a single GeForce GTX 260. Doom3 is so CPU constrained that running a single video card should remove a bit of system overhead.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get the Pentium M to run any faster than 2.7GHz. The motherboard's voltage selection is just too limited. At least the GTX 260 completely removes any GPU bottleneck that was present with the 6800GT. Forceware 182.06 seems to be the fastest driver, though only by a little.

S939 Opteron 185 2.6@3.13GHz, 4GB DDR400 CL2, BFG GeForce GTX 260 Maxcore 55 (182.06), Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, X-Fi Titanium Fatality, XP Pro SP3

640x480 Med: 193.9 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 192.4 fps
1280x1024 Ultra: 192.7 fps
1600x1200 Ultra: 190.9 fps

Pentium M 755 2.0@2.70GHz, 540MHz FSB, 2GB DDR2-533 CL3, BFG GeForce GTX 260 Maxcore 55 (182.06), MSI Speedster FA4 (i915), onboard audio, XP Pro SP3

640x480 Med: 144.7 fps
1024x768 Utra: 144.2 fps
1280x1024 Ultra: 143.6 fps
1600x1200 Ultra: 144.0 fps

I could not get the DFI RDX200 board to post, I have tried 3 CPUs, ~10 different memory modules, different video cards and PSUs.
The board powers on but 4 red diagnostic lights stay turned on and no post. The seller left the bios clear jumper in clear mode but that jumper should just disconnect the battery so I doubt the board got bricked by that.

I removed the NB cooler (not stock) and its a cooler for nforce4 not the Radeon Xpress 200. Only foam on the underside of the cooler made contact with the northbridge, not the cooler it self or the old paste, I do not think this should prevent the board from posting even if the system would freeze within minuts.

Here are two pictures.

I did also get the second DFI s754 board today, yet another DFI socket 754 board with bad caps , 5 out of 5 so far.

Only one visully bad cap on this board though.

Well a bit irritated I went for a walk and walked by a dumpster, for some reason I climbed into it and found... another ATI RDX200 motherboard... whats the odds, like one in a million.
This board is sadly for Pentium 4 but for a board thrown in a dumpster (4.5 feet fall) it looks great. The board has inpact damage in a corner and the CPU Coolers plastic is also a bit broken, nothing serious, I think this board will work. It was windy with rain yesterday so the board is covered with a little debris, I will wait a couple of days before I test it. The CPU mounted on the board was a P4 630, and also mounted on the board were 4x1GB DDR1 UCCC modules! 😀 If these modules work it was the best dumpster find in months.

I want to get a K8 system running before the weekend and and while it would have been more fun to try a model of motherboard I have not played with before I am going the safe route now. This is my spare DFI Nforce4 s939 board, when I got this board it was broken aswell but I actually took the time to fix as I needed it as a spare for one of my favorite systems. I have never used this board except a quick Windows install and some stock stability testing to see that everything worked so its almost like a new toy 😎

Time for a shower. No joke I had some filthy boards that wouldn't work. Showered them and let them dry for a while (it's VERY hot in Australia) outside and they all worked again 😀

philscomputerlab wrote:

Time for a shower. No joke I had some filthy boards that wouldn't work. Showered them and let them dry for a while (it's VERY hot in Australia) outside and they all worked again 😀

I often wash non working hardware aswell 😀
My success rate has not been close to 100% but some boards have come to life again, People like to put Artic Silver in their boards sockets for some reason.

The strange thing is that I own two other broken ATI Radeon Xpress s939 motherboards, an Asus Crossfire board and a "Grouper" reference board (Sapphire brand but it is identical to ATIs reference board) and if I remember correctly both those boards behave simular to this board.

I might keep an eye out for some S754 gear. Should be cheap as everyone is chasing 939 stuff 😜

philscomputerlab wrote:

I might keep an eye out for some S754 gear. Should be cheap as everyone is chasing 939 stuff 😜

If you want to spend little money look after motherboards with VIA chipset, the VIA chipsets for K8 do not have any deal-breaking issues other than lack of PCI lock in earlier versions.

If you are fine with running stock or slightly overclocked I think you can find a s939 board with VIA chipsets for below 10 euro, here in Sweden they often sell for 5 Euro without CPU or 10-15 euro with a single core CPU and some memory. On the other hand a DFI Nforce4 s939 board in good condition with a high end dual core CPU and 4x 1gb overclockable memory will cost an arm and a leg (100 - 150 Euro).

Hmm not so sure about VIA and SIS stuff. But I will keep my eyes open. At the moment I have so many project lined anyway...

The first result with the DFI Nforce4.

1024*768 Ultra. 91.2 FPS, A64 Clawhammer 4000+ 2.4 GHz, DFI Nforce4, 2x512MB DDR200CL2-3-2-6, 6800GT 92.91, USB audio, XP Pro.

Still not as fast as Steves 3700+, I wonder if its the older CPU core, the video card driver or the memory amount that holds the system back.
I also tried to run the bench with only 512MB memory... dont do it... its horrible 😀

Hmm. USB audio sticks out to me. I'm not sure how much of an impact it makes, but I'd guess that it burns a few more CPU cycles than onboard audio or an internal sound card.

How about your DRAM command rate, 1T or 2T? Setting to 1T will boost performance if your DIMMs can handle it.

Does the timedemo even have sound? I didn't hear a thing.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Does the timedemo even have sound? I didn't hear a thing.

It's not just you. I didn't hear anything either during the timedemo.

Of course, if you play the game proper afterward or just use the menu, sound's still working.

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out the secret to Standard Def Steve's results, because turning everything under Advanced Options off makes the game a whole lot uglier, but not a whole lot faster on that old Gallatin box. The only thing I can think of is that the NetBurst architecture, even given 2 MB of L3 cache to back it up, still kinda sucks for Doom 3.

It makes me feel like something in this retrogaming box is configured all wrong and it's not as good as it could potentially be, even if there are more cases where I need it to run SLOWER than faster.

Got this S754 board for $20 shipped 😀

http://www.asrock.com/mb/nvidia/k8nf6p-vsta/

Then I realised that I don't think I have a processor for it 😵

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Hmm. USB audio sticks out to me. I'm not sure how much of an impact it makes, but I'd guess that it burns a few more CPU cycles than onboard audio or an internal sound card.

How about your DRAM command rate, 1T or 2T? Setting to 1T will boost performance if your DIMMs can handle it.

Well perhaps I can remove the audio module from the DFI Radeon Xpress board and mount it on the DFI Nforce4, I do not have the original audio module for this board. The question is as the module for the Radeon Xpress board has a HD audio chip and I think the module for the Nforce4 board has some older crap, will the pinout be the same? Both modules connect to identical 14 pin headers.

I run 1T. The only time I use 2T with socket 939 is when I use 4 modules or perhaps with the A8N SLI because it wont run 1T at high memory speed.

In any case I did some quick overclocking and the 4000+ will not act very stable over 2600 MHz, I know for a fact that this CPU as able to run at much higher speed although its a 0.13um Clawhammer so I think late DFI bioses are more optimized for later K8 Cores. I did also have issues with overclocking memory. I can run the rated timings 2 3 2 6 (or even 2 3 2 1) at 200 MHz but It struggles at higher speed even with more relaxed timings. I think this bios is not very suited for Samsung TCCD. DFI boards are not very forgiving, lets just say that a single memory auto setting and the board wont boot windows 😀 and there is a special bios for every kind of memory. Its been too long since I overclocked these boards so I have probably forgotten some key settings.

[edit] It was not the old Clawhammer core that held the system back, I just switched in my FX55 (2.6) with San Diego core, 95.4 FPS. No improvement clock for clock. [/edit]
[edit] Well the system is perhaps a bit bottlenecked by the GPU, 98.1 FPS at 2.8 but it still strange that the Nforce3 AGP beats Nforce4 PCI-E, I think its the video drivers or the Doom 3 version. [/edit]
[edit] I clocked the 6800GT to Ultra spec and got 103.4 FPS, now Im almost sure its the video driver that makes the difference. [/edit]
[edit] I messed a bit with tRAS and subtimings, 105.6 FPS at last the Dothan is beaten [/edit]
[edit] More messing with the memory timings, 105.7 FPS, 0.1 FPS more 😁 [/edit]
[edit] This board with this bios (latest official, optimized for dualcores) wont take me where I want to go. Lets see how the Asus Nforce4 board compares [edit]

philscomputerlab wrote:

Got this S754 board for $20 shipped 😀

http://www.asrock.com/mb/nvidia/k8nf6p-vsta/

Then I realised that I don't think I have a processor for it 😵

It will not break the bank!

A basic Sempron is >1 Euro and they perform almost as well as the more expensive CPUs, when overclocked that is 😀
s754 Athlon 64 with 512KB cache or the low speed grades with 1MB cache costs between 1 euro and 10 euro while the top model the 3700+ costs like 50 euro 😁
You could also get the newer mobile CPUs if your motherboard supports them, there is a 2.6 GHz 4000+!

Its time for team Asus!

I do not have my Asus A8N32-SLI in a system at the moment so its availible for some experimenting. Like Phil I prefer to do my testing on a test bench rather than to mess with my complete systems. When overclocking old retro hardware things tend to get a little hot in an old cramped case with non existing air flow.

The A8N32-SLI, also in the picture A8N32-SLI. I like to have two of the boards I like, you never know how long they will last. The spare board is however not in prime condition but it does work.

Very nice boards!

So much copper and it has a molex power connector as well.

The Athlon 64 I ordered is a Venice 3400+ 2.4 GHz and 512 KB Cache. Not cheap but you only live once 😀

It will bring back some memories. I used to have a similar Asrock board but with a Sempron, over clocked from 1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz! But not into over clocking with retro gear, I'm happy to pay a premium for the better chips.

I had a GeForce 7800GT, my most expensive graphics card purchase to date. I went with a 6600GT first but found it struggled to handle 1280 x 1024 resolution that my 17" LCD monitor had. So I had no choice but to get the 7800GT 😵

A while later the 7600GT offered similar performance at half, or less, of the cost.

Games I played on that machine that I remember well:

FEAR
Battlefield 2
Some Need for Speed game
Half Life 2
Doom 3

I'm sure there are more but I can't remember any of them. But will definitely play and benchmark some FEAR. Might put together a benchmark suite that I can use to compare some of these newer parts. Funny how slowly the interest in Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 hardware is picking up. GOG.com and Steam is a good source for cheap games too 😀

Got my results from my P4 Northwood running WinXP SP3 with 2gb of ram.

Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood, Soyo P4I-845PE (Socket 478), 2gb DDR-333, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256mb AGP (169.28 Forceware WHQL drivers), Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, DirectX 9.0a, Windows XP SP3.

Medium Quality:
640x480=45.8
1024x768=44.0

High Quality:
640x480=45.2
1024x768=43.0

Ultra Quality:
640x480=44.8
1024x768=41.9

Well, what can I say. Doom 3 obviously likes the NT environment/drivers and lots of system memory. And I finally hit the wall with the Pentium 4 2.4GHz - it's stretched to the limit.

You were right Phil, I have to build a faster PC to get more performance. I'll have to think about this though, since I have no other game that needs it.