TELVM wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

... The PSU is probably from before year 2000 and is rated at 250W, it squeels like a pig during heavy load and the fan is not very quiet as there are no other case fans at all. I thought the computer would last only months but it has now been runnning 3 years 24/7 ...

Banzai! For the scientific interest, what might be the ambient temp at that lunch room?

As the lunch room dosnt have an AC the temperature varies over the year and even from day to night but I guess its between 20C and 30C 99% of the time. The computer stands on the floor 30-50cm from an electrical wall heater, Banzai indeed!

candle_86 wrote:

Ok so my main rig went up in smoke, very tragic really. Now I need to get my Opteron up to snuff for modern internet and windows 7. Current specs listed

What happend to your main system?

candle_86 wrote:

well checked the 939 opty supports SSE3, so there is that, so I'll try to find a PCIe 939 board, if the GTX 960 wont work, I do have a 9500GT DDR2 I could use in it

SSE3 isn't really important. SSE2 and SSE4 (found on the Core i series and AMD FX CPUs) are what matter the most. AFAIK no program requires SSE4 yet, but a handful of newer apps can utilize the instruction set to achieve better performance.

What you'll really want after installing Windows 7 is a dual core processor. Really, Windows 7 was written with multicore processors in mind & it runs noticeably faster with two or more cores. I have two S939 systems myself--an AGP based single core 3700+ at 2.64GHz & a PCIe based Opteron 185 at 3GHz. Both of them dual boot XP and 7. Under Win7, there's really no contest; the dual core Opteron feels like a completely different class of machine, it's that much faster. While the single core A64 struggles to play streaming HD video, the dual core Opteron easily handles 1080p HTML5 video in Chrome. Windows open quicker, websites load noticeably faster, and Windows Update doesn't slow the system down.

As for memory, you'll want to max the board out and get 4GB of the stuff, especially if you intend to use the 64 bit version. You'll also want to get an nForce 4 based board. I've had trouble getting some NF3, ATI, and VIA based 939 boards to use more than ~3GB of RAM, something that's never been an issue with NF4. You'll also want to use the chipset drivers built into Windows as they're far more robust than nVidia's own NF4 drivers.

As for the video card, if it supports WDDM 1.1 drivers, then you're all set. This means GeForce 8, Radeon HD or newer. Personally, I'd go with a GeForce because they just work better. *dons flame shield* 😁

candle_86 wrote:

well checked the 939 opty supports SSE3, so there is that, so I'll try to find a PCIe 939 board, if the GTX 960 wont work, I do have a 9500GT DDR2 I could use in it

That would all work well - both 960 and 9500 will handle full decode acceleration; the 960 may be more somewhat more efficient with VC-1 and such (its newer), but overall they'll be pretty much interchangeable until you start wanting to game (and even then, depending on the game, may both do a fine job). 😀

Standard Def Steve wrote:

SSE3 isn't really important. SSE2 and SSE4 (found on the Core i series and AMD FX CPUs) are what matter the most. AFAIK no program requires SSE4 yet, but a handful of newer apps can utilize the instruction set to achieve better performance.

I've always wondered about that with SSE3, since it was largely a Prescott update (and AMD's implementation, at least on K8, is not as "complete," because they dropped all of the Prescott-specific stuff).

What you'll really want after installing Windows 7 is a dual core processor. Really, Windows 7 was written with multicore processors in mind & it runs noticeably faster with two or more cores. I have two S939 systems myself--an AGP based single core 3700+ at 2.64GHz & a PCIe based Opteron 185 at 3GHz. Both of them dual boot XP and 7. Under Win7, there's really no contest; the dual core Opteron feels like a completely different class of machine, it's that much faster. While the single core A64 struggles to play streaming HD video, the dual core Opteron easily handles 1080p HTML5 video in Chrome. Windows open quicker, websites load noticeably faster, and Windows Update doesn't slow the system down.

With GPU decoding, my P4 has no trouble with 1080p Flash video. My dual socket 604 machine can do that on the CPUs, but it puts both of them at 100%. I do agree with the rest of what you're saying based on those two machines as well. 😀

As for memory, you'll want to max the board out and get 4GB of the stuff, especially if you intend to use the 64 bit version. You'll also want to get an nForce 4 based board. I've had trouble getting some NF3, ATI, and VIA based 939 boards to use more than ~3GB of RAM, something that's never been an issue with NF4. You'll also want to use the chipset drivers built into Windows as they're far more robust than nVidia's own NF4 drivers.

Also don't install/use the nVidia firewall (and/or if the board has a non-nVidia NIC, use that). 😵 (see here for a brief summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce4#Flaws)

IME I've had no problems with my Xpress 200 CF (when the board still worked) and 4GB of RAM (it will run 2T DDR333, like any other 939 board with all four banks populated), but my A8N-SLI flat out refuses to recognize more than around 3300MB of memory (doesn't matter how much chocolate I promise to share with it). The single VIA 939 board (Abit AV8, with VIA K8T800Pro) I have has been fantastic thus far, but I've had it maybe a week, and its only done some prelim testing - I haven't lived with it for any length of time, nor have I tried 4GB of RAM in it.

As for the video card, if it supports WDDM 1.1 drivers, then you're all set. This means GeForce 8, Radeon HD or newer. Personally, I'd go with a GeForce because they just work better. *dons flame shield* 😁

🤣

I agree on WDDM1.1, and don't have any real argument about "nVidia is better" - that isn't that I'm "pro nVidia" or "pro AMD" - both have their positives and negatives (and this is not meant to be a two-handed answer). Given that candle_86 already has a 9500GT and GTX 960, I'd say there's no problem sticking with those, unless both turn out to be dead ( 😢 ), and if they have to be replaced, there are good options on both sides. 😊

oh the 9500GT is a for sure working card 🤣, I'm going to take it from the kids computer and put it back to the onboard IntelExtreme2 Graphics for now with her PEntium D 🤣.

candle_86 wrote:

oh the 9500GT is a for sure working card 🤣, I'm going to take it from the kids computer and put it back to the onboard IntelExtreme2 Graphics for now with her PEntium D 🤣.

IIRC a 9500GT has around the same performance as a 8600gt. Should be a good pair with the Opty!

if i buy a 939 pcie board, but i want an SLI one so later on i can toss in dual 7900GTX's 🤣

I suggest finding a nForce4 board that uses passive cooling. So many of them use a nasty little fan that is not only annoying but also positioned in a way that it is blocked by a large video card. On the DFI NF4 Ultra-D/SLI-D, the fan can even touch the video card! It's ridiculous.

I've used a few boards and currently I have an Abit AN8 SLI that I think is excellent. I've tried various GPUs including X850XT, X1950XTX, 8600GT, 560Ti, 2900XT, 3850, 4890, and 6850 on it without trouble. Haven't messed with SLI though.

Well this is all for not now, a buddy is gonna give me his E6600, Intel p965 board and 4gb DDR2 667 to have while i save up to replace my blown parts.

candle_86 wrote:

if i buy a 939 pcie board, but i want an SLI one so later on i can toss in dual 7900GTX's 🤣

While 7900GTX is fine for gaming, and will actually work well in Windows 7 (at least based on my 7900GS), there is minimal to no video decode functionality (it can do DVD, and has "partial offload" for h.264 (it will reduce CPU load but it isn't full acceleration)), so it wouldn't be good for a modern Internet/etc machine. 😊

I agree with swaaye on getting a passively cooled board, not just for NF4, but overall. The Core 2 sounds like a great setup too. 😀

Too bad its borrowed, or else you could OC the processor a bit. With the Maxwell card this could actually run not-so-old games very well.

Barrow? No its mine, but its an intel board, if I want to oc ill need to buy a qx or x series cpu

candle_86 wrote:

Barrow? No its mine, but its an intel board, if I want to oc ill need to buy a qx or x series cpu

May not be a bad idea to snag a QX, something like QX6700 paired with that 960 should fare pretty well even with newer games. IIRC they aren't terribly expensive these days either. 😊

obobskivich wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

Barrow? No its mine, but its an intel board, if I want to oc ill need to buy a qx or x series cpu

May not be a bad idea to snag a QX, something like QX6700 paired with that 960 should fare pretty well even with newer games. IIRC they aren't terribly expensive these days either. 😊

Intel choose to use cores with very high leakage when they made the QX6700 so that people with good water cooling or phase could get good top overclocks. Although the QX6700 is the same stepping as the B3 Q6600 they do often run alot hotter...

The QX6700 probably wont do more than 12*266 with a cheap cooler, 13*266 will need a good air cooler and to reach 14*266 for 3733MHz water is a must. I would go for the QX6850 as they are all G0 and should do 10*333 even with the useless Intel cooler and 11*333 should be easy with an after market cooler. The 333MHz FSB also adds a little bit more performance.

I take it for granted that even Intel added support for 333 MHz FSB to their P965 boards.

I will look into it, I dont want to spend alot of money, what about a QX6800?

candle_86 wrote:

I will look into it, I dont want to spend alot of money, what about a QX6800?

It exists both as B3 and G0 stepping.

SLACP is the G0 one to look for on Ebay,

also I was wrong on CPU he has in the board its not an E6600 he was really confued, it an E2160, but luckly I had an E6420 sitting in a drawer.

well waiting to hear back but may have found a cheap 750i board and q6600 so I can overclock it to 3.3-3.8ish as its a G0, its just the 750i is the unknown 🤣.

candle_86 wrote:

well waiting to hear back but may have found a cheap 750i board and q6600 so I can overclock it to 3.3-3.8ish as its a G0, its just the 750i is the unknown 🤣.

I love the good ol' Q6600. I think it's because Core2 was my first foray into multicore CPUs. I had a Core2Duo and was super happy for a long time (still am honestly, its in a system next to me), but always was curious about the Core2Quads. If I love Core2Duos, would I love mashing 2 Core2Duo's together in the form of a Core2Quad? Yep, sure do. Typing this from my Q6600 system. 😎

well im gonna do it and put this other box up for now, might grab a Pentium 4/Pentium D for it to use in a retro box 🤣.

This one will eventually get a 775 to 771 converter ordered wtih an x5460 🤣

obobskivich wrote:

I've always wondered about that with SSE3, since it was largely a Prescott update (and AMD's implementation, at least on K8, is not as "complete," because they dropped all of the Prescott-specific stuff).

obobskivich wrote:

With GPU decoding, my P4 has no trouble with 1080p Flash video. My dual socket 604 machine can do that on the CPUs, but it puts both of them at 100%. I do agree with the rest of what you're saying based on those two machines as well. 😀

The one application I've used that uses SSE3 (or at least acknowledges its presence) is the Dolphin emulator. It always displayed D3D/SSE3 when I ran it on my Opteron 185 years ago. Dolphin has always been ahead of the game in that regard. Much like x264, Dolphin can tap into SSE4 on Nehalem CPUs and AVX on Sandy Bridge and later processors. I haven't tried Dolphin on Core 2 yet. I wonder if it can make use of the S-SSE3 instructions on those CPUs.

Another interesting case is Google's VP9, the codec Youtube streams to Chrome. I've always thought that VP9 was at least partially decoded in hardware, but it is not. It's all done on the CPU, and indeed, low power CPUs like AMD A4 and Intel Silvermont just don't have the horsepower to tackle 1080p and/or 60fps VP9 playback under Chrome. These devices can, however, handle 1080p/60fps playback under IE11, since Youtube streams bog standard H.264 to IE11's HTML5 player.

Anyway, I *believe* VP9 uses SSE4 at the very least because the Core i series CPUs are far more efficient at decoding it than previous CPUs. I "benchmarked" a few of my CPUs by playing back VP9 encoded YouTube video using Chrome's HTML5 player, and the results were quite interesting.

Opteron 185 (2C/2T, 3GHz OC, SSE3, GTX 560)
720p: 40% average CPU utilization
1080p: 85%
720p/60: 95% and still completely smooth
1080p/60: 100%, playing back at roughly half the frame rate.

Core 2 Quad Q6700 (4C/4T, 3.33GHz OC, S-SSE3, GTX 560)
720p: 20%
1080p: 45%
720p/60: 35% (Not sure why 720p/60 uses less CPU time than 1080/30 in this case, but it is what it is)
1080p/60: 92%

Core i7 4930K (6C/12T, 4.5GHz OC, SSE4 & AVX, GTX 970)
720p: 0-1%
1080p: 1-2%
720p/60: 1-2%
1080p/60: 2-3%

The very low CPU usage on the i7 is what made me initially believe that VP9 was hardware accelerated. However, GPU-Z shows zero load on the GPU's Video Engine during playback, and according to everything I've read, no GPU currently offloads VP9. I remember SSE giving software MPEG-2 a huge boost back in the day, perhaps SSE4 is doing the same thing with modern codecs.

obobskivich wrote:

Also don't install/use the nVidia firewall (and/or if the board has a non-nVidia NIC, use that). 😵 (see here for a brief summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce4#Flaws)

IME I've had no problems with my Xpress 200 CF (when the board still worked) and 4GB of RAM (it will run 2T DDR333, like any other 939 board with all four banks populated), but my A8N-SLI flat out refuses to recognize more than around 3300MB of memory (doesn't matter how much chocolate I promise to share with it). The single VIA 939 board (Abit AV8, with VIA K8T800Pro) I have has been fantastic thus far, but I've had it maybe a week, and its only done some prelim testing - I haven't lived with it for any length of time, nor have I tried 4GB of RAM in it.

Interesting. I too have an A8N-SLI tucked away in storage, and that board has no problem recognizing 4GB of RAM. It is running one of the newer BIOS revisions though. Perhaps the ATI and VIA boards that I used also had BIOS updates enabling the use of 4GB of RAM.