kithylin wrote:

miss 939 and it was one of my favorite AMD sockets.

It was, wasn't it? I remember when it was introduced as the ultimate AMD platform to own, that would continue to be supported with new CPUs for many years to come, future-proof etc. Then it got nerfed one year later. I was so angry, when it came time to upgrade I switched to Intel out of spite. Sandy Bridge, what a disappointment that was. I went back to AMD from that, and I'm still on AM3+ for my main system.

stamasd wrote:

kithylin wrote:

miss 939 and it was one of my favorite AMD sockets.

It was, wasn't it? I remember when it was introduced as the ultimate AMD platform to own, that would continue to be supported with new CPUs for many years to come, future-proof etc. Then it got nerfed one year later. I was so angry, when it came time to upgrade I switched to Intel out of spite. Sandy Bridge, what a disappointment that was. I went back to AMD from that, and I'm still on AM3+ for my main system.

Wat? Sandy is still superior to what AMD currently has to offer. Sadly an FX 8350 about equals an i5 2500. AMD really gimped the FX CPUs by only adding one FPU per pair or ALUs, meaning an "8 core" FX CPU will perform in games similarly an intel Quad-Core w/o HT.

I'm a huge AMD fan - I really wanted AMD to stomp when Bulldozer came out - sadly it was not so. I personally switched to intel in 2006? when my AM2 6400+ could't keep up with the latest games. The CPU felt fine, but it was like the path from the CPU to the video cards couldn't keep up with the data causing slowdowns and frameskips. Games like crysis were unplayable (by my standards). My first intel was a Q6600 my uncle got me from germany. I traded in my 6400+ and my mainboard (M2N-SLi Deluxe) for a MSI P35 Neo2 Platinum and that was that. I did try the Phenom line later - and I did like the Phenom II 965BE I had at one point (2010??) but as newer games came out it became sluggish. I didn't have the problems I had with he 6400+ build, but I wanted more speed so I got a Nehalem i7 920 + Asus P6T-Deluxe (I was an Asus fan at one point as well, but no more).

Right now I'm waiting on Zen. Really hoping AMD delivers this time - for their sake as well as ours - even intel fanboys.

kanecvr wrote:

stamasd wrote:

kithylin wrote:

miss 939 and it was one of my favorite AMD sockets.

It was, wasn't it? I remember when it was introduced as the ultimate AMD platform to own, that would continue to be supported with new CPUs for many years to come, future-proof etc. Then it got nerfed one year later. I was so angry, when it came time to upgrade I switched to Intel out of spite. Sandy Bridge, what a disappointment that was. I went back to AMD from that, and I'm still on AM3+ for my main system.

Wat? Sandy is still superior to what AMD currently has to offer.

If stability isn't important for you, then yes. It is for me.

stamasd wrote:

If stability isn't important for you, then yes. It is for me.

I've owned i5 2400, i5 2500k, i5 3350p, and my current i7 3770k - Ivy and Sandy CPUs. I've only used Z67 and Z77 motherboards with them and never had a stability issue*, so I don't buy it.

There was probably something wrong with your system since there's nothing inherently unstable about the sandy and ivy bridge platform.

*months of continuous uptime and high workloads - it used to do 3dsmax rendering for 8 to 20 hours non stop (before I got my HP Z800 rig) couple with hours of gaming. Right now I'm using the aforementioned 3770k running at 4GHz, a measly asrock Z77M-PRO4, 16GB of corsair vengeance 2133, a Gainward GTX 1070 and an old but very sturdy Mushkin 650XP PSU. The only issue I've ever had with this rig witch is composed partly of stuff I had laying around (PSU, case, water cooler, SSD), previously defective stuff I fixed (the motherboard had bent socket pins - got it for free - and the PSU is old and had to be recapped) and some new parts (ram and video card) is when I upgraded from win 8.1 to win 10 and for some reason the on-board realtek would cause BSODs with the latest drivers off the realtek website. I solved that as well by disabling it and spending 10$ on a second hand SB1040.

Oh at one point I had a 3820k LGA2011 build - sandy bridge E - no stability issues with that one either - even when overclocking. Traded that one for a mobile workstation and I still regret it...

kanecvr wrote:

stamasd wrote:

If stability isn't important for you, then yes. It is for me.

I've owned i5 2400, i5 2500k, i5 3350p, and my current i7 3770k - Ivy and Sandy CPUs. I've only used Z67 and Z77 motherboards with them and never had a stability issue, so I don't buy your statement.

There was probablt something wrong with your system since there's nothing inherently unstable about the sandy and ivy bridge platform.

I gave up after trying 3 different motherboards. Don't remember exactly which (I'm trying hard to forget that part of computing history) but I think one was H67 chipset, and another H77. None would stay up more than 24h in a row. Tried different memory etc. I switched from Intel after that.
(the CPU was a i7-2600K; never overclocked despite capabilities)

stamasd wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

stamasd wrote:

If stability isn't important for you, then yes. It is for me.

I've owned i5 2400, i5 2500k, i5 3350p, and my current i7 3770k - Ivy and Sandy CPUs. I've only used Z67 and Z77 motherboards with them and never had a stability issue, so I don't buy your statement.

There was probablt something wrong with your system since there's nothing inherently unstable about the sandy and ivy bridge platform.

I gave up after trying 3 different motherboards. Don't remember exactly which (I'm trying hard to forget that part of computing history) but I think one was H67 chipset, and another H77. None would stay up more than 24h in a row. Tried different memory etc. I switched from Intel after that.

Odd... like I said, I never had issues. Maybe it was the PSU? The only time I did encounter problems with a Sandy/Ivy build is after I upgraded a friend's PC from an i7 920 to a i7 2600 (non-k). It would freeze under high load. Turns out the 500w PSU he was using wasn't up to the task.

kanecvr wrote:

Odd... like I said, I never had issues. Maybe it was the PSU? The only time I did encounter problems with a Sandy/Ivy build is after I upgraded a friend's PC from an i7 920 to a i7 2600 (non-k). It would freeze under high load. Turns out the 500w PSU he was using wasn't up to the task.

Not that; the PSU was a 850W brand-name which currently works fine in my AM3+ computer (A5M99FX, FX-8350, Radeon HD7970)

stamasd wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

Odd... like I said, I never had issues. Maybe it was the PSU? The only time I did encounter problems with a Sandy/Ivy build is after I upgraded a friend's PC from an i7 920 to a i7 2600 (non-k). It would freeze under high load. Turns out the 500w PSU he was using wasn't up to the task.

Not that; the PSU was a 850W brand-name which currently works fine in my AM3+ computer.

You probably had a bad CPU then. I have an i5 2400 witch will post but won't boot. It worked fine for a while, but started acting up. Upon closer inspection I noticed one of the tiny SMD capacitors on the back simply fell off. No idea why. I've also seen CPUs witch won't seat properly in their sockets. Apparently this may happen when the CPU runs very hot (85C+) for a long time. It might also damage the pads.

Bad luck I guess.

kanecvr wrote:

You probably had a bad CPU then. I have an i5 2400 witch will post but won't boot. It worked fine for a while, but started acting up. Upon closer inspection I noticed one of the tiny SMD capacitors on the back simply fell off. No idea why. I've also seen CPUs witch won't seat properly in their sockets. Apparently this may happen when the CPU runs very hot (85C+) for a long time. It might also damage the pads.

Bad luck I guess.

Eh. I donated that CPU to one of my friends in Romania a long time ago. Apparently it works for him. Dunno what his setup is.

kanecvr wrote:

I freaking love the 2900XT. Here's mine: […]
Show full quote

swaaye wrote:

I have a variety of old PCIe cards that I like to use with the 939 board though. ...... 2900XT, 4890, 6850....

I freaking love the 2900XT. Here's mine:

I had a pair of these back in the day - traded my 8800GTX and a little $$ for them - people hated them that much. They doubled as a room heater when gaming, but I remember playing stalker and crysis in these and they were SMOOTH. I also loved how these would gain performance with every driver update. Still looking for a pair for the one I have, but they're relatively rare.

I picked up the 1GB GDDR4 model out of curiosity a couple of years ago. It's an interesting card. I would never say it's superior to G80 though. Fillrate, anti-aliasing, texture filtering, drivers, etc. ATI was a disaster.

One thing that's bizarre to me is it has a ATI Theater T200 chip on it that needs its own driver. They didn't adequately support this chip. They didn't even always include a driver for it in the Catalyst packs. I think the HDMI audio driver isn't always included either. You actually get it from the Realtek site! Go ATI.

It's just fascinating because 2900 has a stupid amount of memory bandwidth but nowhere near the fillrate to use it. It was apparently designed with the imaginary notion that 2007 games would use loads of bandwidth intensive floating point textures and stuff. But it was just ridiculous really. Really bad planning. And then they had to push the power limits to run the clocks at a rate competitive with G80. They lost a lot of marketshare that year.

Am I really seeing a discussion that Intel CPUs are inherently unstable?

stamasd wrote:

I've owned i5 2400, i5 2500k, i5 3350p, and my current i7 3770k - Ivy and Sandy CPUs. I've only used Z67 and Z77 motherboards with them and never had a stability issue, so I don't buy your statement.

There was probablt something wrong with your system since there's nothing inherently unstable about the sandy and ivy bridge platform.

I gave up after trying 3 different motherboards. Don't remember exactly which (I'm trying hard to forget that part of computing history) but I think one was H67 chipset, and another H77. None would stay up more than 24h in a row. Tried different memory etc. I switched from Intel after that.
(the CPU was a i7-2600K; never overclocked despite capabilities)[/quote]

That's a big part of your problem there. You were using motherboards based on the bottom of the barrel low end chipsets, and (most likely based on chipsets) equally low-end, shitty motherboards.

Also It's not an argument or even worth discussing, at this point it's proven fact by hundreds of benchmark and review sites online. Even AMD's fastest 8 core chips out there barely catch up with the 2600K & 3770K era systems and don't even come close to the latest intel chips.

Not to mention, sadly.. AMD systems are still 2-4 years behind in onboard components. Only a few rare boards have USB 3.0 (Forget USB 3.1), and even that is via some "Add-on controller" tacked onto the board.. nothing from AMD has USB 3.0 natively on chipset yet. No PCI-Express 3.0. No NVME M.2 RAID, etc.

Even the only one CPU from AMD that's even remotely competitive is the 5Ghz 8-core chip... and that thing runs so hot it has to be water cooled (Can't be air cooled) and uses something around 250 - 275 watts of power just to compete with Intel's 3 and 4 year old chips that run 90 watts air cooled.

I mean, don't get me wrong.. I'm not "hating" on AMD, I love AMD systems. I just can't rightfully in my mind spend much money at all on anything AMD knowing how inferior it is in the end.

I really hope the new Zen platform for AMD works out and is good and finally has the performance AMD needs coupled with modern day features everyone wants and works good.

I would love AMD to be both competitive again and affordable and bring back the glory days of AMD from the 939/AM2 era.

swaaye wrote:

Am I really seeing a discussion that Intel CPUs are inherently unstable?

It had to happen one day.

But I remember Sandybridge as being butter smooth. I was using an MSI P67A-GD65 Board with an I5-2500K and hit 5.1ghz on air with it, and it was rock solid.

swaaye wrote:

Am I really seeing a discussion that Intel CPUs are inherently unstable?

Not all Intel CPUs; only that particular platform.

candle_86 wrote:

Why even bother with 939 for SLI retro building, go AM2, boards are more common, and honestly X2 3800 939 vs X2 AM2 isn't that diffrent, and you can make it excat by just using DDR2 667 instead of 800 🤣

Why bother with AM2, go AM3+. Boards are available in the shops 😊

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

Why even bother with 939 for SLI retro building, go AM2, boards are more common, and honestly X2 3800 939 vs X2 AM2 isn't that diffrent, and you can make it excat by just using DDR2 667 instead of 800 🤣

Why bother with AM2, go AM3+. Boards are available in the shops 😊

Mainly because of price? high end SLI AM2 motherboards can be had for < $50 shipped and dual-16x-SLI/XFIRE hybrid boards based on AM3+ are still Expensive.. $115+ and the cpu's for em are equally very expensive usually $150 - $200.. AM2 stuff's awesome cheap now, can get an unlocked black edition am2 quad core for $40 shipped.

Agreed, it does cost more. But isn't it cool that you can go into a computer shop today, buy an SLI AMD motherboard, put in your two 7800 GTX cards or whatever you want to use, install XP and off you go? This is one of the things that makes AMD so cool for retro gaming 😀

Prices in Australia can be quite odd. There are AM2 SLI boards that sell for more than 990FX boards. Crazy...

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Agreed, it does cost more. But isn't it cool that you can go into a computer shop today, buy an SLI AMD motherboard, put in your two 7800 GTX cards or whatever you want to use, install XP and off you go? This is one of the things that makes AMD so cool for retro gaming 😀

Prices in Australia can be quite odd. There are AM2 SLI boards that sell for more than 990FX boards. Crazy...

There's 790FX (CrossFireX) and 780a SLI (nvidia) too.

Slightly back on topic. Sitting here trying to overclock my 939 system again. And after exposing this thermal paste to temps around 80c, then it suddenly "Breaks down" and melts or turns to liquid or something and just stops working. Revert it back to stock speeds and stock voltages and sit here in bios watching it slowly creep up from 50c -> 55c -> 65c -> 70c -> auto shutoff. This is twice now, once last night after trying sub-zero it turned to solid and stopped working.. and now today it melts and stops transferring heat. This has been "Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond" Not actually Arctic Silver 5, don't have any AS5. Next up to try is some Shin-Etsu paste I bought off ebay... let's see if it holds up any better. I should go buy some AS5 in a bit.

Guess this project as turned in to "Extreme TIM testing" more than anything. 🤣

kithylin wrote:

don't have any AS5.

If there's any Radio Shack store still left near your place, they still stock it. Saw a few tubes hanging in my local one just the other day.