I think I'm going to use my Sempron 64 2800+ as a donor of the heat spreader.

I always chose the processors with the larger cache back in the day if the prices was close. I felt like I was getting better performance per watt.

I usually got one or two speed grades down from the fastest because the price and heat was often better.

After the hot age of humming fans when the choices where Palomino vs P4, I followed this upgrade path:

• Athlon XP "Barton" -- Mounting a heatsink was like balancing a bowling ball on a shot glass though
• Athlon 64 "San Diego" -- Did great in Half Life 2 & CounterStrike Source, but many of those early 939 boards had short life spans
• Opteron "Denmark" -- Was available at a good price in 2007 and held its own for quite a while. Didn't have the PREFETCHW instruction, so it is 32 bit only for >= Win 8.1
• Core Duo E8400 "Wolfdale" -- My dad still runs this system today

Those were all great chips

marxveix wrote on 2025-01-28, 12:51:

Huge price, i skip at the moment. 😀

Yeah, I was about to comment on that... $65 for an old single-core 64-bit s754 CPU? No thanks! 🤣 Not worth it, I think.

I noticed all CPUs for 754 are much more expensive than the 939 versions in general. I paid $50 for mine.

At that price, you might as well get a whole motherboard + CPU combo or some laptop that has the CPU you want in it.
But I guess the problem is the seller(s) usually don't list that kind of information, especially on scrap/old hardware.

Two years ago, I put a bid on eBay on a FIC K8M-something s754 motherboard. It was listed for parts/not working and that's all that was mentioned in the description. Through the pictures, though, I saw that it came with an Athlon 64 3700+ CPU included, so I knew it was a good deal. I managed to win the auction easily for like $18 total shipped to my door. Unfortunately, the seller had a goof-up and sent me a completely different motherboard by mistake (a Via-based s478 P4) and the motherboard I won was sent to someone else... which is a shame, because the FIC board I purchased was riddled with bad/burst caps all over it. It would have been a super easy fix/restore if I got it. And the CPU would have been a nice addition to my collection. Sadly, I didn't get lucky this time. Instead, I now have yet another socket 478 motherboard that's not really anything special. On the plus side, it does work... and didn't leave me bored in terms of having nothing wrong with it. One of the mounts for the NB heatsink had pulled out and there was also one bulged cap that needed replacing. Easy-peasy. I will eventually do a full recap on it. Turns out, the board does unofficially support P4 Prescott CPUs, but only with 533 MHz FSB IIRC... which is perfect, as I have a 2.8 GHz Prescott with 533 MHz FSB that's doing nothing.

Is a ML-44 the same as a 3700+ ClawHammer in terms of speed? Maybe a 3700 is an option.

I've compared specs of those two. Besides ML-44 supporting SSE3 and being much more efficient, the performance should be the same.
Both CPUs are hard to find and very expensive compared to other models.

zuldan wrote on 2025-01-28, 19:37:

Is a ML-44 the same as a 3700+ ClawHammer in terms of speed? Maybe a 3700 is an option.

Just go with much cheaper and available 3400 😀.
SSE3 came later with 90nm cores.

I still believe the 3200+ Clawhammer has the best current performance/price ratio.

Sometimes its possible to find these cpus with cheaper prices if you by broken laptop and another time asked price for the cpu is just better.
Turion64 is great and Mobile Semprons are ok and they dont have ML (35w) and MT (25w) versions, they are 25w or similar to desktop 62w.

Mobile Sempron 3400+ 2GHz 256kb 25w
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Mobile% … 3400BQX3LF.html

I know I am very late to the discussion, but since this topic comes up pretty often during my online research on 754, I though I'd share some input.

First of all, 130nm CPUs have inferior memory controller compared to 90nm ones, but that applies actually to the performance. At the same settings, 130nm has up to 10ns longer memory latency and that can lead to few percentage differences in performance. Obviously, every usecase is different, but in my testing, Venice is faster than Clawhammer, even though it has less L2 cache.

Another misconception relates to improved IMC on AR revision Clawhammers. The only difference is support for 2T timing option on AR revision, which should be avoided anyway as it's detrimental on memory write performance. The IMC itself is poor anyway and I had better memory results even on NF2 boards.

Clawhammer IMC isn't that bad after tuning memory timings. I'm using Command Rate 2T as I'm using two modules.

Memory latency wise it's better than what I achieved on Phenom II or Vishera.

I benchmarked Turion 64 ML-34 at 2.2Ghz in Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754! and tested it on a couple of boards, in case anyone stumbles upon this topic.

It seems Turion 64 ML-34, ML-37 run well at 2.2Ghz at 1.4V. The CPU is about 4% faster than Clawhammer at the same clock speed and runs very cool without heatspreader. You are unlikely to find ML-40 so OC will be necessary. At 2.4Ghz Command Rate 2T seems to be necessary. This may affect also Clawhammer 3700+.

2209Mhz CPU, 260Mhz base, 8.5x multiplier, HT 779 (3x), 400 memory (divisor 11) at 1.4V is a safe bet, low risk of damaging anything. It should work with Command Rate 1T with 2 quality memory sticks or 2T with average sticks.
2403Mhz CPU, 267Mhz base, 9x multiplier, HT 801 (3x), 400 memory (divisor 12) may work at 1.45V, Command Rate 2T. Due to CR2, it would benefit from DDR500 instead and divisor 10.

Testing with memtest86, prime95, SuperPI 32M, OCCT for 4+ hours is necessary.

Any benefits to owning a s754 setup if I already have an Agp s939 system? I found a "San Toledo"4000+ (x2 4800 with one core disabled) and it's crazy how well that performs at 3ghz.

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2026-05-26, 05:27:

Any benefits to owning a s754 setup if I already have an Agp s939 system? I found a "San Toledo"4000+ (x2 4800 with one core disabled) and it's crazy how well that performs at 3ghz.

Only if you have your eye on a Socket 754 motherboard that is significantly better than the one you currently have (Socket 939).

shevalier wrote on 2026-05-26, 05:54:

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2026-05-26, 05:27:

Any benefits to owning a s754 setup if I already have an Agp s939 system? I found a "San Toledo"4000+ (x2 4800 with one core disabled) and it's crazy how well that performs at 3ghz.

Only if you have your eye on a Socket 754 motherboard that is significantly better than the one you currently have (Socket 939).

Thank you... Noted down. I love how flexible this platform is (and by extension S754) in terms of options and performance with the variety of boards and semi-unlocked multipliers.

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2026-05-26, 06:05:

shevalier wrote on 2026-05-26, 05:54:

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2026-05-26, 05:27:

Any benefits to owning a s754 setup if I already have an Agp s939 system? I found a "San Toledo"4000+ (x2 4800 with one core disabled) and it's crazy how well that performs at 3ghz.

Only if you have your eye on a Socket 754 motherboard that is significantly better than the one you currently have (Socket 939).

Thank you... Noted down. I love how flexible this platform is in terms of options and performance with the variety of boards and semi-unlocked multipliers.

To be honest, I’m not aware of any S754 motherboards featuring the VIA K8T800 PRO (asynchronous overclocking) and the VT8237 PLUS (without the SATA 2/3 bug).
That leaves the nForce 3 250 and the ULI.
So if you’re looking for a truly excellent Socket 754 motherboard (better than a standard S939 with AGP), you’ll have to try very hard.

S939 and S754 AGP are the best fit for Windows 98 therefore need GeForce 4, GeForce FX or Radeon X800. It doesn't matter whether you have S754 or S939 in this case, both are sufficiently powerful.

Using GeForce 7600GT, 7800GS, Radeon X1950, Radeon HD3850 leads to reduced Windows 98 compatibility - games will be crashing or may have visual issues. Probably only the Radeon HD3850 can cover full Windows XP period as the rest reaches limits in 2004/2005. S939 with high clocked CPU or X2 is better for 2006 with AGP.

It only makes sense if you get rid of Pentium III and have S754 instead for Windows 98.