With nforce3 ultra out of the picture we got 4 platforms to test: 2 from socket 754 and 2 from socket 939. The processor of choice is the Athlon 64 3200 - socket 754; Athlon 64 3500 socket 939 with the Venice revision.
On socket 754 Venice is the very last Athlon 64 revision that you can get. It is also the one with the lowest TDP: only 59W! That means that even with the stock aluminum cooler from AMD you are going to get a very cool and practically noiseless system! On socket 939 Venice 3500 has a 67W TDP, still on the low side and you can get by with the cheapest cooler you can get your hands on and still have a silent system!
The cooler I used is the stock cooler that AMD distributed with its socket AM2 dual core processors: copper with heat pipes. It is thermal controlled by the BIOS and I do not hear it! The only noise coming from all 4 systems is the fan of the Radeon x1950 pro.
To people wandering why I did not used the Newcastle 3800 on socket 939 against Newcastle 3400 on socket 754: I order it but I did not arrived in time - and still did not arrived when I started this topic. Also I got a good reason for using Athlon 64 3500: this model is available for all revisions and I got them all: 3500 Clawhammer; 3500 Newcastle; 3500 Winchester; 3500 Venice; 3500 San Diego.

nd22 wrote on Today, 07:17:

With nforce3 ultra out of the picture we got 4 platforms to test: 2 from socket 754 and 2 from socket 939. The processor of choice is the Athlon 64 3200 - socket 754; Athlon 64 3500 socket 939 with the Venice revision.
On socket 754 Venice is the very last Athlon 64 revision that you can get. It is also the one with the lowest TDP: only 59W! That means that even with the stock aluminum cooler from AMD you are going to get a very cool and practically noiseless system! On socket 939 Venice 3500 has a 67W TDP, still on the low side and you can get by with the cheapest cooler you can get your hands on and still have a silent system!

nd22, thank you for starting this series. Really looking forward to seeing the results.

Would it not be better to use…

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4 GHz (socket 754 / Clawhammer)
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4 GHz (socket 939 / Clawhammer)

zuldan wrote on Today, 11:05:

nd22, thank you for starting this series. Really looking forward to seeing the results. […]
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nd22 wrote on Today, 07:17:

With nforce3 ultra out of the picture we got 4 platforms to test: 2 from socket 754 and 2 from socket 939. The processor of choice is the Athlon 64 3200 - socket 754; Athlon 64 3500 socket 939 with the Venice revision.
On socket 754 Venice is the very last Athlon 64 revision that you can get. It is also the one with the lowest TDP: only 59W! That means that even with the stock aluminum cooler from AMD you are going to get a very cool and practically noiseless system! On socket 939 Venice 3500 has a 67W TDP, still on the low side and you can get by with the cheapest cooler you can get your hands on and still have a silent system!

nd22, thank you for starting this series. Really looking forward to seeing the results.

Would it not be better to use…

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4 GHz (socket 754 / Clawhammer)
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4 GHz (socket 939 / Clawhammer)

Thank you sir!
Unfortunately I do not have the 3700 for socket 754! Also a big downside of that is that there are no PR corresponding Athlon 64 to that San Diego for the other revisions! Example: there are no Winchester 3700, no Venice 3700, but there are Clawhammer, Newcastle, Winchester, Venice, San diego 3500! Taking into account that we are talking about thousands of tests I consider imperatively to try to limit them to a sensible number.