Athlon 64 3800+ Venice, or 3700+ San Diego?

[wolfram]

Hey guys,

Once again, I want to change my CPU, without spending too much.

I saw on Newegg the Athlon 64 3800+ Venice, and the 3700+ Sandy. Which is the best one?
Sandy has 1MB L2 cache, Venice has 512kb, but slightly higher clock speed. I don't want to overclock again, so I'm looking at stock performance.

Thank you a lot

Regards :wave:

 

[nickslick74]

Go for the San Diego, bigger L2 cache. Not much speed difference either. Plus, if you ever do want to overclock, it seems that this processor does so easily.

 

[wolfram]

Thanks for the response. Something that worries me a little, is that San Diego's can run a little hot, because they have more transistors than Venice cores (the extra L2 cache), and I don't want to get an aftermarket cooler.

Venice cores run very cool, that's why I like them, but like I said, I don't know if there is any great performance difference between the two.

If San Diego is considerably faster than Venice, I'll get it. What do you think?

 

[F1N3ST]

Just get the San Diego, and some arctic silver 5 thermal paste, and it should be fine.

 

[nickslick74]

IMHO, either would be great. I think the heat issue stems from the fact that people use the thermal pad that comes with the stock coolers and don't have good case ventilation. Clean off that cruddy pad and put on some thermal paste for a couple of bucks. You could do this if you get the Venice core also.

In reality, I doubt that you would notice a difference between the 2 processors, even in games. You might get slighly better fps in cpu intensive games with the sandy due to the lager L2, but not much.

 

[wolfram]

That's what I tough too. But the Venice has 200MHZ more than Sandy, and I saw some bechmarks, where the 3800 is almost as fast as the 4000+ Sandy. Even in some bechmarks, the 3800+ Venice is faster than some Sandy's. However, the Sandy is very cheap these days.

And like I said, I do not want to overclock

 

[nickslick74]

You really can't go wrong with either choice. For the few buck diff I would still get the sandy. You probably won't notice a speed diff.

 

[wolfram]

Yes, maybe I'll get the Sandy. Fortunately, I have some AS5, and I can run the CPU fan to 100% all the time, to make it run cool.

I'll wait a little, and see if the prices go down a little. AMD is reducing prices a lot on their 939 CPU's, so maybe in one month, it'll be $80

Thanks for the help guys

 

[JimShady23]

San Diego

I have a San Diego 3700 system and it runs beutifully. Back in the day I actually sold off my 3800 newcastle that cost me a pretty penny and got the 3700 San Diego. Basically I was in envy of the 4000+ that was the big boy on the block at the time and seen that the 3700 had the exact same core and transistor count ect ect...but the 4000 had a $150 up price....

At stock speeds the 3700 actually got a few more FPS than the Newcastle 3800 and seemed to have just a little more snot. I am assuming it is because of the 1mb L2 cache.

When I overclocked it 200 mhz to reach the 2.4ghz speed of the 4000+ it benchmarked almost exactly the same as the 4000+

I know you said you dont want to overclock but whats 200mhz ?

And as far as cooling it stays at low 30's idle barley ever cracking 40 under load. And that is overclocked

So as far as cooling i woulnd worry...I do have a 90mm Zahlman on it but i dont think using a stock cooler will raise it to anything terrible.

Its up to you man.....hope this has been helpful.

Oh yeah and as far as appling AS5 i have mixed thoughts. I usally cake it on pretty good across the whole CPU die not like extreme, just a good layer.

Now i came accross many articles and even the instructions that tell you how to apply it. AS reccomends that you place a dot 1 1/2 the size of a grain of rice in the middle of the die and let the weight of the HSF apply the layer for you. Others say to spread it but to make it 1/2 the thickness of a sheet of paper, so you can basically still read the lableing on the CPU but very hazed....They say if you put it on in excess you can actually insulate heat with the product...

Well after reading this I was like "Man I must use way too much" at that time my temps idled in the mid 30's

So im doing some cleaning in the case and I was like maybe I should take off the HSF clean everything up and apply the AS5 the "right" recommended way.
So i did and reinstalled everything using the 1 1/2 grain of rice dab in the middle of the die.

Well I got everything back togeather and noticed my temps are a lot higher
it idles at low to mid 40's usually mid.

So Im thinking that despite what AS says. put a little more on there, i think it does help.

This is for my main System X2 4200+ 939 system with a 120mm Zalhman cooler.

 

[wolfram]

Thank you a lot JimShady for that extensive reply

Now I have decided to get the Sandy. I still don't want to overclock, because I have Value Select RAM, and you know, it doesn't like to be overclocked.

Thank you a lot guys Any more opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Sean]

Sandy, because it sounds the coolest of the rest.

 

[wolfram]

Opps, I saw the CPU charts on Tom's hardware, and the 3800+ Venice, constantly outperforms (by not too much) the Sandy.

What do you think?

 

[swker98]

if your mobo supports it why not go for duel core 3800+ manchester
its about $115 and looks like a nice choice
if not go with the venice as there suspsto overclock good

 

[JimShady23]

Your Choice

They are both sub $100 CPU's that are awesome.....Either way you look at it your going to win lol

 

[wolfram]

Yeah, they must be faster than my current 3200+ Venice, don't you think? :suspiciou

Since the Sandy is cheaper, I'll think I'll get it.

BTW, I saw a 3800+ Manchester, and it's not $115 swker98

 

[swker98]

Yeah, they must be faster than my current 3200+ Venice, don't you think? :suspiciou

Since the Sandy is cheaper, I'll think I'll get it.

BTW, I saw a 3800+ Manchester, and it's not $115 swker98

wow i could have swarn ive seen it cheeper
o well
i would go for the vienice becuase like you said it will optpreforum the sandy by a little

or you could jsut save ur $$ for a duelly

 

[KingCody]

hi Wolfram,

I know you said that you don't want to overclock, but it may be worth considering. I'm not suggesting that you overclock a new CPU, instead I'm suggesting that you save your money and overclock your existing CPU. (this is assuming that your motherboard/BIOS has overclocking abilities). you ram won't effect your overclock as long as there is a RAM divider setting.

a venice 3200+ will easily overclock to 3800+ speeds. I wouldn't worry too much about the heat issue, as you already mentioned the Venice cores run pretty cool. and they still run cool even when overclocked.

cheers :wave:

 

[wolfram]

Thanks KingCody, that crossed my mind today. I have a Biostar T-Force 6100-939 mobo, and there is a divider setting on the BIOS. I may up the "FSB" until my RAM gets back to the original DDR400 setting.

However, I heard that maybe the chipset, and other components don't like overclocking, and I don't want to kill my mobo and CPU.

Or I can get the Sandy, and overclock it to 4000+ speeds. Same core, same speed, and mild overclock

 

[wolfram]

Ok, I followed your advice KingCody, and overclocked my CPU from 2000 MHZ (3200+) to 2400 (3800+ speeds ), my RAM is at 200 MHZ, I didn't need to increase Vcore, chipset, and RAM voltage. Also I ran Prime95's torture test (maximum heat and power comsumption one) for 23 minutes, 100% stable. Temps went up only 2-3 °C. I set the fan speed to 100% stating at 39°C temp, and it never exceded 50°C. It was ranging from 46-47°C, and 49°C maximum. I think that's great! The chipset ran very cool (I modded a 40 mm fan to fit on the fanless heatsink ), and memory was cool.

Is there any way to further test the system´s stability without making it run for several hours? Also, what do you think about my overclock? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Thank you

EDIT: As you can see, I'm fairly new to overclocking Just a question:
When I overclock my system, what else gets overclocked too? (PCI-E & PCI bus are locked to their standard frequency)
Can overclock damage for example, my chipset, onboard video & audio, etc?

 

[F1N3ST]

Im buying a 3700+ San Diego, and i am going to experiment with overclocking on my Celeron D, as i dont care about that 30$ piece of junk, is there any way to flash the BIOS on a emachines (intel) board to allow me to overclock?

 

[KingCody]

Ok, I followed your advice KingCody, and overclocked my CPU from 2000 MHZ (3200+) to 2400 (3800+ speeds ), my RAM is at 200 MHZ, I didn't need to increase Vcore, chipset, and RAM voltage. Also I ran Prime95's torture test (maximum heat and power comsumption one) for 23 minutes, 100% stable. Temps went up only 2-3 °C. I set the fan speed to 100% stating at 39°C temp, and it never exceded 50°C. It was ranging from 46-47°C, and 49°C maximum. I think that's great! The chipset ran very cool (I modded a 40 mm fan to fit on the fanless heatsink ), and memory was cool.

nice

Is there any way to further test the system´s stability without making it run for several hours?

not that I know of. Many people will tell you to leave the torture tests running for hours. I never do it but that's just me (my stress test for stability is whether or not it crashes when doing normal tasks.. lol :haha if you're goal is 100% stability, then let it run overnight. IMO that should be more than enough time to verify it's stability.

what do you think about my overclock?

I think your overclock is fine. I'm sure you could go higher, but that's up to you to decide if you want to or not. you're at a safe level right now, so you may want to stay there and enjoy your "free CPU upgrade" .

my venice 3000+ runs "stable" at 2.5GHz (279FSBx9). by stable I mean that it never crashes under normal daily use. and I run my PC 24/7. someday I'll run a torture test on it just for fun (I'm guessing it will fail ).

-F1N3ST, you should start a new thread for that question.

cheers :wave:

 

[SNGX1275]

I wouldn't be too concerned about temps. You can run processors much hotter than what the general discussions you see across the internet. I've got a 1Ghz Tbird that I ran with a 100Mhz overclock for over 5 years with temps in the 50s. With the stock thermal pad that came with. The thing still runs fine, I just retired the system this past month because of cancer of the motherboard (parts stopped working over the past year).

People seem to be concerned about processor life when they run hot, but really I don't know of any real data to back that up. I'm sure they do die earlier, but I imagine we are talking about dying in 8 years rather than 10, maybe even longer. Most people don't use a processor that long.

 

[wolfram]

It gets outdated before it dies :haha:

And thanks KingCody for your valuable input, I think I won't need the Sandy, because I now have a "3800+ Venice" for free!

BTW F1N3ST, I don't think that you can overclock on an Intel board. I don't think they have PCI & AGP locking feature, and don't allow you to increase the FSB. I think there's no way to do it

 

[KingCody]

And thanks KingCody for your valuable input, I think I won't need the Sandy, because I now have a "3800+ Venice" for free!

you're welcome. enjoy your overclock

it's a nice feeling to know that your getting more from a processor than you paid for. (you've been corrupted now... overclocking is addictive )

I've got a 1Ghz Tbird that I ran with a 100Mhz overclock for over 5 years with temps in the 50s

Tbird's have a max operating temp of 95°C. so your 50°C-ish temps were simply normal operating temp (nothing even close to dangerous temps).

venice cores on the other hand have a max operating temp of 65°C. (50°'s are a bit high, but still a safe temp for a loaded system)

:wave:

 

[wolfram]

Fortunately mine reached a maximum 49°C temp, that is, of course, with the fan speed at 100% all the damn time