Lots of Athlon reports flying around by users. Seems
the Athlon 500 is running 650-700MHz pretty reliably and 750MHz looks like a possibility
though often requiring slowing the L2 cache down which is a performance hit. Folks
keep in mind that for now the Athlon requires modification that includes difficult
soldering if you want to overclock one to such high speeds and reports have proven that
they are indeed power hungry requiring a good quality (300 watt minimum) power supply.
A little more Athlon news from Da Headnut himself over at PCNut, seems like Humphrey is closer to
having OCed Athlon systems available based on the (ASUS, shhh it is a secrete) K7M mobo
and he has some benchmark
screenshots so you know what they are capable of.
Also if you already have an Athlon and you need a good cooling solution
then go check out PLYCON for their
latest offering from GlobalWIN the FKK-32. It is a very large heatsink and I see
that it comes equipped with 2 YS-Tech 60mm fans instead of the 50mm fans I had originally
seen in the first product review I had read.
Note: The (ASUS) K7M's
power connector is located in such a position that many of the larger heatsinks such as
the FKK-32 will not fit without modification to the heatsink or the power connector on the
board. Click here
for picture of example courtesy of Overclockers Australia.
My UnlimitedHardware X2 PPGA Cooler
is coming along nicely and hopefully soon things will be in place for a marketable
offering to you folks. Right now I'm working on a technique to produce the fan
bracket/shroud in a bit of a volume instead of one-at-a-time. The cooler is a
modification of an already existing PPGA heatsink that will allow the use of all the DIMM
slots on any mobo and out perform any conventional PPGA cooler I have tested to date, stay
tuned...
I got my Thermal
Interface Compound Comparison article up which includes a little performance data on
some of the more common thermal interface compounds that are readily available. I
didn't really get any groundbreaking information here but if your intent on every last
performance tweak then perhaps there is some reading of interest for you in this article.
For those of you interested in the AMD Athlon (like me) I just got word
from PCNut that there will be some
kick-ass Athlon based systems offered there soon. Get the word straight from
Humphrey himself...
| "If all goes well, we will be rolling out our
first AMD Athlon based system this coming weekend. These puppies will be outfitted
with K7-500 processors modified & overclocked to 700 & 750Mhz (results varies from
chip to chip, some at 1/2 and some at 1/3 cache divider), with <drum roll> ASUS K7M
motherboards. After making tons of phones calls & email, we were able to finally
secured 10 of these boards from Taiwan, flying in this week. If the LeadTek GeForce
256 video cards arrived on time, it will be part of the system configuration as well.
This is being done with regular cooling, no peltier, water cooling or Cryo type of
cooling!" |
Now if you want the first available low down on the K7M
mobo for the Athlon then you need to go see what Agg over at Overclockers Australia has to
say about it here
though he decided not to give away the already known manufacturers name (shhh, it is ASUS
BTW).
|
The
ASUS made K7M Athlon motherboard though the location of the power connector differs in
this photo as compared to the board Agg reviewed. |
Remember the PolarLogic heatsinks I mentioned a few weeks
ago? Well back then I had reported that my man Tillman from The Heatsink Guide found no
great cooling performance with them but now after closer inspection and applying greater
thermal loads it seems that the PolarLogic heatsinks may indeed have something to offer.
Check out what Tillman has to say here. Keep
in mind that PLYCON will soon have
some of these babies in stock.
Just a few quick notes here...
I just got word from Humphrey at PCNut about his experience with a batch of P3-450 SL35D processors and
this is what he had to say...
| "Just thought you may like to know that all
these rumors/reviews about P3-450 SL35D is a Pentium III 600 in disguise is most likely
true! I picked up 10 of them this afternoon, using Vantec P3D-5020R dual fan P3
cooler, fire them up on a SOYO SY-6BA+ IV motherboard w/Corsair PC133 chip. So far,
I have tested 4 chips, each one of them does 620+ MHz at default core of 2.0v! I
even went as high as 675MHz on one test run, but it wasn't very stable at such high
FSB/AGP bus speed. Viper V770 & LeadTek S320-II just can't handle much higher
than 627MHz in Quake 3 Crusher demo loop, but the chips themselves are just rock solid at
high speed with every application I throw at them. Is this another one of those
SL2W8 from Intel? I think so! :))" |
I also wanted to let you folks know that PLYCON has just dropped their prices on
the GlobalWIN FDP-32 and FEP-32 coolers to $18.99 each so go pick a couple of them babies
up if your in the market for some PPGA cooling.
Well unfortunately because of Hurricane Irene the LAN
party got cancelled Saturday, seems a lot of folks were driving in from out of town and
the organizers wisely chose to reschedule and let the bad weather pass. Once again the
Tampa Bay area lucked out with a hurricane. While I was writing my last news entry
it was predicted that Irene would be a direct hit in my area, as it turned out it barely
even rained much here. Anyway here is a look at the prizes I have courtesy of PCNut to give away when the LAN party does
get rescheduled...
I have decided to build myself a LAN system to take along to the
get-togethers. I'm planning on something easy to tote along and unique to strike up
conversation. As the construction progresses I will be adding articles that will
coincide along with some of the ideas incorporated into the "LAN system".
I have ideas such as a plexi-glass case and a self-contained liquid cooling
system, the cooling system will probably be the biggest challenge because it has to have
adequate cooling capacity but not add a lot of weight, I also want to build it in a manner
that most do-it-yourselfers can copy.
I have also been working on a PPGA heatsink setup that will exceed in
performance all conventional PPGA heatsink setups I have tested to date It will fit
"slotket"ed PPGA Celerons (not the BP6, sorry) and still allow the use of all
the DIMM slots. It is a modification of an existing commercial design and I am even
maybe planning on a "kit" perhaps that might be marketed. Who knows, if
Kyle (www.hardocp.com) can have systems carry his site's
name then I can have a heatsink carry mine. : )
Agg over at Overclockers
Australia has a whole bunch of stuff posted...
Coppermine
benchmarks (sent in by a reader, 677 o/c to 805MHz)
AOpen AX6BC
Pro review
"The
Peltier-Cooled PC: Considerations for Power and Heat" article by Ken Peter
Water-cooled
PC with the reservoir inside a FRIDGE
Here is my
"water-cooler reservoir in a fridge", actually it is an old experiment but
it worked really well. Ya that is automotive antifreeze mixed in with the coolant
because the coolant temperature got to -15c. Maybe there is a future article with
it, whadya think?
The guys over at Full
On 3D got an interview with somebody from S3, go check that out for a little inside
video info.
Well my vacation is over and it is now time to get back to
this site, sorry for the lack of updates while I was away enjoying my time off. I'm
back to work at the fire department tomorrow and already here in Florida we have another
hurricane bearing down on us from the south. It doesn't look as though it will
become too powerful but there will be loads of rain and flooding is always a concern.
Looks like I'll be working some overtime again this weekend, not bad if I get
to drive a military HumVee again.
I get back and look who has some OC info up already concerning Intel's "Coppermine" processor
but the man himself Kyle over at HardOCP.
Man I wish I had his connections. : )
While I was gone Joe C. from Overclockers .com sent me notice that he has a review up on the Soyo
SY-6BA+IV mobo and a bunch of other stuff. Just incase your really interested in the
6BA+IV Overclocking Extreme
did a review of
there own. The 6BA+IV is basically a 6BA+III with UDMA66 support and I'm happy
to say I should have one of my own very soon. If your interested in one for yourself
then you should give Humphrey over at PCNut
a call.
With all the talk about TEC (Peltier element) coolers lately the Tech Zone has a do-it-yourself
article on how to make your own setup. If you are not the DIY type and you are
interested in a high quality pre-assembled TEC cooler for your processor then I suggest
checking out the excellent units from Swiftech.
May I remind you about the review article I did on Swiftech's
MC1000 PPGA cooler.
For you dual processor freaks out there 2CPU.com put up a SMP FAQ for your reading pleasure.
Overclockers
Australia has some information up on how to modify any slot1 board for voltage selections
up to 3.5 volts. There is some soldering involved and although I have not tried it
there is some interesting reading there.
If this frickin hurricane coming my way doesn't screw things up this
weekend I'll be attending another LAN party hosted by P4P Lan. I had a great time at the last one and this one is
supposed to be air-conditioned (yee haw). Unfortunately for those of you in the area
this party is limited to 75 attendees but please keep checking P4P Lan's site for updates concerning
the next party and reserve yourself a spot. UnlimitedHardware.com along with PCNut is helping to sponsor this party and
I'm bringing a whole bunch of goodies for give-aways such as TNT2 video cards, surround
sound speaker setups, and mobos.
I am testing some "custom mixed" thermal compounds along with a
commercially available "copper" based compound and I will let you in on that
soon. I also have a little article on the Gamma 28 blowers from PLYCON and their use on a PPGA heatsink
modification that should be ready soon.
For those of you who were concerned I'm not dead I was
just on a short vacation in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina with my wife doing a
little white-water rafting and mountain biking for a few days. I have tried to
answer most of my email but if I left you out I apologize, send me another if you have not
received a reply from me and you think it is important.
|
| This is a view from the road up the
mountain to where my family's cabin is, beautiful isn't it. |
I have a lot of work to do so I can get some new info up
here so please be patient while I get back into the swing of things.
Thanks to all of you who sent me the great tips regarding my Linux
project, I'm putting it on hold for now cause I just got too much to do.
For those of you who have never heard of Gamma blowers then your missing
out on some of the most useful and versatile cooling tools available. They are
"squirrel cage" blowers that deliver a high velocity stream of air which can be
directed very accurately all the way across the inside of a computer case as long as
nothing blocks the path. Anyway PLYCON
Computers has gotten a bunch of the Gamma 28s and the larger Gamma 30 blowers in stock
so definitely go set yourself up with a couple of those useful babies and keep your eye
out for an article on a few ideas you can use em for from me here soon.
Intel has announced several new PIII processors which should be available
by the end of the year utilizing .18 micron technology with 256kb of on-die full speed
cache. The on-die cache just might lend to some exciting OC action since that design
makes cooling the cache a simple matter. I just hope Intel doesn't come up with some
new anti-OC BS now.
Since even I have been covering TEC (Peltier) action lately you might
find an article
over at The TechZone interesting
that covers the basics of TEC technology. Also some good
reading if your contemplating an SCSI setup soon or maybe even RAID.
Overclocking
Extreme has got some information concerning another case cooling gizmo, it's called
the Turbo
Cooler and they seemed to like it quite a bit.
PCNut has gotten a few
Soyo SY-6BA+IVs in stock so you might want to check that action out if your interested in
UDMA66. I personally have not tried the board out yet but considering the 6BA+III is
my favorite OC board how can I ignore adding UDMA66 for an even more exciting setup.
I have been contemplating on giving Linux a try for a while now but
I really did not need the new challenge. Anyway I came across a Mandrake Linux cd-rom yesterday
and decided to see what all the fuss was about. I installed a brand new hard drive
in one of my systems and booted up with the cd-rom and proceeded with the install.
All went pretty well though I finally gave up on getting the TNT2 card to
work, for now I settled on an old PCI Matrox Millenium card I had up on the parts shelf.
I definitely have lots to learn, anybody want to give me specifics on what TNT2
drivers to download from Nvidia and exactly (really detailed instructions) how to install
them? Ya, I'm an idiot I guess.
3D Spotlight
has an article up on optimizing
your system memory, there you will find some useful tips for avoiding some unnecessary
hard disk thrashing.
