Dothan or Venice?

Crashman · May 11, 2005

Assuming cost is not an issue, but heat output is a major issue, and the board has to be Micro ATX.

Does anyone have hard performance and heat numbers to put one clearly ahead of the other, taking heat into account, for games and video encoding?

How about motherboards? Certainly the Venice would be best served by an nForce chipset, but availability of nForce Socket 939 boards seems slim to none.

So let's hear your unbiased and biased statements, with facts to back it up!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

darth_farter · May 11, 2005

heat output?
I'd decide between Dothan or Turion, remember though that Turion has 64bit in case you want to for the future/winxp x64, but dothan is probably the stronger cpu.

try to get the 21watt (not the 27) dothan or the 25 (not the 35) watt turion, the turion should fit on any socket754 board which would give a big selection, but if you can actually find the chip in retail...

the dothan has 3 options, aopen, dfi or the asus 865 mobo with the adapter...which I think would run hotter than the mobile chipset aopen/dfi ones.

depending on what appz/purpose you would mainly do with the pc it could be either, or even the venice/winchester (the winchester is proven to run a bit cooler than the venice)

P4Man · May 11, 2005

I'm not up to date to available motherboards, but I saw this link posted on aces: <A HREF="http://www.asrock.com/product/product_939A8X-M.htm" target="_new">http://www.asrock.com/product/product_939A8X-M.htm</A>
No idea how this board performs, or how good/bad the ULI chipset is, no idea either if there are nForce based µATX boards.

Assuming S393 µATX boards is not a problem, and depending just how much of a problem power/heat is, I would probably go for a(n underclocked) Venice core. Real world power @2.4 GHz is under 30W, if you clock it back to ~1.8-2 GHz and undervolt it, I would guess it should be possible to run it near ~15W loaded. Thats not good enough for passive cooling though, but as cool as it gets for the performance and features you get.

Turion is indeed another option, but I'm not sure why I'd pay the price premium for basically an underclocked, undervolted Venice core

Pentium M is obviously also a contender, likely featuring slightly better performance/watt, good allround performance, but I wouldn't be too keen on giving up 64 bit abilities.

But if you really need passive cooling or extreme low power, I'd get a 7W 1.2 GHz Dothan. With some case cooling, 7W should be possible to cool passively, but @1.2 GHz, it would barely be fast enough for todays gaming. Video encoding.. well any chip is slow for it, if you don't need realtime performance, and you are in no rush, why not ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

slvr_phoenix · May 11, 2005

It'd be nice to know a little more about the setup too. I'm assuming this is like a VCR-sized case with maybe one 60mm fan or something to use as a PVR or some such? So what kind of air flow does this case actually have? Are you aiming for fanless? Are you concerned about a CPU warranty?

<pre>Jesters do oft prove prophets. -Regan in
King Lear (Act V, Scene iii) by William Shakespear</pre>@ 187K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

Crashman · May 11, 2005

Something a bit larger than a VCR, likely with no intake fans and one exhaust fan, which would be a low speed unit.

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 11, 2005

The problem is, I haven't seen anything showing Turion having an advantage over Dothan. Now, Venice is clocked higher, might offer a PERFORMANCE advantage, and might be acceptable if a 10% rise in heat provided a 10% rise in performance (because a decent performance increase would force me to seeks out a slightly stronger cooling system).

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 12, 2005

Those were my thoughts as well, but I was looking for someone to prove me wrong. I was hoping someone could prove to me that a Venice at similar clock speed produced only a marginally greater amount of heat!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Schmide · May 12, 2005

Have you read <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2407&p=1" target="_new">this?</A>

Off topic but possibly on topic.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

endyen · May 12, 2005

So, the idea is to spend more, to get less, because the dothan is cooler on paper. Well then dont put that paper underneath it!
There won't be any difference in perceptable sound between the two, go with the better, cheeper one.
Too bad the AN8 fatal1ty is so hard to <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127196" target="_new">find</A>

Crashman · May 12, 2005

And what top-end Micro ATX board am I to use?

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
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endyen · May 12, 2005

Top end? Not for either setup. P4man has the best option.

Crashman · May 12, 2005

Aopen has a top-end P-M board, anything high end in Micro ATX for Socket 939?

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

P4Man · May 12, 2005

>Those were my thoughts as well, but I was looking for someone
> to prove me wrong. I was hoping someone could prove to me
>that a Venice at similar clock speed produced only a
>marginally greater amount of heat!

Define "marginally". I'm sure you have seen <A HREF="http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/amd_venice/7.shtml" target="_new"> this </A>

Venice @2.4 GHz doesn't break 30W, and iddles around 8W. Dothan has a TDP of 27W @2.13 GHz (and this number doesn't include the memory controller). Now I expect Dothan not to break those 27W in real world apps, but this still leads me to believe that at similar clocks (and therefore, similar performance) CPU power under stress of both chips will be fairly comparable.

Also keep in mind, if you want Dothan to perform like or above stock A64s, you better put it on a desktop board, with a power hungry 875 or so and with dual channel memory, overclock and overvolt them, crack up the FSB, all of which factors increase heat and may well result in Dothan @2.4 consuming *more* power than Venice, while still being limited to 32 bit.

Now Dothan most likely does iddle lower, its designed for that, but in anything but an ultraportable, those differences are quite neglectable. What is 8W anyway ?

So, is that marginal or not ? For a gaming rig, even a SFF one, where you need to take into account a power hungry video card, I'd say it absolutely is. For an ultraportable laptop, every extra watt of concentrated heat matters for the cooling design, and every 0.1W iddeling power matters for battery life, so its not marginal.

BTW, if you really that picky about powerconsumption, you'd better invest some time in selecting an efficient PSU, as I'm fairly sure with any Dothan or low clocked Venice based system, a typical PSU will burn far more power than the CPU. And lets not mention gaming grade GPU's, shall we ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

P4Man · May 12, 2005

FYI, I just noticed this nForce4 µATX board:
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813186052" target="_new">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813186052</A>

And look at those features:
SuperUtilities - SuperBoot, SuperBIOS-Protect, SuperRecovery, SuperSpeed, SuperStep, SuperLogo, and SuperUpdate

Quite a super board no ? ROFL!

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

Crashman · May 12, 2005

Actually I was hoping someone would point to that article, and to other articles that show similar results. But I wasn't going to hold anyone's hand on this, after all, you guys (multiple readers) read a lot more sites than me (one reader).

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 12, 2005

I should also note that dealing with VPU/GPU heat is going to be a major issue that means any heat savings elsewhere will benefit the entire system significantly.

BTW, are there any nForce4 chipset Micro ATX boards?

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 12, 2005

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I got excited that you found ANYTHING until I looked and the x16 slot is mounted in the middle of the board, making one of the PCI slots useless when quiet card cooling is used, I NEED at least 2 usable PCI slots!

I might have to go AGP, GRRR.

Aopen's 915GM board has the x16 slot in the proper place so that the cooler would, at worst, interfere with the x1 slot.

Hey, there's always ATI RS480 boards in Micro ATX...don't make me do it!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

P4Man · May 12, 2005

Just curious, what do you need two PCI slots for ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

Crashman · May 12, 2005

I really can't say...really! I NEED 2 PCI slots, but 3 would be nice (except that it interferes with card cooling). The case should be 16-17" wide, which would mean for low profile a standard power supply would lay wide, leaving room only for a Micro ATX board.

You can see the problems I'm trying to work out.

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

P4Man · May 12, 2005

>I really can't say...really! I NEED 2 PCI slots,

Ah, no need to tell me, i already know: Infinium Labs hired you to finally design the Phantom "console" for them

Or you are doing it by yourselve, and you secured the $11M equity infinium was still looking for to finance the launch.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

endyen · May 13, 2005

Aopen has a top-end P-M board

I'd prefer an ECS via board. Aopen is the only thing lower.

Crashman · May 13, 2005

Shut up. No, seriously, a few guesses like that and I might get in trouble.

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 13, 2005

Thanks. Do the research for me, because I'm a busy man, and I either have to give up helping people to do the research myself, or rely on you guys to point out your findings!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

Crashman · May 13, 2005

You've almost got me there, now push me over the top!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

P4Man · May 13, 2005

here is something I learned: if the concept for a new product can be guessed or explained so easily, there is no point in trying to keep it secret, others have thought about it too. All that matters then is exection.

I'm currently seeking capital to fund a startup around a genious idea myself; if you want any details or advice, PM me.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

Dothan or Venice?

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