Duron beefiness? Need help on new system

[SerArthurDayne]

I'm rather new to putting my own system together, but I figure now's the time to save money and enjoy the benefits of some good components. I also wish to overclock my system to get the most from it, but never fear, I do have a skilled overclocker to assist me and I won't turn my system into a pile of fried garbage. What I've been wondering is... what's the best processor for cash/overclocking bang? Seems to me nobody's getting a whole lot of extra speed out of the faster thunderbirds, but then I see a Duron 600 running at at least 900 and up to 1100. So.... since a Duron 600 is way cheap anyway, I think I'll try it. My planned specs are:

Processor: AMD Duron 600
Motherboard: ABIT KT7
Heatsink and fan: Either swiftech MC or monster 2 cooler from OCZ + arctic silver
Memory: 256 MB PC 133
HardDrive: 7200 RPM Diamondmax (already have)
Case: Enlight ATX midtower w/ 300 watt power supply
Videocard: Asus Geforce2 GTS
Soundcard: SoundBlaster Live PCI

I figure altogether I'll have to spend 600 on the listed components. Any recommendations or problems foreseen? And am I right about the Durons and the Thunderbirds?

And I've already got a network card, modem, dvdrom and cdwriter I can use. Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

I've been thinking about this issue lately, I'm not sure if I favor the duron or the athlon... In theory durons shouldn't be able to go extremely high. However some people are cracking 1ghz with them. I sort of question the reliability in these situations. The max clock your processor can get is not a stable one. The athlon TBs are really cheap now a days. Most of them are Cu so you should get a higher theoretical clock out of them. I think all 800mhz+ are Cu while about 1/2 of 700/750s are Cu. 1.1ghz seems to be fairly common.

 

[Grizely1]

I doubt you'd get that thing up to 900, not even 1100. Probably around 800, maybe a little more.... If you want to get up in the 900s or 1GHz area you have to have a better cooling solution than heatsink/fan. Like, the biggest Peltier cooler you can find, or maybe dunk your motherboard in liquid nitrogen? I dunno.

But good luck. (BTW, if you want to get to 1GHz with a Duron get the Duron 800)

 

[SerArthurDayne]

Well, there are places online that sell Duron 600's overclocked to 950 and 1000 mhz WITH warantee. These places also sell overclocked Thunderbirds, and they usually don't even get over 1ghz. I've seen a Duron 600 overclocked to 1150 stable with plenty of cooling to boot. At 40 bucks for the cpu, what's the harm in tryin?

 

[Grizely1]

There is no harm in trying, I'm just telling you not to get your hopes up.

 

[SerArthurDayne]

oh gosh, if i get it to 900 I'll be happy. Truth be told, I'd really rather not even try over 1ghz. One other thing though.. apparently those monster coolers are 4 pin, not 3 pin. What the heck am I supposed to do with that??

 

[Bandit]

In my experiance Duron is the best overclocker right now, and the 600 is a fine way to go. I doubt you would have much problems getting it to 900. Just make sure you have a good fan.

I have my 750@950. 200mhz increase. This was achieved entirely with the multiplier (no FSB increase) and with a voltage increase of 0.05V. I use a FOP-32 HS&F with generic thermal paste.

My CPU temp is currently at 26C surfing the web, playing an MP3, and mIRC open. CPU load is between 2 and 8%.

Under 100% load (SETI@Home running overnight) my CPU hit's 42C.

The Duron is spec'd to run at a max temp of 90C. I like to limit my CPU temp to half the max spec (45C) which I am able to do.

I am willing to say that ANY stable Duron can be overclocked reliably by 200MHz with almost 100% success provided you use a reliable heatsink/fan combo, thermal compound, and ensure good airflow (sounds like a lot, but really, you should do this ANYWAY, even if you don't want to OC).

So, your 600 should easily get to 800. 900 might be a stretch, but I think it's attainable. 1100 you can forget about without a sub zero cooling solution. But, it's also almost impossible to OC an 800 Duron to 1100. You will get an 800 to 1ghz reliably, but you will be hard pressed to take it any higher.

I would reccomend a Duron@700 or 750 as the optimal OCing solution right now. Definate 200mhz increase, and possibly you could see a 300mhz gain.

 

[Guest]

i took my 600 to 863 on a 115 mhz buss stable.
seti@home for 7 days 24h/day. Q3a for 3hours and seti@home with prime95 at the same time for over an hour. no crash.
i am using a fep32 with a ys tech 27cfm fan.
core set to 1.75v 45c.
the only thing i would change is if you use a processor with a low multiplier to get a board with a kt133a chipset.
the increase in fsb will speed things up faster than just o/cing the cpu.
it has also been noted that amd chips do best just keeping them under 50c.
extreme cooling doesn't help as much! just use an alpha or fop32 heatsink. (mine is only rated for a k6 and i am not using the factory clip it would crush the core!)

who is more foolish...
the fool, or the fool that takes his advice?

 

[Ncogneto]

Get the t-bird 800 oc to 950 ( modest overclock) Remember, the mhz rating is not the only thing that affects performance, the extra cache on chip is a real performance enhancer.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

Indeed. 600 -> 900 hardly breaking a sweat. Found that mine would run at 750 1.5v, run 900 at 1.7v just to be on the safe side. Temps 40-45c. Performance scales well, up to 950. Anything over that is just for showing off.

Tom Mc

Even a fool, when he remains silent, appears wise.

 

[phsstpok]

The 4-pin connector will be a standard power connector like on a disk drive. If the fan doesn't come with a Y-splitter then you can always buy one. They're cheap.

Frankly, I can't tell the difference between 900 Mhz and 1000 Mhz unless I run benchmark programs but 1000 Mhz sounds cool.

Good choice on OCZ, ocz.safeshopper.com. That's where I bought my KT7/Duron/Monster II combo. This Duron 600 runs stable at 1008, 106 FSB X 9.5, 1.85 V core (but only with the case open). It will POST at 1026 Mhz but not much more. I normally run it at 900 Mhz.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/22/01 03:31 PM.</EM></FONT></P>