My San Diego 3700+

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:12 pm

Specs:
Antec SLK3000B
Seasonic S12-380
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (cooled by Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 @ 5V)
MSI K8N Neo4-F (nForce 4 standard)
2x512MB OCZ Gold Edition CAS [email protected]
XFX GeForce 6600 GT (cooled by Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 @ 7V)
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 74 GB
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350)
DVD-/+RW Dual layer 16x
DVD-/+RW 4x
Zip 100
USB 6-in-1
Nexus Real Silent Case Fan 120mm @ 5V

Commentary under pictures

Zalman NB32 (gold heatsink) + XFX GeForce 6600 GT + Artic Cooling NV Silencer 6

I just attached the gold heatsink and was hacking away at the NV Silencer

Notice the bent fins in the upper left of the gold heatsink

Zalman NB32 + XFX GeForce 6600 GT + Artic Cooling NV Silencer 6

Suspending the beast...

Another shot of the suspended Raptor

In the case shot...

Freezer 64 and the Nexus. I took this picture with the computer on and fans running.

Another case shot I moved the RAM to DIMM's 3&4 to add more distance between them and the CPU

All my drives...

I probably will never use the zip drive.

The seasonic

You can why the fins are bent- there is a capicator on the GeForce 6600 GT. The XFX and the BFG both have this "special" capicator location

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 2:30 pm

Hi, now that's what I call a tight fit

Bet you have no problem with the NB temp though. Looks like a nice system, I'm guessing it's pretty quiet and should be pretty snappy with the Raptor and San Diego

Seb

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 2:40 pm

It's perfect! How far have you clocked that 3700?

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:01 pm

Yup, it's very fast. The raptor is kinda "loud" though (relatively loud). If the raptor's off, you really have to strain to hear anything. Though, all and all it's very quiet. If the fridge is on (on the other side of the house), I won't be able to hear the computer, or if my window is open, etc, etc.

I actually I had a bad motherboard before, and it took ~4 weeks to RMA it, so I don't want to take the risk of overclocking anything, so my 3700 is gonna stay put at 2.2 GHz. But dang, it is the fastest 2.2 GHz processor I've ever used.

I was thinking about modding the seasonic with some isolators, but I'm not sure that would be a good idea (I don't want to have a voided warranty just yet).

boscomonkey · Post by **boscomonkey** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:37 pm

I'm trying to decide between a 3700+ and a 3800+ for my next build. The 3800+ is $50 more and runs 200 Mhz faster; but it has a smaller L2 cache (512 KB instead 1 MB).

What got you to use a 3700+ instead of a 3800+?

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:42 pm

When you rma, you need to have them cross ship you by putting a hold on your creditcard. With asus, it comes in two days.

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:14 pm

boscomonkey,
Nice to see another bay area member here

I went with the 3700+ because it had a 90nm core and a 1 mb of cache. My feeling was you could overclock for more megahertz, but you can't ever overclock for more cache.

merovingian,
I RMA'd the board to the vendor. I actually had bought a processor/motherboard/RAM combo from them (monarchcomputer.com), and they took it all back, tested it, and replaced the faulty part (the motherboard).

Mari0-Br0s · Post by **Mari0-Br0s** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:53 pm

just wondering if you had any problem with your nv silencer yet?

At my work, we removed them from the shelves, because there was a lot of defective one that toasted a lot of cards.

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 5:38 pm

I've been using the silencer since this tuesday, and i haven't had any problems yet. I heard that was mostly an ATI issue? I suppose I should use some rubber or electrical tape to make sure there isn't any metal on metal contact.

Freelancer77 · Post by **Freelancer77** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:16 am

boscomonkey wrote:I'm trying to decide between a 3700+ and a 3800+ for my next build. The 3800+ is $50 more and runs 200 Mhz faster; but it has a smaller L2 cache (512 KB instead 1 MB).

What got you to use a 3700+ instead of a 3800+?

Do NOT get the smaller cache. The 3700 San Diego is the best performance for the dollar right now. The San Diego core runs extremely cool, has immense OC capacity, and the 1MB cache works very well with the AMD64 memory management.

So it becomes a budget issue, but the next step up is really not a 3800, as there is no real increase in benchmarks, and the smaller cache makes a difference. Even the 4000 San Diego isn't a big enough jump in speed to justify the expense. If your budget can afford your need for more speed than a 3700, it's an x2 4200. Now your talking fast, but it's ~$200 more.

I've noticed that several retailers don't even sell the FX-51 anymore because the 3700SD outperforms it.

My San Diego 3700+

My San Diego 3700+

3700+ or 3800+

Re: 3700+ or 3800+