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AMD Athlon XP "Thoroughbred B" |
March 2003 arrives and it's time to upgrade again - having had most of the components staying the same for some 20 months. This time around all but the monitor, graphics card, DVD player and cable modem changed. This also included a major change up to the Windows XP Home operating system.
Note: All images with a watermark of "k1114" have been reproduced with kind permission of Paul at the EPoX nForce2 FAQ
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AMD Athlon XP "Thoroughbred B" |
With Intel introducing the Pentium 4, they took a substantial lead over AMD so AMD had to respond and their response was in the form of the Athlon XP series. Along with this came some confusion relating to the numbering and the related clock speeds. This was in main due to the feature AMD introduced called "quanti-speed". I don't intend to expand on this any further as it isn't the relevant place so if you want to find out more information visit the AMD web-site. In my case I have an Athlon XP2600+ which represents the equivalent of a 2.6GHz processor but with the clock only at 2.088GHz.
At the time of writing there have been 4 revisions of the Athlon XP - Palamino, Thoroughbred "A", Thoroughbred "B" and Barton. My XP2600+ is a Thoroughbred "B" with a core FSB of 166MHz (333MHz effective because of the use of DDR RAM).
The processor was bought on-line from Komplett
Designed for AMD Athlon XP beyond 3000+
Variable speed one ball one sleeve bearing 80mm crystal fan (high air flow, intelligent, and quiet)
All copper heatsink for enhanced heat transfer
3-hook clip design allows easy attachment with the proper amount of force for the right contact
Compatible with Socket 462 (Athlon and Duron)
80mm to 70mm fan adapter optimized to produce maximum air flow
I chose this heatsink because it was relatively inexpensive, rated for a higher speed processor than the one I was buying and has a variable speed fan. The fan speed varies based upon a temperature sensor located within the "fins" of the heatsink. At 30ºC the fan speed is ~2800 RPM and pushes ~38CFM of air at a noise level of ~31dBA (relatively quiet). At 38ºC the fan speed is ~4000 RPM and pushes ~55CFM of air at a deafening noise level of ~41dBA. For more information see the full specifications here.
The
heatsink was also bought on-line from Komplett
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GlobalWin CAK4-88T |
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EPoX 8RDA+ |
The 8RDA+ is one of the best of a new range of motherboards using the nForce2 chipset from nVidia - designed purposefully for the AMD Athlon XP series. It's specifications are as follows:
Supports AMD Athlon, Athlon XP and Duron processors
Maximum supported FSB of 166MHz (333MHz effective)
Up to 3GB of PC3200 (DDR 400) RAM
Up to AGP 8x
Ports
1 PS/2 mouse, 1PS/2 keyboard
2 serial, 1 parallel
4 on-board USB 2.0, 2 optional
2 IDE ATA133 channels supporting up to 4 devices
1 10/100Mbs LAN
1 floppy drive channel supporting up to 2 devices
Controllers
5.1 full duplex integrated sound via nForce2 Southbridge
Optional IEEE1394a Firewire ports (x2)
For full information refer to the EPoX web-site.
The board is "jumper free" with changes available via the BIOS for voltages (Vcore = CPU, Vdimm = RAM, Vagp = AGP), FSB frequencies and clock multipliers. For a good description of the BIOS features refer to the manual or online via the Epox 8RDA-8RGA FAQ.
The main advantages of nForce2 based motherboards are:
Processor and memory can be run in 100% synchronous mode
Using 2 or more DIMM modules in DIMM0 and either DIMM1 or DIMM2 sockets results in the memory running with a 128-bit interface (dual 64-bit controllers)
AGP frequency can be set independently of FSB (unlike the KT7A-RAID I used to have)
PCI frequency is locked at 33.33MHz independent of FSB (unlike the KT7A-RAID I used to have)
The latter two enable to "overclockers" amongst us to be able to adjust the FSB without worrying about the impact on add-on cards and hard disks as was previously the case - see the section on FSB changing in the Overclocking section above.
The motherboard was bought on-line from The Overclocking Store
20.6" high by 8.1" wide by 18.6" deep
4x external easy release 5.25" bays (for CD, DVD, etc), the uppermost one occupied by a version of the Thermaltake Hardcano 7 - fan speed controller, temperature monitor and provides 2 x USB 1.0 and 1 x IEEE1394a Firewire port
6 x 3.5" bays
3 in an easy to remove cage of which 2 are external
3 in an easy to remove cage with an 80mm intake fan at the front
Supports all standard ATX format motherboards (including extended)
Built from 1mm aluminium (unloaded weight with no PSU ~5kg)
Total of 5 x 80mm low noise (~21dBA, 2050 RPM) case fans (2 front intake - including the HDD cage, 1 intake on the side panel above the graphics card and 2 exhaust behind the processor
Large lockable side-panel window
Lockable front door covering all but the top 5.25" bay
With all those fans
running in conjunction with the other sysyem fans it is a bit quieter than my
old OcUK Coolercase "Tornado". What does all this look like - take a
look by clicking on the thumbnails below :-
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Thermaltake | Thermaltake | Xaser II
A6000A Plus |
I do like this case but in my opinion there are some flaws, some of which appear to have been rectified in the newer (and therefore more expensive) Xaser III series:-
Lack of a removeable motherboard tray
Restricted space if you have a GeForce4 graphics card (as they're longer than standard) and use the 80mm intake fan in the lower 3.5" HDD cage (I hope to have a picture of this soon)
Lack of what now appear to be standard thumbscrews for tool-free installation
Lack of air filters on the intake fans - though this would require faster and therefore louder fans to compensate for the filters. There's plenty of air moving inside the case anyway so dust shouldn't settle and the side panel has easy access for cleaning
I utilized the 3.5" HDD bay that included the 80mm intake fan by placing one HDD in the uppermost bay and a second in the lowermost bay. This ensures a steady flow of air around my 2 x 7200 RPM hard disks.
For the integrated Hardcano 7:-
Fan controller - I connected the fan speed controller (with H(igh), M(edium) and L(ow) speed settings) to the 5 case fans is a daisy chain as the processor fan already had automatic temperature control. The switch is left in the highest speed setting all the time though as at this speed the fans provide the best cooling and they cannot be heard above the processor and PSU fans anyway
Temperature sensor - I was hoping to attach the temperature sensor on the underside of the XP2600+ - directly under the core - as AMD state that the temperature measured in this way is only 2ºC below the on-chip thermal diode and would provide the most accurate reading. Unfortunately the included sensor was too long and therefore could not be mounted in this way. As my graphics card has a wrap-around heatsink that covers the back of the card I couldn't place it there either. Therefore, once the CPU heatsink was in place I wedged it in as far as I could between the heatsink base and CPU. This gave me readings about 4°C below that measured by the 8RDA+ monitoring software.
Firewire/USB ports - I don't currently have any Firewire devices and the USB ports are only version 1.0, therefore I looped the cables internally and secured them on top of the PSU. If I did buy a Firewire device I could route the cable through the case (as intended by Thermaltake) and out via the expansion slot cover provided. As my monitor already has a 4-port USB 1.0 hub and the motherboard has 6 USB 2.0 ports I don't think I'll use the USB ports at all
To make the most of the windowed side-panel I included a blue cold cathode tube (like a neon tube)! For full details on the Xaser II refer to the Thermaltake web-site. This case (and windowed side-panel) was bought on-line at Dabs.com
The version I bought on-line from Komplett uses TwinMOS own brand RAM chips wheras the more popular version uses Winbond chips - at a cost premium.
I successfully tested the pair I bought (sequential part numbers) with the popular Memtest86 program with the memory and processor in asynchronous (independent of each other) mode up to 222MHz with settings of 7-3-3-2.5 @ 2.9V. Therefore if the processor and motherboard Northbridge could get that far the memory would cope.
The key features for this one were speed, price and the fact that it was BURN-Proof (which virtually eliminates bad CDR's).
I bought this on-line at Dabs.com
30GB - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 Ultra DMA/ATA133 - 6E030L0, <10ms seek time, 7200 RPM, 2MB buffer
Formatted as:
6.00 GB NTFS (C:) - "System" - WinXP & Applications
4.00 GB (D:) - "Others" - Downloaded applications, updates, patches, drivers
5.00 GB (E:) - "Emulators" - Amstrad CPC, Sega Megadrive, M.A.M.E., Nintendo 64
4.00 GB (F:) - "Tools" - Electronics hardware and software design tools
9.63 GB (G:) - "MP3s" - Downloaded and home generated MP3 tracks
20GB - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X Ultra DMA/ATA133 - 6L020J1, 8.5ms average seek time, 7200 RPM, 2MB buffer
Formatted as:
1.00 GB (H:) - "Swap" - WinXP pagefile
9.00 GB (I:) and 8.63 GB (J:) - both for Games
20.0 GB - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 Ultra DMA/ATA100 - 5T020H2, <8.7ms seek time, 7200 RPM, 2MB buffer
Back-up drive for the C:, D:, E: and G: partitions on the 20GB drive. Back-up's are made using the excellent Norton Ghost 2003. This drive isn't normally installed in the machine (because of the obvious drive letter conflict) so I use a removable IDE caddy so I can insert it when needed.
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Removable IDE Caddy |
Now, you're probably asking "how is it possible to have 5 IDE devices (2 x HDD, 1 x HDD caddy, 1 x CD-RW, 1 x DVD (from old system) when only 4 are supported by the EPoX 8RDA+ motherboard?". Well, the answer (as you may have guessed already) is that I bought an additional 2-port ATA133 controller card.
As I was used to having 4 IDE ports with my old Abit KT7A-RAID motherboard I wanted a similar arrangement with the new system. The Highpoint Rocket133 Host Adaptor provided me with the ideal solution.
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Highpoint Rocket133 |
After reading the EPoX forum at AOA Forums I noticed that some people were complaining about the IDE performance of the nForce2 chipset. My mind was therefore made up to have the Rocket133 host my 2 main hard disks with the 8RDA+ ports hosting the CD-RW/DVD and IDE caddy. This decision also resulted in tidier internals because I installed the Rocket133 in PCI slot 5 (not 6 as it shares an IRQ with the AGP slot) which was closer to the Xaser II hard disk bay wheras the 8RDA+ IDE ports were closer to the 5.25" bays. Therefore I have the following IDE configuration:
I bought this on-line from Komplett
As the Thermaltake Xaser II A6000A Plus case was supplied without a PSU and I wanted to sell my existing case as is I needed a new PSU. After reading various reviews 4 makes of PSU seemed to be the most popular - Antec, Enermax, Thermaltake and Q-Tec. The Antec and Enermax products are regarded as the best available by many but for that you pay a premium on the price, the Thermaltake seemed to be very good quality with a mid-range price whilst the Q-Tec were the bargain buys.
My choice came down to a number of factors - the supply rating, performance whilst under load on an overclocked PC, quietness and number of available connectors.
In then end I opted for the Thermaltake Silent PurePower 420W. Reviews of this suggested it was a very quiet performer (to compliment the 21dBA case fans on the Xaser II case) and gave steady supply rails within 5% of the rated voltage even under load. The 550W version also comes with 6 4-pin Molex connectors which is what I needed with the addition on one Y-splitter cable (2 x HDD, 1 x IDE caddy, 1 x CD-RW, 1 x DVD, Hardcano 7 fan controller (to 5 x 80mm fans daisy-chained), 1 x case light)
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Thermaltake Silent PurePower 420W PSU |
I bought this on-line at Dabs.com
