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Thread: Ironbits Still around? - THE NEW OVERCLOCKABLE WORKSTATION"

  1. #1
    Moderator vjs's Avatar
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    Ironbits Still around? - THE NEW OVERCLOCKABLE WORKSTATION"

    A while back Ironbits had some very serious horsepower from some overclocked 1.6G xeons.

    If anyone is interested their is a new overclocker, like the xp2500 barton mobile and the ULV Xeon.

    What is it? The 165 Opteron dual core. Quite interesting it may be my next purchase.

    Unlike normal opterons this one is a 939-pin, yet it's a dual core with 1mb cache each. People have been overclocking these from stock voltages and frequency (1.3V? and 1800Mhz) to 1.575V and 2.8Ghz.

    That looks very very impressive.

    I think this might be a good upgrade for anyone with a 939 board which supports dual core. For 300-400 dollars WOW. Wonder how a pair of these would do in sieve/factor.

    Anyone have one direct experience, yesterday I stated that I was totally happy with my dual barton 2.4G box. Now I'm uncertain.

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    Administrator Bok's Avatar
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    vjs,

    got two of them, the early stepping appear to be the best ones 0530, but getting hold of them is difficult now.

    I've got a 165 @2.65 and a 170 which has been over 2.8 but it at 2.7 right now..temperatures were a little too high for me@1.45V running at 60C under load.

    They are a little better than my 3800+'s no doubt..

    IB in fact just got a 165, but is just in the early process of overclocking. I'm sure he'll tell you more...

    Bok

  3. #3
    DinkaTronic Shish's Avatar
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    Yeah we already found them but supplies are mainly going to OEMs and big system builders from their limited production.
    Can`t even get a date for them in UK and I`ve got funds for 2 sitting in the bank.
    Some came available on one site and went for a 15% premium.

    I know of 6 running near to me and all going at least 2.7Ghz on air, slightly better on water (4) cos they can run very hot when you bump the volts up.
    They eat video processing which is what I tested them on.
    One 170 on a DFI board (too expensive for me) is doing near 2.9Ghz on good water cooling (swiftech I think).
    Like an ol` 8086, slow but serviceable.
    One advantage of old age...nobody can tell you how much cake you can eat


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    Moderator vjs's Avatar
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    Not bad I've seen a few on e-bay for less than 400 bucks... I guess you might be able to pickup a set at 350. It's still 175 a processor and a new board and graphics...

    It was tough to beat an nf2-delta with a mp barton. Both could be had for under the 200 dollar mark. My board was $95 and I picked up 4 mp's at 75 dollars each, soon after that people caught on and started charging a premium and e-bay was outrageous. I may still wait for the socket M to come out but that dual tyan board looks great but even if you can get it for 350. That's a little much.

    Anyone know if there is a 2xx series processor, dual core 1mb cache, that's also low voltage and a good overclocker? I'm assuming that the 165's don't work in 940 boards? And there is no trick yet for turning 1xx's into 2xx's, like the XP --> MP (wire-mod or bridge cut/paint unlock) correct.

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    DinkaTronic Shish's Avatar
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    The point of these cpus is they clock like crazy (1.8 goes to 2.7+) are low power (1.3v up) , relatively low consumption, have dual core dual 1Mb cache, go in a 939 pin board (I bought 3 MSI Nf3s for £90 with all the bells and whistles) and are as good, if not better than the A64 dual core which, with similar 1Mb cache, costs over a hundred pounds more, or for the same A64 model, the 165, which has half the cache, actually cost in UK £10 less and doesn`t always clock as well.
    AMD can`t supply enough of them for various reasons, and probably don`t want to with that pricing structure, so they`re giving priority to oems and large manufacturers and maybe allowing a trickle out to the enthusiasts who would pay in blood for them if there was any.
    Like an ol` 8086, slow but serviceable.
    One advantage of old age...nobody can tell you how much cake you can eat


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    Moderator vjs's Avatar
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    Right I understand that, but just like the mobiles, they overclocked extrememly well. But you could also do a second unlock which would allow them to work in DP.

    Personally when you consider the price of ram, scsi disks (Which I run in all my computers), a decent graphics card. The extra 200 bucks for a board which allows you to double your processing is not that much. I was just curious is there was a way to make them DP or QuadP capable.

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    DinkaTronic Shish's Avatar
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    No chance of AMD repeating that cos all the new cpus for some time have had buried connectors or physically cut ones inside or disabled other ways.
    But figure this, a 165 Opteron which is a server cpu and therefor much more rigorously tested and speed binned with a big, generous lump of overhead.
    165 has onboard memory controller hence seriously low latency, is set to run at 1.8Ghz but easy goes to 2.7 or 2.8 on air, mebbe more on water and uses the same as a single old cpu in power, has twice the cache of an A64 dual core 165 (actually at least equivalent to a 4400 which is more than a hundred pounds more) and is actually a bit cheaper. I paid around £130 each for the old Barton mobiles which clock well to around 2.4Ghz, maybe 2.5Ghz if you have a good board, but only £230 for a 165 Opteron which is much faster and better overclocker, has more cache and uses less power. I have funds for 2 more but AMD aren`t letting them out to retail, partly for production problems and supplying regular server customers and oems amd more likely cos they realised as everybody cottoned on to their goodness, they were competing and beating the A64 and much better value.
    You can at least still drop the multi and push it hard with some decent ram to a near 1Ghz overclock and there is no competition between the last clocker king ( ones I`m still running, Barton Mobiles in dual) which also start at 1.8Ghz but only run to mebbe 2.5Ghz) and this on work load throughput.
    I just wish the dual boards and 265s weren`t so expensive in comparison cos that`s the one I want, just not economic.
    And they also wipe the floor with the current Intel duals, not sure about the next ones though cos I ain`t looked at their new internal config except for their dual fsbs I believe.
    Like an ol` 8086, slow but serviceable.
    One advantage of old age...nobody can tell you how much cake you can eat


  8. #8
    Target Butt IronBits's Avatar
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    What Bok said
    Have two Opti 165 dual core now, both at 2.5GHz easily, can do 2.65GHz but get pretty warm.
    The 4 X2-3800s are at 2.4GHz easily, as is the X2-4400 for right now.
    Got one X2 to post at 2.8GHz but locked when looking at the IDE drive.

    The Opterons do RC5-72 at ~420 per day per box,
    The X2-3800s do ~380.
    Single 2GHz does ~168 daily
    Mac-Mini does 300 daily

  9. #9
    Moderator vjs's Avatar
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    Nice, I knew you were going to be on top of this one. Certainly my next upgrade, if only the 265's and 270's would come down in price a little.

    Certainly looks like liquid cooling is the way to go for these.

    Wonder what Socket M will do for us, now it's starting to look like the end of the line for socket 939. Not end of life certainly but FX-60's last FX for 939 I've heard. Sort of funny that you guys had these before AMD released them... but then again alot of us had 2.4G (on air) bartons before AMD released those as well.

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