[lan]

Looks like a good new heatsink for P4.
http://overclockers.com/articles1043/

I don't look forward to dismantling my mobo to take out my Alpha PAL 8942 though. But using 120mm fan should reduce noise a bit and cool other parts of the mobo.

I'm looking to replace my Atlas 10K III and Barracuda IV harddrives. Hopefully the new seagate and fujitsu 15K SCSI drives are quieter. My system feels more sluggish than I'm used to and it's really bugging me right now. The seagate IDE drives are the quietest but the performance of is the worst compared to the other brands. I'm thinking 2nd generation WD raptor isnt too loud.

Thoughts?

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

What an insane heatsink! When's the Athlon64 version coming?

Ironic that you're ditching the 8492 around the same time I'll be giving my 8045 the boot to move up to an A64 rig.

I have a Fujitsu MAS3184 as my boot disk, it is their latest 15K offering, 1-platter 18GB version. It's not a super-quiet drive, but for a 15K drive it is quite quiet, especially compared to the original Seagate X15 it replaced. Seeks are practically inaudible if you suspend the drive, and the idle whine isn't very intrusive, though it can be a bit annoying if the drive is hard-mounted. THe drive is blazingly fast, 75+ MB/s for at least 75% of the surface, and ~5ms seek times. I love it. It also runs extemely cool, usually only a few degrees over ambient, with only passive airflow from a front intake going by it. This could allow it to be put in something like a SmartDrive 2002 for even better acoustic muffling.

 

[lan]

I don't know when the A64 version is coming out. They should make one.

A64 is still a bit pricey. I'd only be interested in the dual channel memory version. I also don't know how well it would multitask. That's why I liked the hyperthreading on the P4s. It let me multitask very well. My usual solution to multitasking is using 2 CPUs. The problem with that is now you have 2 CPU fans.

I still have a X15-36LP. Decent but the newer version would probably be faster, cooler, and quieter.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Well, I'm going for a 2800+ Clawhammer mobile ($187) + Epox 8KDA3J ($90), not really too bad IMO, that's always been the price of Inhell's good OC'ers. Still about 2x what I've ever paid for a CPU. From what I understand though, A64 prices aren't coming down any time soon.

Just looking at the benchmarks, dual-channel memory gives the A64 only the smallest of performance boosts, 0-4% usually about 1%, so much so that I don't really care. I think this is because the internal memory controller already gets the most it can out of the memory. Since I'm not a gamer, I don't mind not having the absolute fastest memory avaliable.

From what I've read, considering how much the A64 creams the P4 in most benchmarks, I don't think HTT will even be a factor. I figure my chip wil overclock to about 2.4-5GHz, which puts it at about the same performance as a new FX-53 (without the dual-channel) which stomps all over the P4 3.2EE. So I think I'm getting plenty of proc for the buck, not even considering the awesome cool 'n' quiet capability.

 

[lan]

Yeah I checked out those prices. It seems good. I guess next time I build somebody else a computer, I'll look at getting the cheaper A64 CPU to try it out.

Why do they have a mobile A64? Are there really any laptops that use that? Wild!

The thing about benchmarks is that they're not really indicitive of my personal use. I find that a non multithreaded app or high CPU/memory load app can hog up 1 CPU and make everything sluggish. So I'm not sure even 1 megafast CPU is enough. I'll just have to try it and see.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lan The thing about benchmarks is that they're not really indicitive of my personal use. I find that a non multithreaded app or high CPU/memory load app can hog up 1 CPU and make everything sluggish. So I'm not sure even 1 megafast CPU is enough. I'll just have to try it and see.

Have you tried managing the priorities of the different programs? I can rip with EAC, watch TV on DScaler (usually takes 60% CPU), encode monkey's audio, replaygain scan files in foobar, play music in foobar, and surf the web, all comfortably if I have the programs set up for the right priorities. ANd this is with a Barton at 2.3GHz.

 

[some1x]

I love Thermalright heatsinks! Just switched from Waterchill to SLK800U with low speed fan (Panaflo L1A). The temperature increase was only about 10C underload, but the CPU is still stable at 3.3ghz (from 2.4)