Athlon: Thoroughbred vs. Barton

[DennyA]

Okay, buying a Athlon XP processor for a "home media PC." Mostly a video recorder and file server, with occasional duty as a LAN gaming rig.

What's better, Barton or Thoroughbred?

I can get a Thoroughbred XP 2600 (2.08GHz) for $99, or a Barton XP 2500+ (1.83 GHz) for $92. I'm assuming the Thoroughbred is the better bet, particularly since MPEG2 encoding isn't going to take advantage of the bigger cache in the Baron. This'll be running in a Biostar 200T cube, which uses the Nforce2 IGP + MCP-T chipset. Given the cooling and small confines of the cube, I won't be overclocking.

[Jakub]

I'd go with Barton.

Overclocks better, and you'll really be surprised how much the cache can help overall performance. MPEG2 encoding uses a lot of memory and I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a gain from the superior Barton cache.

[Case]

Okay, buying a Athlon XP processor for a "home media PC." Mostly a video recorder and file server, with occasional duty as a LAN gaming rig.

What's better, Barton or Thoroughbred?

I can get a Thoroughbred XP 2600 (2.08GHz) for $99, or a Barton XP 2500+ (1.83 GHz) for $92. I'm assuming the Thoroughbred is the better bet, particularly since MPEG2 encoding isn't going to take advantage of the bigger cache in the Baron. This'll be running in a Biostar 200T cube, which uses the Nforce2 IGP + MCP-T chipset. Given the cooling and small confines of the cube, I won't be overclocking.

The Barton 2500 will run cooler, you won't really lose much performance and you'll be able to get away with a smaller fan and less noise.

[DennyA]

Thanks, guys. My initial inclination is usually to go with the newer technology, but in this case I'd seen mixed comments on the Barton performance.

The Biostar has a pretty slick integrated heat sink/side-blowing fan/heat pipe rig, as well as some other interesting cooling stuff. The case itself actually acts as a heat sink for the motherboard chipset. But it apparently can't de-couple the AGP and PCI from a bus overclock, so given that performance is best with ram and CPU in sync, I don't think I'll be overclocking.

[Aleck]

What Loyd said.

With a cube PC, you'll find you become (if you aren't already) very noise intolerant. With a home media PC, it's even worse. The Barton runs cooler, which means you can skimp a little on the cooling in the box -- or in the case of the 200T, means the heat-sensor controlled fan doesn't attempt to emulate a jet turbine with any frequency.

I love my two Shuttle Cubes -- I truly do -- but the cooling on these things is always a pain.

Also, Denny, if you're not already there, the forums at sudhian.com are pretty good for dealing with small form factor computer issues.

Aleck

[DennyA]

Thanks, guys.

One more question... I currently have an Athlon XP 1800 and a 512MB PC266 DIMM in my big, noisy video rig that the cube will replace. I was going to just move those over to the cube until late September -- I'm assuming AMD's new releases will drive a faster Barton down into the $99 range. Then I'll get a new CPU, new RAM, and put the old chips & MB into a case and eBay it all as a PC.

However, how much of a speed hit is there on the NForce2 by running just one DIMM? I'm assuming it'll work but I won't get dual-channel. I should at least get the performance I'm getting now with the KT266A motherboard, right, just no boost?

And to add to the question... I see that some places are selling "dual channel RAM." Is that just a pair of matched DIMMs? Is there any reason to buy those vs. just buying two identical DIMMs? (And do the DIMMs have to be exact matches with the NForce 2 in dual channel mode?)

[Brad Grenz]

There's actually a single channel budget version of the nForce 2 chipset which benches FASTER than the fastest dual channel mobos with twice the theoretical memory bandwidth. Might look for one of those. The only draw backs are not many mobo manufacturers offer them, and the southbridge chip won' have the fancy audio, firewire, dual NICs and Serial ATA.

[Aleck]

However, how much of a speed hit is there on the NForce2 by running just one DIMM? I'm assuming it'll work but I won't get dual-channel. I should at least get the performance I'm getting now with the KT266A motherboard, right, just no boost?

You're probably looking for benchmarks, which I don't have, but I found the difference between running two sticks of 256MB DDR memory vs. 1 stick of 512 to be fairly slight, at least in day to day use. I did notice a difference in games, but not in regular applications.[/quote]


And to add to the question... I see that some places are selling "dual channel RAM." Is that just a pair of matched DIMMs? Is there any reason to buy those vs. just buying two identical DIMMs? (And do the DIMMs have to be exact matches with the NForce 2 in dual channel mode?)

As long as the memory has similar specs and is running at the same speed, you can mix & match. My Nforce currently has two different brands of 2100DDR in it, but they run just fine together.

[DennyA]

Thanks for the info, guys!

[SpoofyChop]

Is there anyplace that offers a comparison of all the current Althlons?

Also, my new Shuttle AK35GT2/R supports up to a XP3000+, but what would you guys recommend as the current "sweet spot" for Athlons. I currently have a 2200+

[DennyA]

I went with a Barton 2500+ as it was really cheap. ($90 for the retail package). Its multiplier was unlocked; I was able to bump it up to 2700+ speed by bumping the multiplier, or to 2800+ equivalent speed by upping the FSB to 400MHz. (Then I got crazy and tried 3000+ speeds. It booted XP but crashed. I might have been able to get it stable by upping the voltage, but I wasn't interested enough to keep working on it.)

I actually run it at 2500+ speed; I don't need the extra juice for what I'm doing with the iDEQ. Should I ever need to run HL2 on that system I can bump it a little then.

[Nathan Phoenix]

for what it's worth, my barton 2500 runs at 3000 speeds (something like 200x12, i dont recall exactly). It makes me wish I'd bought PC3200 ram instead of PC2700, so I could run the ram at the faster bus speed. The ram doesn't seem very stable past 173 or so bus speed.

I have a chenming x-pider case and without adding any additional cooling, the asusprobe software that came with my A7V8X deluxe reports my CPU temperature at 103' F. If i run it at normal speed it runs about 91'F

[TimElhajj]

for what it's worth, my barton 2500 runs at 3000 speeds (something like 200x12, i dont recall exactly). It makes me wish I'd bought PC3200 ram instead of PC2700, so I could run the ram at the faster bus speed. The ram doesn't seem very stable past 173 or so bus speed.

I have a chenming x-pider case and without adding any additional cooling, the asusprobe software that came with my A7V8X deluxe reports my CPU temperature at 103' F. If i run it at normal speed it runs about 91'F

Heh. With temps like those, you'll be in the market for a new CPU very soon. Get some cooling!

[DennyA]

my A7V8X deluxe reports my CPU temperature at 103' F. If i run it at normal speed it runs about 91'F

Heh. With temps like those, you'll be in the market for a new CPU very soon. Get some cooling!
Totally not true. There's a real misperception about what acceptable temperatures for CPUs are nowadays, thanks mostly to the fact that it gives geeks something more to compete about -- instead of going for fastest overclock, they try for bragging rights on coolest temperatures.

103F is only 39.4 C -- that's a perfectly acceptable temp for a CPU. 91 is is 32.7 C, which is bloody cool for an Athlon.

The Barton Athlon XPs are rated for operation at up to 85 degrees C. The various P4 chips are rated for top operation temps of 64 to 75 C, depending on the core/clock.

My Biostar iDEQ runs very stably with a Barton 2500 running typically at about 42C, peaking at about 50C with a full load for an extended period of time. It's rock-stable, and that's pretty typical for a SFF PC. If my temps started heading into the 70s, I'd start to worry, but I'd actually be more concerned about the hard drives and other components at that point.

[TimElhajj]

Ah, Jez. Thanks Denny! I totally thought we were talking Celsius. You're absolutely right. Those are perfectly fine temps at Fahrenheit.

[DennyA]

Oh, yeah, 103 C would definitely not run for very long. :-)