the results are in...

[iroc409]

just thought i'd update everyone on my new hardware. i ordered an axpm 2600+ the other day, and installed it last week.

all i can say so far is, HOLY CRAP. this processor is FAST. right now it's running at 2500mhz, which it did so pretty much out of the box. runs fine at 1.75, and seems to be very happy.

so far i've gotten it up to 2672 @ 1.95. at that speed, it SCREAMS. according to sandra 2004, they give it an estimated PR of 3883. in dhrystone/whetstone, it's (using their comparative figures) faster than a p4 3.2, amd fx-32 and 31, xp 3200's, etc. it comes in at over 10000 mips.

of course, you have to toss out the sse2, because with sse2, it gets beat in whetstone. although, i have to say, that's awfully damn impressive for $110.

the video card i'm not quite as happy with. i haven't installed the ramsinks yet, so the memory is running at 326 (which i'm not disappointed with, since i haven't added extra cooling yet). however, the gpu with a new vantec iceberq 4, i can only hit 356.

however, that might be partially affected by the slight mishap i had in removing the GPU shim. i knocked one of the resistors off the core after a few minutes of sheer panic, i decided to try the card, and it still works, i can't tell any differences of previous operations.

so now i've either got to try and replace that resistor, or upgrade to a 9800. i figure if i do upgrade, i'll just get a pro 128mb, and overclock it. i don't see a need to spend $500 on the XT, and even a 256mb version i don't think would be all that necessary.

anyways, i'm conitnuing to keep the cpu at 2500 for now, since the rest of my hardware isn't really caught up with the processor. i'm still running pc2700 and a kt400 chipset. i wasn't going to upgrade the motherboard, but i'm thinking i might get some performance gains out of going to an nf7-2.

overall tho, very happy with the new results (despite the fact that it only boosted my 3dmark03 scores about 60 points).