Just wanted to ask a question in regards to how hot the proc is supposed to be under full load with Seti, ClimatePrediction, etc. Particularly with an AMD Athlon XP +2400? I just replaced the CPU heatsink/fan and I am seeing temps of 47C to 52C under load with an ambient room temp of around 72F (22C).

AMD only states the lowest to highest operating temperatures are between 0C to 90C, but I would like to get a general feedback from other knowledgeable Seti/AMD users so I can get a general rule of thumb estimate to see how well the new heatsink/fan is performing. Oh, and the BOINC client is optimized. TIA for any replies.

Tony

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

You are doing just fine temp wise. My X2 4400 runs at 45 under load. My 3800 in the laptop runs higher at around 50. I also have an XP 3200 and that runs at around 49-51 under load. So you are right in the range.

In comparison, many Pentiums run hotter, up to around 65. So don't worry. Also what kind of heatsink and fan are you using?

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

I have this CPU (2000+) as well. It's Seti'ing and BOINCing since ever.

ATM it adds some 26 - 27° to room temperature - very slightly overclocked from 1600 to 1632 MHz.
Normally I run it like that the whole winter. In summer i reduce clocking - in hot times even 'underclock' it. This has proved to be very efficient. IIRC a difference of 1% in clocking makes a temp difference of at least 2°.

I had it running at 70° for hours already without difficulties.

:-)= Greybeard

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All about BOINC: BOINC-Wiki (by Paul D. Buck)

You are doing just fine temp wise. My X2 4400 runs at 45 under load. My 3800 in the laptop runs higher at around 50. I also have an XP 3200 and that runs at around 49-51 under load. So you are right in the range.

In comparison, many Pentiums run hotter, up to around 65. So don't worry. Also what kind of heatsink and fan are you using?

Using a generic ANTEC Solution Plus copper embedded, aluminum base HSF. It came with the thermal pad already, I am assuming that it is Antec Silver thermal compound related or something similar. Thermal resistance is stated to be 0.48 C/W. Fan speed is about 4500 RPM.

Didn't know the Pentiums ran hotter, always thought the AMD's did? I also am using a Pentium 4, 2.4GHz with no HT and it runs at about 40C to 45C under load.

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

I had it running at 70° for hours already without difficulties.

:-)= Greybeard

Wow, no freezes or reboots? I am amazed, would be seriously worried if my temps soared that high.

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

You are doing just fine temp wise. My X2 4400 runs at 45 under load. My 3800 in the laptop runs higher at around 50. I also have an XP 3200 and that runs at around 49-51 under load. So you are right in the range.

In comparison, many Pentiums run hotter, up to around 65. So don't worry. Also what kind of heatsink and fan are you using?

Using a generic ANTEC Solution Plus copper embedded, aluminum base HSF. It came with the thermal pad already, I am assuming that it is Antec Silver thermal compound related or something similar. Thermal resistance is stated to be 0.48 C/W. Fan speed is about 4500 RPM.

Didn't know the Pentiums ran hotter, always thought the AMD's did? I also am using a Pentium 4, 2.4GHz with no HT and it runs at about 40C to 45C under load.

You should see temps on any of the P4's that are Prescott based....ouch they are like ovens. The older P4's were nice.

And if you are worried about temp, try a Thermaltake heatsink and fan or if you dare and have room a Thermalright or Zalman. They can be expensive though.

Vapochill also makes a nice one that has freon in the heatpipes. Very interesting design for only 50 bucks, I have seen some temps as low as 24 on XP's at load.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

The older designs of the AMD AthlonXP's did run hot but AMD fixed that. The latest p4's are now the hot cpu's. But look out for the PentM cpu's at moment only single core but run nice and cool, promises or dual core ones in the spring, some designed for pda's they say will use under 10Watts.

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The older designs of the AMD AthlonXP's did run hot but AMD fixed that. The latest p4's are now the hot cpu's. But look out for the PentM cpu's at moment only single core but run nice and cool, promises or dual core ones in the spring, some designed for pda's they say will use under 10Watts.

Have you seen that AMD is promising a quad-core by the end of next year. That would be awesome. And yeah, those Pentium M's are probably the best CPU's they make, they are nice.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

And if you are worried about temp, try a Thermaltake heatsink and fan or if you dare and have room a Thermalright or Zalman. They can be expensive though.

Vapochill also makes a nice one that has freon in the heatpipes. Very interesting design for only 50 bucks, I have seen some temps as low as 24 on XP's at load.

Now that is some serious cooling, LOL. Nothing to be concerned about with operating temps like those you stated with Vapochill, you can Overclock till your hearts content.

I have not seen a design such as you speak of anwyhere as of yet. The only one I have heard of in tech circles was the water cooling option, which can be more dangerous than beneficial IMHO.

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

It's called the Vapochill Micro. Check out thier page at http://www.vapochill.com

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

The older designs of the AMD AthlonXP's did run hot but AMD fixed that. The latest p4's are now the hot cpu's. But look out for the PentM cpu's at moment only single core but run nice and cool, promises or dual core ones in the spring, some designed for pda's they say will use under 10Watts.

This is the first I have heard of this PentM, sounds pretty decent. Don't keep up on the Pentiums much though as I am more of an avid AMD user.

Have you seen that AMD is promising a quad-core by the end of next year. That would be awesome. And yeah, those Pentium M's are probably the best CPU's they make, they are nice.

@Reaper13

Oh no, AMD is running for Quad core now. I am never going to be able to keep up!

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

@Tony

Yeah I am the AMD fan also, never used a Pentium, but I have friends with the M and they love it. And I wish I could find the article with the quads. When I do I'll post it.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

Found it:


AMD Targets Quad-Core Microprocessors for 2007.
Advanced Micro Devices Preps to Push CPU Boundaries in 2007



Advanced Micro Devices has potential to release quad-core microprocessors by 2007, stated a recently released report from Goldman Sachs, an investment managing firm. If the information materializes, chipmaker AMD will push the boundaries of x86 computing further in about three years from now and two years after the company launches its first dual-core product.

AMD Confident in Dual-Core, Targets Quad-Core CPUs

“AMD has relatively high confidence in its dual-core product development, given its AMD64 architecture was designed from the ground up to optimize multi-core configurations with its integrated memory controller and HyperTransport features. Note that the die size (and thus likely cost) for dual-core is likely to be well less that double that of a single-core, given the amount of shared circuitry between the two cores,” said Andrew Root, an analyst for Goldman Sachs.

So far AMD has disclosed plans to produce server, workstation and desktop central processing units with two processing engines in the second half of next year. AMD is expected to release its dual-core AMD Opteron products in mid-2005 and AMD Athlon 64 product with two cores in late 2005. AMD plans to produce its dual-core products using 90nm/200mm production lines, which has already started to make commercial CPUs, in 2005 and to move to more advanced 65nm/300mm production lines of Fab 36 in 2006.

“AMD’s roadmap in microprocessors includes launching a dual-core processor next year, and potentially a quad-core processor in 2007 on the 65nm/300mm process,” Mr. Root of Goldman Sachs continued.

While there will be hardly any need for multi-core microprocessors in desktops in 2007, server makers are likely to welcome multi-core chips. It is not clear whether multi-core offerings from AMD will feature AMD64 architecture used today or AMD's code-named K9 architecture that is in development.

“AMD remains on track for starting production at its new 300mm fab (Fab 36 in Dresden, Germany) on 65nm [process technology] in 1H 2006, with equipment arriving in Q3. Recall that AMD is doing the 65nm technology development jointly with IBM, and estimates that it is about 70% done. In addition, the joint process development and our checks have suggested that IBM and its SOI (Silicon on Insulator) process, are the most likely foundry partners for AMD should it choose to go more fully toward a fab-light model in 2005 and beyond,” claims the report from Goldman Sachs.

Official comments from Advanced Micro Devices were unavailable at press time.

Multi-Core Chips Coming from Everywhere

Traditional microprocessors and personal computers have always had only one processing engine, or core. While single-core central processing units packed with advanced capabilities and operating at high speed delivers enough performance to the vast majority of today’s applications in desktop segment, servers and powerful workstations, which have to handle many operations at once need more than one processing engine to execute two or more threads simultaneously.

With applications for desktops becoming more complex, require more processing power and execution of multiple treads of code instantly, the number of computing engines per personal computer is needed to be increased. While in servers and workstations manufacturers bump the number of chips per computer, desktops are far more cost-sensitive and the majority of PCs are shipped with only one central processing unit inside. While there are some technologies, such as Intel Hyper-Threading, that emulate two processing engines within one microprocessor, they are hardly as efficient as a real system with 2 processors.

A more or less cost-effective way to improve performance of central processing units and personal computers without serious boosting clock-speeds of the chips or increasing the number of CPUs within the system is to pack two processing engines into a single package.

Nowadays all leading makers of processors have announced plans to supply, or already deliver processors with more than one core. IBM has been supplying its Power4 and Power5 products with two cores for a while and targets to produce chips with two processing engines for Apple’s future workstation and also chips for Microsoft’s Xbox 2 console with three cores. Besides, IBM is working with Sony on the Cell processors that are also expected to feature more than one core. Sun Microsystems is on-track to release its multi-core, multi-threaded server products code-named Niagara and Rock in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Intel said earlier this year that in 2005 it would release dual-core chips for high-end and mainstream servers, workstations, desktops and portables, while 2006/2007 would be a right time for multi-core central processing units for servers to emerge from the world’s largest chipmaker. AMD has already finalized the design of its dual-core product for servers and said it would supply desktop market with dual-core chips as well by late 2005.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
AMD AthlonXP 3200+

It's called the Vapochill Micro. Check out thier page at http://www.vapochill.com

I will check into this, you have roused my curiousity.

Thanks for the information on the Quad Core as well, one thing more to add to my wish list when it is scheduled to be released.

@Tony

Yeah I am the AMD fan also, never used a Pentium, but I have friends with the M and they love it. And I wish I could find the article with the quads. When I do I'll post it.

Well the Pentiums are very good workhorses as well. As I said I have that Pentuim 4, 2.4 GHz and it crunches WU's at about 6000 secs with the optimized app. Very good and very reliable. The AMD XP +2400 on the other hand is at a disadvantage against the Pentium because it only uses SSE in optimization, (producing about 9000 sec per WU), where my P4 2.4 can utilize the SSE2 instructions thereby making an extremely noticeable difference in speed.


Tony

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Ni newly returned, not newly knighted! Ni

Just wanted to ask a question in regards to how hot the proc is supposed to be under full load with Seti, ClimatePrediction, etc. Particularly with an AMD Athlon XP +2400? I just replaced the CPU heatsink/fan and I am seeing temps of 47C to 52C under load with an ambient room temp of around 72F (22C).

Those temps are good - assuming that they are true readings.
For many reasons discussed elewhere on the net, these 'absolute' readings are to say the least not absolute.

I find that better indication of heat handling are (a) the temp difference between idle and loaded and (b) is the rise-fall time when going from idle to full load and back to idle. Going off load, the temp should drop back quickly to the idle temp.

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GA-K8NSC-939 + Athlon 64 3500+ + 1GB DDR400

Air Cooled - akasa EVO33

Default settings
Bus Speed - 210Mhz
Pro. Speed - 2200Mhz

OverClock
Bus Speed - 235MHz
Pro. Speed - 2584.59MHz
Pro. running @ 1-2%
Temp - Idle - 25'C
Pro. running - Full Load - 30'C

Even with overclocking the temp. of this Pro.

runs at only 30'C

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Even with overclocking the temp. of this Pro.

runs at only 30'C

What is the ambient temperature?

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Grant
Darwin NT

I have seen my XP's run warmer than that readily under full load your are doing fine there.

With the full load that Seti places (ie your CPU never goes idle) I've seen XP's run into the 50's readily.

I've been upgrading to XP64's -- and find they run significantly cooler (I'm running 754's -- I don't know about the 939's). Instead of mid 50's, they run in the mid 40's. I know that AMD put some effort into handling heat in these newer designs. My own guess is that these lower temps will increase MTBF for the CPU's.

Then again, I've rarely seen AMD XP's die (it has happened a few times though).

From what I've seen, while AMD has worked on reducing temps, Intel has not.

Heck with the higher speed 478 Intel's, not only do their OEM fans make a lot of noise, they run hotter than the XP's. The AMD fan for the 754's is quite a bit less noisy than the XP's (and the higher speed 478's).

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The noisiest hotest computer in this household, which has;

Dual CPU P3 933
AthlonXP 2000+
P4 2.53
P4 3.0 HT
Pent M 1.86

is the AthlonXP, admittedly it is one of the early models, which told AMD they must crack the temp problem. And to stop it alarming has been upgraded to a Zalman heatpipe with 120mm fan, but it still runs close to 70C in mid summer, in north UK not hottest place in the world.

The Pent M temp is 51.5C while running seti, as I type. And Intel have promised other models, including dual core early next year with max power consumption of 40W or lower. My heat sink, by the way is about 15mm tall and uses 50mm fan and is totally silent, it is in desktop case. Loudest when installing when DVD and HDD starts clicking as it steps across the tracks.

At the moment cannot see the reason for 64 bit cpu's, there is very, very little software yet, even in the games market. And some of the 64 bit s/ware actually runs slower than 32bit version. Next year it may be different.

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Tony H, First, your temps seem fine. However, you should think stongly about replacing the thermal pad it came with some good thermal compound.

From your first response,

It came with the thermal pad already, I am assuming that it is Antec Silver thermal compound related or something similar.

I suspect you have confused Antec's commonly supplied (and pre-applied) thermal pad (pink gummy stuff) with Arctic Silver, the manufacturer of thermal grease. I may have misread your intent though. If that's the case, sorry for the 101 lesson.

The pre-applied pads seldom make full contact with the cpu die unless sufficient pressure is applied thus raising temps. Plus, you'll have to replace it anyway if you ever pull the cooler off. Think of the pads like the tires that generally come with a new car; they're not bad, but the same car can perform a lot better if you replace them.

So why replace? Heat kills electronics. Your cpu will be happier for longer if it runs cooler. Of course if you plan to overclock, quality grease is a must for optimum results.

Many folks are not comfortable with the process involved with popping the cooler and handling the CPU. If you've never done it and you're feeling mildly adventerous you can try looking here for some steps and tips
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1149273,00.asp

To quote George Clooney in "From Dusk 'Til Dawn": "Everybody be cool. Be real cool."

Luck

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium