# Athlon 2800+ socket 754! Very cheap, fast!



## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Today I'm writing a quick review the Athlon64 2800+ socket 754 cpu I bought off ebay for $80. My test bed is a $30 ASrock K8upgrade-760gx microatx motherboard which can be upgraded to socket 939 with a $30 bridge card and generic FAR DDR2700 ram. I chose this combo for building a micro-atx media center with a little upgradeability.

Installing the cpu is very simple, the retail box contains a quiet heatsink that performs very well and clips on with a easy thumb lever. Just to test the included thermal paste, I installed according to the directions then after a day removed the heatsink from the cpu. I was not impressed with what I saw, there were air bubbles all over the thermal paste between the cpu and the sink.. Out went the paste, the cpu/heatsink got cleaned, and in went Artic Silver 5 thermal paste. At the default 1.8ghz the chip ran a cool 29C. 

Next, I jumped right in and went for a 25% OC by setting the cpu at 9*250. The system now ran at 2.25 ghz. I booted into windows, then I loaded Prime 95 and ran it overnight. Under full load, the cpu temp was 35C. 

Conclusion: This is one cpu that is too often overlooked by buyers in favor of the socket 939 Athlon64's.. 2.25ghz is not the top speed of this cpu by any means, I simply wanted to show how easy it was to get a 25% OC with this cpu. Considering this chip can give the performance of a $220 Athlon64 3400+ easily,this chip can be bought for less than $100, motherboards for socket 754 can be bought for less than $30, I highly recommend those who are watching where their pennies go to consider one..


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## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Update: My media center project ended up costing a net sum of approx $320 after getting a pioneer dvd burner, cheap tv tuner, and buying a OS for it..

TigerDirect has a similarly configured system (lowest price I could find using shopping.com) with less ram and no overclock for $999.


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## [email protected] (Jun 23, 2005)

Please tell us what you are using for cooling? Heatsink/Fan, and other fans?

TKS Michael


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## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Currently, I'm using the AMD stock cooler, along with the two 60mm rear fans that came with the micro-atx case.. Speedfan adjust the speed of the fans, and the stock heatsink fan is very quiet to begin with..

The Athlon64 cpu's run cool and support "cool and quiet" technology, so cooling isn't much of an issue. In fact, one of the reasons I posted this review was to show just what kinda stuff you can do using the stock cooling. Nothing special is required..


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