AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor ADA3800BVBOX

6th AMD system, best yet.

Reviewed By: Cap'n Morgan Löwe on 7/19/2006

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

Pros: From Socket A 3200+ Athlon to Socket 939 3000+, and a 3500+, even my socket 754 Sempron 3100+ and Athlon 3400+, this one has been the best. Running on it's 6th month, Overclocked to 2500MHZ, 2 gb DDR500 ram, this mother trucks! Paired with a single Nvidia 7900gt, and Biostar Tforce4 U, I've had no issues, in any of my 3 OSes: SUSE, XP Pro and XP X64.

Cons: It was nearly a hundred dollars more when I bought it, it's expensive to be first on the block ><

Other Thoughts: For the "Bottom of the line" this thing performs. Now with Intel releasing Dual core for half as much, the price should only drop more. I love AMD, been a long time fan since plopping K6's in machines that came with Cyrix, AMD has been my #1 choice for system building.

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Reviewed By: roofoo on 12/7/2005

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: less than 1 day

Pros: Regarding Zach's review below, where he states that only Windows XP Professional or MCE support this processor: Actually this is incorrect because even Windows XP Home edition supports this CPU. See this link: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_8366_7595~95364,00.html

So there's no need to upgrade to XP Professional to use this CPU.

Cons: none

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Great Value & Performance

Reviewed By: William Ziebell on 3/15/2006

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: This is my first AMD build. I'm very impressed with the dual core processing and overall speed of the machine. Even with both cores hitting 100% utilization, Windows XP SP2 response nicely.

Cons: After running memtest86+ for 12 hours over night the CPU is running a little hot with standard heat sink and fan. I’ll upgrade the cooling before even thinking about over-clocking. Price drop with Intel dual core has me scratching my head just a little.

Other Thoughts: System:
*AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
*ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
*eVGA GF 7800GT CO SE 256MB
*CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB)

The build resulted in BSOD! Memtest86+ found 100s of errors. Memory replacement did NOT fix system stability. Setup BIOS memory settings and tested 4 DDR400 modules separately and still had 100’s of errors! Memtest86+ boards suggested the motherboard or CPU was the culprit. Went back to the BIOS for one more try -- eliminated all unnecessary features and found the culprit -- the Legacy USB Support.
My Advice:
1)Upgraded BIOS (1103).
2)Google “Memory Timings Explained” and read it.
3)Be sure to set up the memory bios settings: CAS, tRCD, tRP, tRAS & DDR VCORE.
*Set CAS, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS - Asus User Guide pg. 4-25 MCT Timing Mode.
*To set the DDR VCORE - Asus User Guide pg 4-22 DDR VCORE.
4)Set Legacy USB Support [Disable] – refer to Asus User Guide pg. 4-32.
5)Use memtest86+ to stress test your system.

Hope this saves a few folks some time and effort

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Wow...

Reviewed By: Eric on 5/23/2007

Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year

Pros: Dual Core. Price(Now). Socket 939. Stock Heatsink. 3 Year Warrantee. Runs cool.

The best part of this processor was its overclocking ability. I put it in the socket and turned on the PC and booted into the bios. Changed the FSB frequency to 250 and lowered the HT multiplier to 4x and BAM i had a 2.5 Ghz processor. No voltage increase necessary (I do have PC 4000 RAM though...) That was with a DFI Ultra-D and DFI SLI-DR with OCZ Platinum XTC RAM. Awesome... thats all I can say. Did I say that the temps didn't increase with the overclock? (I tested the CPU at both speeds and no temperature increase) It stayed at 38C with a load and 30C idle, and thats before the Artic Silver had been broken in. It doesn't go above 35C anymore in a hot attic with the stock cooler!

Cons: Out of stock at the moment...

Other Thoughts: Man, this baby is awesome. Don't expect to see a boost in stystem speed, but expect a giant leap in multi-tasking ability. I can run two CPU intensive applications (Such as rendering a DVD and playing Far Cry) at the same time! Be sure to have plenty of RAM to do this.

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It still works

Reviewed By: David on 5/5/2007

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Runs fast and is detected as dual core

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: They need to start includeing quick silver along with it.

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Best bang for the buck

Reviewed By: Flabbmaster009er on 5/2/2007

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: more than 1 year

Pros: Its can take anything i throw at it and pass it with flying colors.

Cons: stock cooler. I am over clocking so i ditched it as soon as i got it. but other then that. flawless!

Other Thoughts: Much better buy to have this one then the 4000 or 4200. There is not much of a differnce. Would highly recomend this to anyone. Newegg as always, u guys rock!

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