Background:

No, this is NOT history class... I am fully aware of.

As we all know AMD is favored by PC enthusiasts. AMD processors had lower price point than its Intel rival; since the introduction of Duron followed by Athlon XP, AMD was able to capture the needed support from many when pricing and performance attracted many Intel owners to change brand at time of upgrades. AMD processors partially responsible for the advent of Delta Fan and Copper Heat-sink due to its high thermal output in comparison to Intel Celeron and Pentium III. The arrival of P4 Willamette did not help Intel in both price point and performance. The P4 Northwood did well when compared to Athlon Thoroughbred but not in pricing.

Oh well, came the Intel Prescott a few month after AMD 64-bit (A-64), the hot potato took away all the thermal issue from AMD as such Intel continues the support for the high performance 3rd Party heat-sinks and alternative CPU cooling market where AMD left behind.

The 90nm Winchester Core from AMD showed only improvement over its predecessor S-754 signaling the demise of Intel’s approach with S-775 in thermal management. Only months after the introduction of AMD Winchester core, which has won many favorable reviews, we now have the Venice core with SSE3 support. Although Intel has realigned the pricing strategy more in line with AMD, it may well be a day late and a dollar short in keeping AMD from gaining market share day by day. This is, of course, outside the server market where AMD has begun gaining foothold at the same rate.

Today, marks the first time I own a 64-bit processor, the Venice 3000+. Likely, I will ditch the Prescott system, so let’s find out how this lowest priced Venice performs.



With the help from all my fellow reviewers here at [M] and dedicated review sites from all over, choosing the right motherboard was made easy. I decided to go PCI-E instead of AGP since I don’t own any “up to bar” graphic card, I may as well go the PCI-E route. I am not really a hard core gamer; I don’t think SLI will benefit me much. Now, I was down to two choices the Chaintech NF4 or the DFI NF4 Ultra D. This is what I have concluded; $40 more than the Chaintech, reasons? 1) This board is favored by more gamers and enthusiasts, hence I will get more support in BIOS and Q&A down the road, 2) The Company has only one “thing” in mind, be the best. No pun intended, Chaintech has an excellent board too. It was really down to personal taste.

HERE is the tweaking of DFI NF4 board from my fellow reviewer at [M].

HERE shows how well S-939 Winchester performs at [M]

HERE is the W/C cooling with similar setup.

HERE is more on DFI nF4 TCCD tuning.

Graphic Card and memory choices are next ->