My New Combo

[Buckky]

I would like to hear from the members here on some recommendations for a combo upgrade.

I am now running a Gigabyte GA-7DX AMD 761 AGPset,

Athlon XP 1700+ ( 1.466 GHZ )

and 512m of DDR ( first generation ) ram


I am looking at a motherboard:

ABIT NF7-S nForce2 SPP chipset Support AMD Socket A with 200/266/333/400 FSB 8X AGP SATA 150 ATX motherboard

with a AMD 2500 Barton 333 FSB processor

and according to CPU mag, 1 gigabyte of OCZ400ELDC-K ram.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Lets say a budget of around $600.

 

[Taurus]

looks good.

 

[LeeJend]

Good setup get me one too. ;-)

 

[ming]

eh? Athlon XP runs on the GA-7DX board?
will the 2100+ work on it, coz according to the manual, the highest cpu is an Athlon 1.4GHz (not XP).

 

[Leo154]

try and get a processor with a 400mhz fsb so that it will be synched with the memory clock.

 

[Buckky]

Originally posted by ming
eh? Athlon XP runs on the GA-7DX board?
will the 2100+ work on it, coz according to the manual, the highest cpu is an Athlon 1.4GHz (not XP).

OK maybe it is just a Athlon 1700 1.4 Ghz. That just makes my upgrade that much better.

Do you have any suggestions to the new combo?

BTW I plan on Overclocking the 2500 Barton class chip.

I did not know that there was a 400 mhz FSB, I will check this out.
thanks

 

[Sazar]

doubt you are going to get much of a performance boost unless you are looking to be overclocking the cpu like crazy...

 

[Taurus]

Originally posted by Buckky
I did not know that there was a 400 mhz FSB, I will check this out.

the 3200+ is the only official 400fsb chip from amd and it's expensive. the 2500+ should be able to be OC'd to 400fsb with little or no problem. stick with that.

even if you don't hit 400fsb, you can leave it at 333 and tighten the latencies on your underclocked memory (like mine) and still get good performance from that.

 

[Leo154]

yes, but non-sync causes problems

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by taurus
the 3200+ is the only official 400fsb chip from amd and it's expensive. the 2500+ should be able to be OC'd to 400fsb with little or no problem. stick with that.

even if you don't hit 400fsb, you can leave it at 333 and tighten the latencies on your underclocked memory (like mine) and still get good performance from that.

there is 3000+ listed with 400fsb m8...

its slightly slower in clock speed but the higher fsb == same rating...

the 3000+ with 400mhz fsb lists @ newegg for around $ 208.00

 

[LeeJend]

Leo Taurus did recommend sync'd, just at the 333 not 400 and with a faster CL setting. Thats what I do with my ancient XP2000. Run 333 memory at 266 with CL2.0 You get about the same memory bandwidth as with the 333 at 2.5 CL and it is synchronous with my FSB.

I benchmarked and stability tested multiple combos and decided it's better to underclock memory and set shorter wait states.

Same speed, and more stability!

Even more pronounced with 3200/400 mhz RAM. Unless you pay buck$ your get stinking CL 3.5 DIMMs. DDR I was never meant to go to 400 mhz. Everyone was surprised when they actually issued a spec for it.

Besides the FSB bandwith limits the memory transfer rate anyway when using dual DDR so there is no real speed advantage setting RAM to 400 mhz with AMD stuff.

The sweet point on cost / performance /stability curve right now is:
Barton 2500-2800 with 333 FSB
Dual DDR 333 mhz RAM with CL2.0
You can run a little faster but stability seems to be getting questionable.

If you must have more speed wait for the New AMD 64 FX with higher FSB coming Early 2004. (And pray that Windows 64 bit eventually hits the street, and mortgage the house to pay for it.)

 

[Taurus]

Originally posted by Sazar
there is 3000+ listed with 400fsb m8...

its slightly slower in clock speed but the higher fsb == same rating...

the 3000+ with 400mhz fsb lists @ newegg for around $ 208.00

well, consider me learned.

Originally posted by LeeJend
Besides the FSB bandwith limits the memory transfer rate anyway when using dual DDR so there is no real speed advantage setting RAM to 400 mhz with AMD stuff.

yeah, solid point. nowadays with dual-ddr, actual bandwidth isn't the issue as much as having lower latencies.