ABIT KT7A-RAID

[mkapoosta]

I'm trying to squeeze the last drop out of this mobo before I toss it. Can anyone tell me exactly what I need to do to get the FSB up to what Abit claims this board supports (266MHz). I am running Mushkin PC133 SDRAM(256 + 512)and have an old Athlon 800 T-bird oc's to 7.5x133 stable. I don't know much about this stuff but assume this means the FSB is operating at 133MHz, not 266.

 

[pat]

133 mhz, 266DDR

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[mkapoosta]

Pat,
Thanks for the reply, I'm not that versed. I thought that DDR SDRAM was a technology improvement over standard SDRAM, the former allowing data transfer to occur at twice the standard SDRAM speed of 133MHz. Does this mean I'm stuck at 133MHz unless I get new memory sticks?

 

[pat]

Well, SD-RAM speed stop at 133 MHz. You'll be stuck at this speed unless you get a board that support DDR. DDR ram and SD ram are not compatible and cannot be use in the same slot. This is a limitation of the chipset, since from you post, I think you have the kt133A chipset.

I would stop buying stuff for that old system..no matter what you'll have, it will always be slow. Save some money and sell that board/cpu/ram and get newer modern component.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[mkapoosta]

Pat, Thanks. I was afraid of that!
MK

 

[pat]

"Using an oversized copper HSF with a stick of KingMax PC150 or two you can probably get it up to 1.2Ghz using say vcore of 1.95V."

Common...you think that going that high with a risk of burning the chip and instability issues worth it? Get real, the memory price, plus the HSF will be obsolete if its chip die after 2 days...So it would have spend money for nothing. And if it works, it still be running a old cpu with modest power not really suited for todays computing.

The best thing is to get rid of that system while it is functionnal and upgrade to something fast stock.


-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Crashman]

No, you're misinterpretting it:

Your bus speed is 133MHz. The "266MHz" bus for an AMD processor is always 133MHz. Even if you had a board with DDR SDRAM (PC2100 is DDR266), your CPU bus would still be 133MHz.

The 133MHz represents the clock rate. DDR isn't just for RAM, AMD uses DDR technology on the CPU bus too.

DDR meand Double Data Rate. That means data is sent or received twice for every clock cycle. So with DDR technology, a 133MHz clock rate gives you a 266MHz data rate.

So the 133MHz you see is correct, that's the clock speed of the bus, changing your memory won't change the fact that your CPU bus runs 133MHz clock rate. But 133MHz clock rate provides a 266MHz data rate, because your AMD processor uses a DDR CPU bus.

Now that you know that 133MHz is completely right and nothing is wrong with your system, there is one other detail: With your CPU using a DDR bus, but your RAM using a standard bus, your CPU has 2x the bandwidth of your RAM. That's why later chipsets supported DDR SDRAM.

So a performance gain could be had by using a board with DDR SDRAM to match your DDR CPU bus. Using DDR266, you'd still have a 133MHz clock rate for both the CPU and RAM, but both would have a 266MHz data rate. Right now you have a CPU with a 266MHz data rate (Double Data Rate) and RAM with a 133MHz data rate (Single Data Rate).

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[Crashman]

Oh, in case all that confused you, your FSB is SUPPOSED to run at 133MHz, which is a clock rate that represents it's 266MHz data rate.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[khha4113]

I agreed with PAT that it's just not worth it. He wouldn't see any significant improving.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.