I'm just trying to figure out the situation before dipping into my pocket. So am interested in learning from critques of responses to Tom's laterst assertions. So rip away folks, I'm asking for it...

1) TOM - "Why should anyone spend money on DDR-memory, which might be technically up to date, but not superior to common stuff in terms of performance?
Right now it seems as if a motherboard with Apollo KT133A is the best future investment. Due to the higher FSB speed of 133 MHz, most boards will be able to run future Athlon processors at up to 133 MHz x12.5 (Athlon's highest multiplier for the time being) = 1666 MHz."

Response - That's true today, but even KT133A seems to be at or near end of its rope in terms of supporting GigHz+ processors. Isn't the high multiplier issue a large part of why a 10% or 20% increase in CPU frequency gives only about a third as much % increase in actual performance? The CPUs are choked by memory access. So future increases in CPU MHz achieved by increasing multiplier is becomingly increasing less efficient. With 266MHz board frequency, even 2.1 GigHz CPU will only require 8x multiplier compared with 12.5x mulitplier 133 board needs to even reach 1666 MHz.


2) TOM - "It might be that the next generation of AMD-processors will require a new CPU socket (= new motherboard). In that case, you would have to throw away any current motherboard - no matter if it runs with SDRAM or DDR RAM."

Response - True, you can't know until product is in hand. But isn't Thoroughbred series starting at 2 Gig in H1 2002 essentially going to be same Tbird core on smaller die with better branch prediction, additional pipelines etc.? Thus, same basic footprint and still Socket A. AMD has enough problems, why irritate their clients by yet another motherboard change only 1.5 years after Slot A to Socket A switch? Granted Clawhammer et al. are going to need to new boards, but I see 64-bit as a long time coming (5 years+) to regular desktop dominance.

3) TOM - "Right now DDR-DIMMs are still very hard to get and more expensive than standard PC133 SDRAM.

Once DDR-memory has reached the same price point as PC133 SDRAM the story changes and DDR-platforms will become the smartest choice."

Response - Hard to get? Crucial is currently selling PC-1600 (I know it's not PC-2100 but it is still 60% more bandwidth than PC-133) at $143 for 256 meg stick, = PC133 price. See http://www.crucial.com/store/ListM [...] 4-pin+DIMM

Other sites list 128Meg PC-2100 sticks at about same price (so about twice the cost of PC133). I assume they are actually shipping, not just taking pre-orders.

As for boards, even if the Ali-Magik chipset is half baked, TCComputers and other sites are selling FIC AD11 Gigabyte GA-7DX, Asus A7M AMD760 chipset boards. Appears that the latter two are basic boards, but the FIC even has overclocking features. So what's wrong with FIC AD11 combined with PC133-priced PC-1600 or dipping a little deeper for full blown PC-2100 both on sale today?

4) Bottom line - I want today's puchase to minimize the expense and hassle of future upgrading and provide performance for more than today's CPU. KT133A is fine for today, but only today. It has no future-proofing, it is end of the SDR line. DDR board costs only a few bucks more, and PC-1600 can be had at PC-133 price. That way, two years from now I notch it up by simply plopping in a 2-3 Gig Thoroughbred. KT133A is like buying cut flowers. Essentially equal to DDR today, but starts fading the day you bring it home.

I believe you are referring to Tom's Jan 22 "Via In Shape" article. If you haven't already, I suggest you read pvsurfer's topic (posted 1/23/01) regarding that article.

As I see it, the KT133A vs. DDR arguement boils down to 3 issues:

1. If you already have an investment in an Athlon and PC133 SDRAM, a KT133A board is a more direct upgrade and may be the better choice (since all you have to do is replace the motherboard, retaining your existing Athlon and PC133 SDRAMs).

2. On the other hand, if you are looking to build or buy a completely new Athlon-based system, then DDR makes a lot more sense - for the reasons you site in your "Bottom line".

3. If you strongly prefer running Win2K over Win9x/me (which I certainly do), than neither of these choices are ideal. This is because of Via - Win2K support problems that are discussed in pvsurfer's topic (alluded to above). Because I want Win2K's superior stability and memory management, and not wanting to hassle with Via-related problems, I have personally decided in favor of a P3-i815 (133MHZ FSB) platform where Win2K is fully supported and the chipset is extremely stable.

yea that via vs. microsoft thing has always bugged me, i dont know why microsoft is so stubborn over chipset issues and their oses

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving isn't for you.
<font color=blue>Intel Inside</font color=blue> = Idiot Outside

but what about the amd ddr chipset with win2k?

-----------
Chris
ws6@kc.rr.com

To my knowledge, the Tyan S2398 is the only AMD DDR Chipset motherboard (of those announced) that doesn't use Via's 686 Southbridge (it uses AMD's 766). Just to name a few of the others that use the Via Southbridge: Asus' A7M266, Gigabyte's GA=7DX, and MSI's MS-6341, so they will likely exhibit IDE problems running Win2K. I really don't know about the ALi Magik 1 chipset motherboards (e.g., Iwill), but mpjesse (who hangs out here) can tell you; he has one.

damn haven't been here for so long, wonder what my stat is?
anyway, about DDR, those DDR really improve over SDRAM that much as we have hype up about it, for months???

and now the question is, DDR better than RDRAM, that we hate so much.



hahaa, I'm still a newbie

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ehartono on 01/24/01 10:46 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I've said this several times before on this forum, but here I go again (I can't help myself)...

Everyone seems to be disappointed in "only" a 10%-15% performance increase of a DDR system (with PC2100 SDRAMs) as compared to a similarly configured "SDR" system (with PC133 SDRAMs). Well, I'm here to tell you that a 10 to 15% percent performance gain is impressive! If anyone can site a case where the introduction of a new type of memory produced that much improvement over its predecessor, I would like to know what it was!

Final point: I for one, don't hate RDRAM, I'm just not thrilled with its high cost! IMHO it's actually the best RAM architecture we have seen todate and I suspect the P4-RDRAM platform will get better and better over the very near future.

I doubt that those 10-15% numbers will hold when tests are done on an equal footing.

Early tests on the AMD760 platform vs KT133 platform are unfair because the AMD760 platform is running a 133 mhz FSB where the KT133 platform is at 100 mhz with 133 mhz DRAM clock.

Now that the KT133A chipset is out we should soon see comparisons between closer performing platforms both running 133 mhz FSB.

RE: Win2K on VIA southbridge. Original post was for my first home built sytem, so carrying over SDR legacy doesn't matter and I'm going DDR. But despite being a daily Tom's visitor for the past year I had missed the Win2K-VIA issue. Every time I think I have a reasonable understanding of the landscape some new issue pops up! ( but thanks for bringing it up)

How serious are the Win2k-VIA problems? Minor glitch that only affects unique hardware or software configurations, or major pain in the *&$% that makes Win2K unworkable on any VIA southbridge motherboard?

As recently as Jan 24 (in the DDR for Pent III article) our revered prophet Tom wrote:
"If you want excellent performance at a good price it's close to impossible getting around buying an AMD Athlon system."

This is the same Tom who wrote not long ago that if people understood how much better and easy to live with Win2K is, everybody would be running it at office AND at home (OK, possible exception for total gamer system, I don't want to get sidetracked into a Win2K vs Win98 debate). So it doesn't sound like Tom is too worried about Win2K-VIA issue.

Is using VIA southbridge really going to prevent me from using Win2K?

Because running Win2K was a very high priority for me, as stated above "I decided in favor of a P3-i815 (133MHZ FSB) platform where Win2K is fully supported and the chipset is extremely stable."

Again, I suggest those interested in this subject read pvsurfer's topic on 1/23/01 where he makes some interesting observations regarding this issue and TomsHardware's lack of addressing it properly. There is also a response from TomsHardware in that thread.

Finally, since Intel announced it is slashing Pentium prices 21% to 45% (next Monday), Tom's comment "If you want excellent performance at a good price it's close to impossible getting around buying an AMD Athlon system" will no longer hold water!

driver it up and flash the snot out of the BIOS. I have had no problems yet in win2k with VIA's once the all the hassle is over with

This new forum sucks

The pvsurfer's post and replies don't answer the Win2K on VIA severity question. Sounds real enough if Tom's is going to address it in an article, and guess I'll have to wait until Tom's or somebody lays out the issue with an article to see how relevant it is to me.

Some comfort that at least one person is running Win2K on VIA chipset without problems. I'm not controlling moon missions here so the occassional OS hiccup is tolerable as long I can just reboot my want back into cosmic harmony. On the other hand, I'm still leery of buying into any unncessary hassles, esp. mysterious system glitches that might be over my head to diagnose and repair.

Seems to me the problem must be configuration specific. Some users are having serious (system hanging) problems, some are just seeing poor performance, and some are not having any problems.

Try using a good search engine and search on "via + win2k". Here's a head start, check out these url's:

http://www.tech-report.com/onearticle.x/1416
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14304.html
http://www.via.com.tw/support/faq.htm

This thread has diverged to a separate (and even more import?) discussion. As a "stranger" I have no idea if you can link to this thread from another one, but I think it deserves a discussion of it's own. If one of you journeymen knows how to do it, a discussion titled "Via vs. Win2k" or similar pointing to all the useful, related posts would be wonderful.

I'm caught in this same Via/Win2K dilemma, but don't know how to search very well. I even hesitated to use the "Search Boards" button for quite awhile thinking it meant "search mainboards", not search the forum. Ha! I'm truly a stranger, but I'm learning! Thanks for the links pvsurfer.