Duron 800 in a DDR System?

[Guest]

Greetings,

I am planning to purchase a new system soon, and I have been doing a lot of reading to select my components. Kudo's to Toms Hardware by the way, as it is simply the best source of information I have ever seen, a fabulous site.

I have decided that I will be going with an AMD system for certain, but I am trying to decide exactly which way to go. I want to purchase a system which will be good for a few years, so I am trying to make it upgradable in the future.

As such, I will probably be going with a lower model processor and video card to start, probably a Duron 800 and a Gforce2 MX. For the motherboard and chipset however, I want to get something which will be useful to me later on if I choose to upgrade.

Thus I am looking at two options, going with a SDRam KT133A system, or a DDR system, likely with AMD 761 chipset.

However I need to make sure it will work for the time being too. My questions then, are these:

1. Will a Duron 800 work in a KT133A system with an Asus A7V133 motherboard and PC133 SDRAM?

2. Will a Duron 800 work in a AMD761 system with an Asus A7M266 motherboard and PC2100 DDR memory?

3. Will the Gforce2 MX 32Mb (SDram) work in the above 2 systems? It will probably be an MSI Starforce or Asus card.

I can manage the above systems on my budget, and then in a years time I would be probably replace the Duron with an Athalon-C and the MX with a Gforce2 GTS or Ultra card. I know from reading Tom's Guide that it's probably pointless to upgrade the processor without upgrading the video along with it.

Thanks very much for the help.

Wayne

 

[Gog]

I don't know if the Duron will operate in the 761 chipset, but the price difference between PC2100 and PC133 would be almost enough to upgrade the graphics card to a full GF2, faster in the short term.

Just another thought are you considering the resistor hack on the GF2 or GF2 MX?


Look at the size of that thing!

 

[Guest]

Like I said, I want to plan this for as long term as I can. I'll get an Athalon-C and a better vid card down the road.

As for a resistor hack, I'm afraid you lost me there.... What did you mean?

Wayne

 

[mbaha]

I see what you are trying to do as far save money now and upgrade later. But as far as the video card I have a mx and love it. I bought the leadtek with dual out because I wanted to be able to run two monitors and I don’t really game at all. I do play a few games from time to time and hell it looks good enough for with my 1gig t-bird 256 megs ram and a7v. When I built my celery 300a I hade no money and so I built it with 32 megs ram old 1gig hd used 14’mon and unfortunately I went with onboard video and sound because I couldn’t afford to even get a 8meg agp card. Which later on a put sb live card in there so I could play mp3’s and surf the net at the same time more ram and a new hd. I would have upgraded video card if a I could have but I didn’t really want to go with pci. Anyway instead of scraping the mb and upgrading I found that is it much better deal to sell the whole deal and buy all new stuff. If you are looking at ddr it is going to cost you a whole lot more and I am sure if that is really worth it to you. I would only get ddr if you have to have latest and greatest. On a budget I would look at duron just because hell they are only $70 so why not. Plus it’s a god chip to learn how to over clock on. I would not get a asus mx card though just because I have heard of so many people having trouble with them. If you go with mx get some other brand. The a7v133 gives a really performance for the $$. Also if you need to get a HSF I would look at the fop32 they are only $20 and are good for over clocking. Hope that helps.
mbaha


“Build your own you will love it more”

 

[Guest]

I do appreciate the input, but I think my initial questions are being lost in the shuffle. They were:

1. Will a Duron 800 work in a KT133A system with an Asus A7V133 motherboard and PC133 SDRAM?

2. Will a Duron 800 work in a AMD761 system with an Asus A7M266 motherboard and PC2100 DDR memory?

3. Will the Gforce2 MX 32Mb (SDram) work in the above 2 systems? It will probably be an MSI Starforce or Asus card.

Wayne

 

[TheSandman]

The answers to your qukestions are all yes. You may want to consider the kt266 or the amd760 chipsets for the long run.

SANDMAN

 

[Guest]

Thanks very much! I am going to keep an eye out for the MSI K7T266 becoming available, but right now it looks like an Asus A7M266.

Wayne

 

[Gog]

A minor bit of soldering can turn a gf2 MX into a quadro graphics card (professional grade - much faster) take alook in the vid card thread.

Look at the size of that thing!

 

[mousepotato]

Thanks, you made that so easy to find. <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/Quadro1-2.htm" target="_new">Quadro mod</A>

 

[mousepotato]

Finally I have a signature.

<i>i suggest you read the </i><font color=red><b>FAQ</b></font color=red>

 

[Guest]

K7T266 Pro is already available. Check out http://www.pricewatch.com. I've also seen it at http://www.cdrexpress.com for about $163 or so (the RAID version).

Leo

 

[Guest]

True, I should have been more specific.. I have yet to see it available from a Canadian supplier.

Wayne

 

[phsstpok]

Duron's have problems at 133 mhz on some boards according to messages I have been reading at the <A HREF="http://www.overclockers.com.au" target="_new">www.overclockers.com.au</A>'s forums.

It is my understanding that boards that do overclocking strictly with jumpers or switches have no problems. Boards that do overclocking strictly in BIOS also have no problems. However boards that use BIOS settings combined with jumpers to select FSB speeds have problems. The IWILL boards were mentioned.

It seems the problem boards try to boot with the mobo's default FSB speed, usually 133 mhz, but use the CPU's default multiplier. Using your intended Duron, for example, the board would try to boot at 8 X 133 or 1067 mhz. POST would likely fail and furthermore one can't even access the BIOS because of the failed POST to change the multiplier. In the example, one can set the FSB on the mobo to 100 mhz and everything work fine but at 8 x 100.

I don't know which other boards fit into the problem category. I do know Durons work in the Abit KT7A, and KT7A-RAID boards as well as the ASUS A7V133 board.

I think I have a link regarding this story. I will revise this post . . .

 

[Guest]

Guys,
I don't get why you think DDR is higher than SDRam. Crucial has DDR for $103 for 256 megs. No way would I go with SDram.
And in a few weeks, there should be MB's that support twin Athlon/Durons. I waiting for that to come out.
Beth

I have a little knowledge, so I am dangerous !

 

[Guest]

Thanks. I was actually able to increase my budget, and so I will be going with an Athalon-C at 1.2 GHz, and a Gforce2 GTS, 32Mb.

I'm looking forward to ordering the system, probably in a few weeks. I was going to wait for the MSI K7T266 motherboard, but I can get an Asus A7M266 now, so I may just go with that...

Wayne

 

[upec]

I think it will be better to go with DDR. The DDR solution should cost about the same as regular SDRAM solution since the price of the memory is about the same (check out micron) so the only difference will be the motherboard. I think Motherboard with KT266 chipset will not cost a lot more than the motherboard with older VIA chipset. I will wait for the KT266 offering from Asus and other company since their board should be coming out soon. I think the board with KT266 chipset should be cheaper and offer similar performance when compare with AMD 760 chipset.