can anyone explain...

[Guest]

what the 200mhz and 266mhz front side bus is on the athlon processors, and also, how it works.

ie does it mean that if you have pc133 sdram it doubles the speed to 266mhz?

also whats so good about ddr memory? do you actually gain much?

cheers

 

[Guest]

I'm not totally clear on this but I'll tell you what I know...

You heard of DDR ram right? it runs double the regular FSB. Therefore, the CPU must run double as well. Now, there are 2 speeds for DDR.. 200mhz (doubling 100mhz) and 266 (doubling 133mhz) and also for ram... PC1600 and PC2100. If you get the 200mhz CPU, getting the PC2100 ram will be no use to you.... if you get the 266mhz CPU, you should get the PC2100 for better speed.

Also, if you want to use DDR ram, you need certain motherboards. I believe the two chipsets out supporting DDR is the AMD 760 and the Ali Magik something? (correct me if i'm wrong) And they cost a little bit more money ...

"Trying is the first step towards failure"
-
"My computer sucks."
No, really, it does.

 

[Guest]

A 266 MHz bus won't double your PC133 to run at the 266 MHz setting. What it does, though, it makes it possible for DDR PC2100 to run at 266 MHz. But you gotta have the right kind of memory to make use of it!

The performance difference between SDR and DDR grows with the CPU clock. So, if you wanna go with a high-end Athlon, you'd probably be better off investing in DDR.

The price difference between SDR and DDR is not that high as it seems. Currently, the best DDR-enabled motherboard seems to be MSI's K7T266 (just released a few days ago), and it only costs about $160-$170, depending on the vendor. The best DDR memory is sold by Micron Crucial at http://www.crucial.com. They sell straight from the manufacturer (no resellers), so it's incredibly cheap. Right now, they only offer PC1600, but it is reported to be overclockable up to 300 MHz (better even than normal PC2100), and only costs about $90-$100 for a 256 MB stick. I imagine what their PC2100 is capable of, once it is again in stock!

Leo

 

[Guest]

AMD 760 and AliMagic are no longer the only DDR chipsets. Check out MSI's K7T266, based on VIA's KT266 chipset. It was released just a few days ago, and it seems to have beaten all the other contenders in benchmark results.

Leo

 

[mwgorecki]

See this for memory shoot-out:
http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=ddrshootout&page=1&mscssid=&tp=


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