To DDR or to not DDR

[Guest]

Id like to know what the fuss over all the DDR chipsets is
Ive looked over some of the reviews for DDR Athlon systems and for games anyways (this is a primarily a gaming forum) i find there to be so little difference i dont even see why anybody is interested in them (the other benchmarks seem more promising but i really dont care about flask/MPEG encoding to be honest )
Im more or less a newbie so if im offbase here i'd appreciate hearing why cause im gonna buy a system and i was gonna go with
Althlon 133
Via Kt133A chipset
512 MB SDRAM
I realize that the new chipsets and DDR memory arent that much moer expensive but why the hell should i pay even a hundred bucks for 5% performance increase which i think is negligible
Once again not trying to start a flame war, just hoping to get some clarification/verfication
Thanx

J lives again

PS by the way for a price difference im in good old Canada and our dollar is about half of yours so remember that when looking at prices

 

[AMD_Man]

Hmm, I'm Canadian too! DDR is worth it because the price difference is extremely insignificant (maybe $20 extra Cdn for the DDR RAM and $20 extra for the motherboard). However, from what I've heard, DDR can actually slow down some tasks. Current DDR boards are still very new and are still first generation technology meaning they are notorious for being unoptimized. For example, PC150 CL2 on a KT133A will perform as well as PC2100 DDR. I would personally save a few dollars and wait. New revolutionary technologies will arrive in the upcoming months. The desktop Athlon4s, KyroIII, GeForce3 Ultra, Radeon2, UDMA133 + UDMA133 RAID (sweet!), the nForce chipset, etc. (The list goes on and on) If I were you, I'd get an Abit KT7A (not the RAID version, it's RAID performance is good but not the best so wait for the Promise FastTrak100's price to go down a bit)

I know these sound like weird suggestions, but I prefer to wait for revolutionary (as in noticable performance advances) technology to arrive, rather than buy today's evolutionary technology.

 

[Guest]

Thanx for the info
Any idea when the new stuff u mentioned will be out
My moms bugging me to get a computer so she can do her work at home (weird reversal there eh) so if i dont get one now i need to give her an approximate date
Im particularly interested in the new AMD chips, the Kyro 3 and the faster hard drive speeds

 

[Eriond]

if you get a whole computer right now, (I don't know anything about the Kryo 3) You'd probably be best off gett AMD 761 chipset or the new SIS 735 (i think that's the #, it's their newest if that's not right). You can get an Epox 8k7a (good board) for about $115-120 US. Also, may wanna look into a GF2 Pro, it's only $115 ish right now also. As for DDR go to Crucial, it's priced really closely if not at the price of PC133. The only way PC150 is gonna outperform DDR 2100 is if your FSB is at 150, I wouldn't suggest counting on this happening. Just go ahead, it may cost you a total of like $30 more US, but it's probably worth it.

 

[AMD_Man]

If only things were so cheap here in Canada. $120 USD should equal $180 CDN but the cheapest GeForce2 Pro I can find costs $280! Hmm, well, if you live in the GTA area, go to www.canadacomputers.com. They have some excellent products. I suggest you get Radeon LE! It's an amazing card for the price 'cause you can get it to perform exactly like it's older brother the Radeon 32MB DDR for $70 less. The Abit KT7A is also cheap there. Umm, I don't suggest you get RAM from them cause all their RAM is CL3 (but should run perfectly at CL2). DO NOT get a retail Athlon. Their fans are next to useless. I suggest you get at least a ThermalTake Volcano2. If you want to overclock, get the either the Global FOP38, WBK38 or CAK38. If you want to save a few bucks then get 2*256 MB RAM sticks but a single 512MB stick will ensure better upgradeablity in the future.

Well, frankly, computer technology is always moving so unless you can keep up by upgrading every two months or so, I suggest you get some good hardware now. Get the Abit KT7A RAID and two 20 GB 7200RPM Hard Drives. Also I suggest you get a 1GHz OEM AXIA cause you'll probably save a lot and still get to the 1.33GHz you want. Well that's about it, I guess. Actually, I almost forgot, the Asus V7100 Pro is also a good card to look at since it offers nearly the performance of a GTS for significantly less.

 

[Oni]

DDR isn't worth it if your on the wrong chipset. If your on AMD761, sis 735 (soon), or nforce (soon) then you'll be set for a 10-20% performance boost over PC133 ram. If you buy nice micron ram (same as crucial) and run it CAS2 its just that much better.
Also if your lucky enough to get an unlocked processor you can drop the multiplier and run PC2400 (only with nice ram) and get an even bigger performance boost.