AMD Motherboard Overview?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

I have an XP 1700 processor and Gigabyte motherboard and am interested in
upgrading to something 2800 or above - which my motherboard does not
support.

Is there a good overview of the differences and how to choose between the
different motherboard chipsets? I figure I should narrow that down first
and then can pick a specific board from there. If I go to newegg.com, there
are so many different chipsets listed including nforce2, noforce3, kt400,
kt600, kt880, and variations thereof. It get's pretty confusing pretty
quickly.

I am pretty sure that I've ruled out the Athlon 64 since I prefer to say
somewhere on the price / performance curve.

Also, what is the difference in upgrading the RAM? I currently have 2x256mb
DDR2100. Will this work and what is the performance advantage of moving up
to something like 2700 or 3200?

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

"Harlan" <nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsaqpc.18713$Ej2.14038@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
> I have an XP 1700 processor and Gigabyte motherboard and am interested in
> upgrading to something 2800 or above - which my motherboard does not
> support.
>
> Is there a good overview of the differences and how to choose between the
> different motherboard chipsets? I figure I should narrow that down first
> and then can pick a specific board from there. If I go to newegg.com,
there
> are so many different chipsets listed including nforce2, noforce3, kt400,
> kt600, kt880, and variations thereof. It get's pretty confusing pretty
> quickly.
>
> I am pretty sure that I've ruled out the Athlon 64 since I prefer to say
> somewhere on the price / performance curve.
>
> Also, what is the difference in upgrading the RAM? I currently have
2x256mb
> DDR2100. Will this work and what is the performance advantage of moving
up
> to something like 2700 or 3200?
>
> Thanks.

For your processor, you want nforce2. If you were going with Athlon64,
there are better chipsets than nvidia. But if you want to stay in the XP
processors, nforce2 is your only choice. You will see no performance
advantage to upgrading to faster memory. At least no real-world performance
advantage. If you match your RAM to your CPU, your benchmarks will be
better. -Dave

 

[GTS]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Assuming you want the latest (and fastest?) chipsets the choice is between
Nforce2 Ultra and the Via KT880. Both are dual channel boards but can be run
in single channel if your memory does not want to play ball. Tom's Hardware
came down on the side of the KT880 - the comparison is at
http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040308/index.html
Mind you the differences seem so slight as to be negligible.

"Dave C." <mdupre@sff.net> wrote in message
news:2gmq47F4hbqvU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Harlan" <nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> newsaqpc.18713$Ej2.14038@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
> > I have an XP 1700 processor and Gigabyte motherboard and am interested
in
> > upgrading to something 2800 or above - which my motherboard does not
> > support.
> >
> > Is there a good overview of the differences and how to choose between
the
> > different motherboard chipsets? I figure I should narrow that down
first
> > and then can pick a specific board from there. If I go to newegg.com,
> there
> > are so many different chipsets listed including nforce2, noforce3,
kt400,
> > kt600, kt880, and variations thereof. It get's pretty confusing pretty
> > quickly.
> >
> > I am pretty sure that I've ruled out the Athlon 64 since I prefer to say
> > somewhere on the price / performance curve.
> >
> > Also, what is the difference in upgrading the RAM? I currently have
> 2x256mb
> > DDR2100. Will this work and what is the performance advantage of moving
> up
> > to something like 2700 or 3200?
> >
> > Thanks.
>
> For your processor, you want nforce2. If you were going with Athlon64,
> there are better chipsets than nvidia. But if you want to stay in the XP
> processors, nforce2 is your only choice. You will see no performance
> advantage to upgrading to faster memory. At least no real-world
performance
> advantage. If you match your RAM to your CPU, your benchmarks will be
> better. -Dave
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

So are you saying that I should be in good shape with my same memory instead
of something with a matching speed?

"Dave C." <mdupre@sff.net> wrote in message
news:2gmq47F4hbqvU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Harlan" <nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> newsaqpc.18713$Ej2.14038@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
> > I have an XP 1700 processor and Gigabyte motherboard and am interested
in
> > upgrading to something 2800 or above - which my motherboard does not
> > support.
> >
> > Is there a good overview of the differences and how to choose between
the
> > different motherboard chipsets? I figure I should narrow that down
first
> > and then can pick a specific board from there. If I go to newegg.com,
> there
> > are so many different chipsets listed including nforce2, noforce3,
kt400,
> > kt600, kt880, and variations thereof. It get's pretty confusing pretty
> > quickly.
> >
> > I am pretty sure that I've ruled out the Athlon 64 since I prefer to say
> > somewhere on the price / performance curve.
> >
> > Also, what is the difference in upgrading the RAM? I currently have
> 2x256mb
> > DDR2100. Will this work and what is the performance advantage of moving
> up
> > to something like 2700 or 3200?
> >
> > Thanks.
>
> For your processor, you want nforce2. If you were going with Athlon64,
> there are better chipsets than nvidia. But if you want to stay in the XP
> processors, nforce2 is your only choice. You will see no performance
> advantage to upgrading to faster memory. At least no real-world
performance
> advantage. If you match your RAM to your CPU, your benchmarks will be
> better. -Dave
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

"Harlan" <nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:A1vpc.8099$eH1.4248904@newssvr28.news.prodigy.com...
> So are you saying that I should be in good shape with my same memory
instead
> of something with a matching speed?
>

YES!!! Almost all current motherboard models support a range of CPU clock
speeds as well as a range of memory clock speeds. The two don't need to
match, but the benchmark numbers will be slightly higher if they do match.
Thus, you can use 266DDR Ram with a 333FSB processor, if you want to. It
will work great. The only thing you need to verify is that your motherboard
supports whatever RAM you currently own. -Dave

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Nforce2 SATA caveats...

I feel it's worth noting that between KT880 & Nforce2 the real
'winner' depends on your intentions for the machine. For example if
you want to use SATA hard drives, you'd be better off with a VIA
chipset board IMO since for some reason Nforce2 chips don't have
discrete (integrated with the South Bridge) SATA support.

Yes there are NF2s with SATA on board, but it's dependent on PCI
bandwidth, so you will not achieve 150 mb/s in actuality or theory.
What's worse is if you have a PCI video capture card you probably
will get corruption in your video because of the bandwidth
contention. It makes me wonder what sort of glitches may be taking
place when transferring files with a PCI based network card too.
:?

I also feel PCI SATA add-on cards may be a bad idea for this reason as
well. There's just too much data moving for more than one PCI device
at a time. With the Nforce2's take on SATA, you might as well think
of your SATA HD as a PCI device.

As for the VIA chipset, while I haven't had much experience with
anything past a KT133A, I have read bits here and there about what
seems to be a problem with Brooktree based cards & the KT880. So
if you're doing video capture with a Bt8x8 chip & SATA drive, you
may be best with a KT600 chipset, an Intel platform, or a different
capture card.

I know that's a lot to consider, but I wish someone had made the above
info available to me when I got my SATA drive for my NF7-S board
thinking I'd have great video captures with my bigger and faster
drive. I'll probably be getting a SATA to PATA converter now to give
my PCI buses back their bandwidth.

The problem also is discussed in length here:
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?pagenumber=3&threadid=25992

I'm not saying the Nforce2 chipset is bad, because I don't think it is
by any means, but I DO feel they should have left SATA off their plate
until it was fully integrated into the southbridge chip (like the
Nforce3) without depending on PCI or other (already cramped) buses'
bandwidth. If you're not using SATA it's a great option, however. I
chose not to say 'viable option' at the risk of sounding subliminal.


Kidding aside though, they are both worthy chipsets. It just depends
on what you want out of them.

--------------
Disclaimer
--------------
Sorry for the above rant. I realize this thread is pretty old and
original posters may have lost interest by now. The above represents
the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of
www.howtofixcomputers.com or it's members therein. I hope this helps
someone avoid some of the pitfalls I myself went through. Thanks!