D920 @266FSB with PC2700?

[quantumsheep]

I'm currently building a new system from spares i have and the only CPU and RAM i have is the Pentium D 920 @ 3.7ghz 266FSB and 1GB of PC2700 RAM. I will be purchasing the Asrock Dual vSata motherboard as it's only £30 and i have an old AGP card i'll be using.

Does anyone know what kind of bottleneck i'd see from using PC2700 with that CPU? Considering i'll have to be using a high memory divider.

 

[quantumsheep]

*bump*

Please could someone answer, cos i REALLY don't want to have to fork out £70 for 1GB of DDR2 if the performance increase will only be a few %.

 

[HotFoot]

A problem you're going to have with that RAM is that you'll have to find a Mobo that works with DDR. I've never actually used DDR, as I skipped that generation. I know there are some boards that will work with both DDR and DDR2, which would give you an upgrade path down the road. These might be made by Abit.

I'll do some digging to see if I can find you an answer, as the Saturday morning cartoons aren't really that interesting today.

EDIT: Okay, so the latest chipset I've found that supports both DDR and DDR2 is the 915. This chipset doesn't support multicore CPUs, however, so you can't pair it with your PD920.

EDIT2: Not giving up so easily, I found a board that works with dual-core CPUs and DDR ram: http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=0&model=814&modelmenu=1 . This board uses the VIA P4M800 Pro chipset, so if you want to find other boards that will work with your CPU and RAM, just search for ones with that chipset.

Cheers

EDIT3: Now feeling like a knob for missing that you already had a Motherboard in mind, I'll try to find out about overclocking.

 

[quantumsheep]

A problem you're going to have with that RAM is that you'll have to find a Mobo that works with DDR. I've never actually used DDR, as I skipped that generation. I know there are some boards that will work with both DDR and DDR2, which would give you an upgrade path down the road. These might be made by Abit.

I'll do some digging to see if I can find you an answer, as the Saturday morning cartoons aren't really that interesting today.

EDIT: Okay, so the latest chipset I've found that supports both DDR and DDR2 is the 915. This chipset doesn't support multicore CPUs, however, so you can't pair it with your PD920.

EDIT2: Not giving up so easily, I found a board that works with dual-core CPUs and DDR ram: http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=0&model=814&modelmenu=1 . This board uses the VIA P4M800 Pro chipset, so if you want to find other boards that will work with your CPU and RAM, just search for ones with that chipset.

Cheers

EDIT3: Now feeling like a knob for missing that you already had a Motherboard in mind, I'll try to find out about overclocking.

I already found the board that i'm using, supports DDR and DDR2 with AGP and PCI-E. Even better it supports multicore CPUs and is only around $55!

I'm more concerned about the performance hit i'd get from using DDR vs DDR2.

 

[HotFoot]

Right, well, from what I've been reading, DDR RAM will have sufficient bandwidth to match your FSB if you use a 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio. You should be able to do this with PC2700 RAM, as it's rated up to 333 MHz, and you're target FSB speed is 266 MHz.

So as far as I understand, you're configuration is base clock of 266 MHz, x14 multi on the CPU for 3.7 GHz, and x1 multi on the RAM for 266 MHz DDR. The DDR will have the same bandwith as your Mobo if it's in dual-channel configuration, so you won't be hurt at all by using DDR instead of DDR2. It might even be faster considering you should be able to have better timings.

 

[quantumsheep]

Right, well, from what I've been reading, DDR RAM will have sufficient bandwidth to match your FSB if you use a 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio. You should be able to do this with PC2700 RAM, as it's rated up to 333 MHz, and you're target FSB speed is 266 MHz.

So as far as I understand, you're configuration is base clock of 266 MHz, x14 multi on the CPU for 3.7 GHz, and x1 multi on the RAM for 266 MHz DDR. The DDR will have the same bandwith as your Mobo if it's in dual-channel configuration, so you won't be hurt at all by using DDR instead of DDR2. It might even be faster considering you should be able to have better timings.

The PC2700 is rated at 166FSB. I don't understand how it could get to 333FSB as it's twice the rated speed of the RAM. The speed i have it at the moment is 175FSB and it won't go any higher.

 

[HotFoot]

This is where my inexperience with DDR shows. So either you have to run a divider of 7:4 if it's available or go to 2:1, and the RAM will definately be the bottleneck.

You'll probably have better overall system performance if you use a FSB of 250 MHz with a memory divider of 3:2, so you'll at least max out your RAM at 166, and your CPU will be running at a still-respectable 3.5 GHz.

On my system, certain overclocks actually degrade my peformance if I don't maximise my RAM. I can get a 5% hit. I'd guess that you're going to have about a 10-15% performance decrease from using PC2700 vs. PC25400.

 

[m25]

I'm currently building a new system from spares i have and the only CPU and RAM i have is the Pentium D 920 @ 3.7ghz 266FSB and 1GB of PC2700 RAM. I will be purchasing the Asrock Dual vSata motherboard as it's only £30 and i have an old AGP card i'll be using.

Does anyone know what kind of bottleneck i'd see from using PC2700 with that CPU? Considering i'll have to be using a high memory divider.

Depends on the apps you use; I guess you'll get a maximum 5-8% of performance drop but not more.

 

[m25]

I already found the board that i'm using, supports DDR and DDR2 with AGP and PCI-E. Even better it supports multicore CPUs and is only around $55!

I'm more concerned about the performance hit i'd get from using DDR vs DDR2.

But mind that it's only PCI-E and you can only fit something like a modem or SATA controler there; you need PCI-E x16 for a PCI-E video card.

 

[quantumsheep]

I already found the board that i'm using, supports DDR and DDR2 with AGP and PCI-E. Even better it supports multicore CPUs and is only around $55!

I'm more concerned about the performance hit i'd get from using DDR vs DDR2.

But mind that it's only PCI-E and you can only fit something like a modem or SATA controler there; you need PCI-E x16 for a PCI-E video card.

But that's where you're wrong, it's PCI-E 4X which is more than capable of running a 7600GT and a 7900GT only gets a maximum bottleneck of 10% in gaming

 

[m25]

I already found the board that i'm using, supports DDR and DDR2 with AGP and PCI-E. Even better it supports multicore CPUs and is only around $55!

I'm more concerned about the performance hit i'd get from using DDR vs DDR2.

But mind that it's only PCI-E and you can only fit something like a modem or SATA controler there; you need PCI-E x16 for a PCI-E video card.

But that's where you're wrong, it's PCI-E 4X which is more than capable of running a 7600GT and a 7900GT only gets a maximum bottleneck of 10% in gaming
And can you run a PCI-E card on a small PCI-E 4X ???

 

[quantumsheep]

I already found the board that i'm using, supports DDR and DDR2 with AGP and PCI-E. Even better it supports multicore CPUs and is only around $55!

I'm more concerned about the performance hit i'd get from using DDR vs DDR2.

But mind that it's only PCI-E and you can only fit something like a modem or SATA controler there; you need PCI-E x16 for a PCI-E video card.

But that's where you're wrong, it's PCI-E 4X which is more than capable of running a 7600GT and a 7900GT only gets a maximum bottleneck of 10% in gaming

You can indeed, i'll find the review i was reading, showed a MAXIMUM bottleneck of 10% in gaming with a 7900GT.
And can you run a PCI-E card on a small PCI-E 4X ???