DDR pc2100 vs pc1600 for available busses

[Guest]

Sorry for the long post but it encompasses several things. I will number the questions to make it easier on both of us!

I am thinking of building a system with an Asus A7M266- (Although not sure who has them yet??) Saw Mushkin's site w/ DDR PC2100 (133FSB) for $164. It says CAS 2.5-2-2.

1. Is Mush-CAS 2.5-2-2 REALLY just CAS 2.5 (slower than CAS 2 but I can not find anyone who manufactures it yet anyway.)?

2. Do I need a NEW Athlon Tbird with the 133MHZ(266FSB) bus to use this PC2100 anyway? (These are not yet available that I have found on pricewatch.)

3. If I get a Tbird that is available NOW w/ 100mhz(200)FSB, and match the DDR PC1600MHZ to it I know the frequencies are matched and it will run good- but, will it run better (like Forrest Gump) with the PC2100, or, because the frequencies don't match, run like a gimp?

3.5. The PC 1600 for the 100MHZ(200) FSbus is about half the cost, at $64. Is it worth paying twice as much for PC2100 when I will not get twice the performance?

4. How does PC133 stack up with DDR PC1600?

So to get this straight...

4. Do I need to wait to find a vendor for the 266FSB Tbird to make use of the PC2100 DDR?

5. Are the 266FSB Tbirds only going to be available in 1.2GHZ?

6. I was thinking of overclocking a slower one (800, 850, 900??) Duron Vs. Tbird? Any clue on the better one to overclock, guys.

And finally,

7. Is it going to be worth the wait for someone to manufacture a CAS2 DDR PC2100 chip vs. Mushkin's CAS 2.5-2-2? Is it really that much faster?

8. The board I picked has AMD 760 chipset running a 133MHZ FSB, will it work with the 100FSB Athlons that are out now?

I have someone buying my old system in the next week or two so availability of componants is important. Any help is much appreciated!!

 

[Red_Zealot]

It looks like we are lusting over the same system. Here is what I have found:

You can get the Asus A7M266 from motherboard.com for about 175 dollars. According to AMD, you can put the 200 FSB with the 1600. DDR PC1600 is (almost) twice as fast as PC133, because PC266 is twice as fast as PC133, and PC266 is DDR PC2100. I would recommend holding off until you can get the 266 FSB is available on the 1.2 Tbird, but it looks like you can't wait, so just go with the matching stuff now. Save some money.
I would really like to see those 266 FSB's! If someone knows where you can get 'em....

Hope this helps.

 

[pvsurfer]

Red: ..."DDR PC1600 is (almost) twice as fast as PC133, because PC266 is twice as fast as PC133, and PC266 is DDR PC2100." ...come again???

 

[JOJO]

find some benchmarks before you say anything like that.

just because it says double data rate doesn't mean twice as fast.

just like ATA 100 drives can't transfer 100mb/s

pc1600 is not twice as fast, in fact, in some benchmarks, pc133 performs just as good.

although in many cases pc1600 is a little better.

If i were going to get ddr, i'd definitely get a stick of pc 2100 ram, maybe from mushkin or wait until crucial whips theirs out.

You can overclock the 100Mhz athlon's to 133 just fine. I've seen it done and it is reported that they have the same cores anyway.

I was in the same situation(" " that close to getting an A7M266), but i've decided to go with the kt7A raid board and run my processor bus at 133.

 

[pvsurfer]

Yeah, as I indicated above, Red's post didn't make sense. Most tests have shown that a DDR system with PC1600 results in very slight gain (if any) over a comparably equipt PC133 based system. And PC2100 is priced almost as high as RDRAM! At this point in time, a KT133A system makes the most sense, defintely providing the most bang for the buck.