How much is PC133 holding back my Athlon 1800+?

[Guest]

I've got 2 PC's, both with KT7A motherboard v 1.2 - PC133 memory.

a) 1 PC has an Athlon Tbird @ 1Ghz,
b) 1 PC has an Athlon XP @ 1800+ (works fine in KT7a 1.2!)

I've got lots of SDRAM - CAS 3 - 384Mb in (a) and 512Mb in (b).

I'm considering buying another Athlon XP 1800+ or similar, and maybe pushing both RAMs up to 512 or 768Mb.

I do quite a bit of CPU / memory intensive work - 3d rendering in Maya, etc. Also some gameplay.

How much is the PC133 holding me back (with the Athlon XP1800, I mean). 5%? 10%? 20%? Should I jump ship to DDR a.s.a.p.? Or just upgrade with a bit more, and forget DDR until I next really need a mobo? Then I could spend a bit more on a hard disk or something.

Perhaps THG could take note, as well as comparing with modern equivalents with your benchmarks, it would be good if you also tested against old models, e.g. DDR333 vs DDR266, but include PC133 and PC100 for comparison.

Thanks
Will Smith

 

[AMD_Man]

You'll lose ~25% performance compared to a KT333 with DDR333.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[eden]

DDR absolutly. You need the extra bandwidth for these programs, and it boosts your overall performance in almost everything.

--
I can't beleive Dungeon Siege has a pitchfork weapon called "Hoe"! :lol:

 

[lhgpoobaa]

sdram is a limiting factor with higher end processors, less so with the older durons and tbirds.

since upgrading from a kt133a to a kt333 ive found anything that uses memory alot gets a significant boost.

especially things like divx encoding (17fsp to 20) rendering or games.



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