fastest cpu +mobo w/ pc133 sdram

[terazzi]

what is the fastest cpu + motherboard I can buy using PC133 sdram memory 256m. I have 4 dimms of this memory and I would rather not let it go to waste. I dont have alot of cash either so I want to put it all into the fastest cpu and best motherboard I can use with this type of memory. Thank you.

 

[Crashman]

A BX chipset board with a PIII 1400 would work well with it. That's about equal to an XP1600+. I wouldn't recommend ANY AMD board that used PC133 as that was a bad period for AMD chipsets.

I ran a Tualatin Celeron 1100@1466/133 on my P3B-F and get excellent performance.

If you want I'll sell you the board, adapter, and CPU.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

Worry not young grasshopper, VIA made an excellent chipset, called the KT133A.

I have had EXCELLENT luck and performance (did better with DURON 1300 on KT7E [OC'd to 1430 by FSB) than some P4 1.6 machines). I would, seriously, consider using a KT7A motherboard. That platform operated PC133 RAM more efficiantly and faster than any other PC133 based chipset out there. I again highly recommend that motherboard.

Things not to do with the board:

No CREATIVE sound cards, only problems (one admited downside of board, but who likes CREATIVE anyway?)

Things to do with the board:

Install only VIA 4in1 version 4.38, any higher and it isn't supported and it don't work. WinXP installs wrong drivers for it, so you must download 4.38 and all will be fine.

Use decent RAM, this board overclocks VERY easily and good.

Drop an AXP1700 T-Bred 'B' (47 bucks at newegg.com) in it, and overclock the bejesus out of it.

With all that, you get a pretty darn good computer with PC133 RAM. Don't be afraid, go on eBay and get a A-Bit KT7A board for like 30 bucks, and use and abuse the thing. (It takes abuse, you should see me work on it....)

The whole thing will cost you like 70 bucks for CPU + MOBO.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Skligmund on 05/24/03 03:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Unfortunately, I've used KT133A boards as well.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

Bad luck you having? Cause I had none, got mine new about 3 years ago, nothing wrong with my setup. No problems, no glitches, never any hardware issues, everything still works great. Gonna build a computer for dad with it, except it wont be overclocked.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>

 

[Crashman]

The chipset has trouble with several audio cards from that time period, not just the Live but a few other Creative cards, as well as the Turtle Beach Montego II, Diamond MX300, and Aureal SQ2500. It also had problems with IRQ sharing.

And it had the same memory performance as their Apollo Pro 133, because it had the same memory controller. Now, the Apollo Pro 133's claim to glory was that it was faster than the sucky i820 chipset. But it was still slower than the i815 series, and the i815 was slower than the BX!

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

Hmmm, although it is just benchmarking (how else do you figure out which RAM is faster?) take a look ar SiSoft SANDRA's reference memory benchmarks. The VIA KT133 chipset with PC133 RAM was over 250 MB/s faster (25%) than the 815. YOu say 'yeah, but that is just reference marks.' But I say 'Yeah, and every benchmark on every system that was not overclocked somehow came out to be the same as the reference mark.'

Also, the KT133 (not KM133 or the dated Apollo Pro 133) chipset was indeed faster.

And although it does not benchmark the BX with the PC133 RAM, it does PC100 RAM, and the KT133 Chipset with PC100 RAM was still faster than the BX with PC100 RAM.

Like I said, I know it is just benchmarks, but how else do you compare chipset/RAM performance?

So show me how you get the i815 and the BX faster than KT133. Not Apollo anything, KT133.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>

 

[Crashman]

I get that from the reasoning that VIA was supposedly using the same memory controller in the KT133 as the Apollo Pro, and that the Apollo Pro offered lower performance than the i815.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

O.K.

I'm not sure if that is true or not, but there does seem to be a performance difference etween the two. What was the Apollo Pro offered on?

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>

 

[Crashman]

Probably the best Apollo Pro 133 board was the Asus CUV4X.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

Check this out, it is a comparison of most chipsets with PC133 RAM, it describes large differences between the Apollo133 and the KT133. On the bottom of the page, you can look at other chipsets including 815 ect. Pretty cool site, read a few pages, might be worth your time.
<A HREF="http://www.baznet.freeserve.co.uk/PC133-KT133-page1.htm" target="_new">http://www.baznet.freeserve.co.uk/PC133-KT133-page1.htm</A>

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>

 

[Crashman]

Looks like it says the memory bus between the Apollo Pro 133 and the KT133A are pretty much the same, the only advantage is that the AMD CPU bus allows simultanious reads and writes. This would make sense because AMD uses a DDR bus for the CPU.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[skligmund]

And it does bencmark a bit faster too.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>