Awall

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I have an old system that I am trying to extend the life out of whilst I build a new one. I have a P3 850 on an Abit Be62 mb with 256mb Ram (Sec2). When I picked up my old ram I just blindly went with someone's suggestion, but this time I want to better understand all the secs so I can get the best ram for my system.

Does anyone know of a good site that will translate the specs of ram?

Adam
 

folken

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If you want the best ram for that thing buy some Crucial PC100 CL2 SDRAM. That is as good as you can get as far as SDRAM goes.
There is a wizard on the <A HREF="http://www.crucial.com" target="_new">Crucial</A> website that will make sure you get the right ram for your board.

I believe you can find out all about those numbers in crucials faq or by doing a quick google search for ram timmings or just search this forum.

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Crashman

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You should get the 256MB PC133 Cas2 modules from Crucial, Part number CT32M64SD7E. If you go to Cruical's site you'll see that module listed for most BX chipset performance boards, including yours.

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Crashman

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No, you have no idea. PC133 better. His board supports bus speeds up to 150MHz by overclocking. PC100 is usually relabled PC133, often it's PC133 rejects, and most companies actually charge MORE for PC100 that's really just PC133 rejects.

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Crashman

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BTW, I had one of those boards with 3 256MB PC133 modules (768MB total) and a Tualatin Celeron 1100 at 1466MHz (overclocked with 133 bus and 1.65v core) using the $20 Upgradeware Slot-T adapter.

Your real limitation is density, your board only supports at most 16MB per memory chip, which allows for 256MB max on 16-chip modules (8 chips on each side). NONE of the modern RAM (designs released over the past 3 years) will work on your board, but Crucial still offers the older modules I recommended.

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folken

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I've never bothered to OC a PIII so I'm used to just buying what it is made for. All my servers run dual PIIIs and all of em are maxed out w/ PC100 Crucual. They still charge so much for PC133 it isn't worth it.

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Crashman

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Uh, d00d, you're backwards, most companies charge more for PC100 than PC133. That means if a module fails PC133 testing and passes PC100 testing, they relable the defective module as PC100 and charge more for it. Why would anyone want to pay more for PC100?

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Crashman

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Oh, BTW, I forget to tell you the REASON PC100 usually cost more than PC133: A lot of people don't know it's the same thing these days, and opt for PC100 because that's what their board "officially" supports.

His board would support the PIII-S 1.4GHz CPU using a Slot-T adapter, but only if he used PC133. The board would be 100% stable in this configuration, but the AGP slot would be overclocked. This isn't a problem for most cards from the 2001-2002 erra.

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folken

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I don't really keep track (obviously) of older stuff, I guess I should but I really don't care enough to. I just pilage around for old crap and mess w/ linux on em. I guess I'm scoring more than I think when ppl dump those old crucial PC100 modules on me...
All my servers have 2gb of it, lol. Good ol dual PIII xeon machines, one mans trash is another mans web server, email server, and storage server :)

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Crashman

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Of course I was speaking of new retail prices, not used scrap prices. I get a lot more PC100 than PC133 used myself.

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BrentUnitedMem

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That's retarded! PC-100 costing more than PC-133?

I can't speak for retailers, but I know that in the wholesale market that PC-100 is almost always lower in cost than PC-133. In many cases these days, PC-133 is sold as PC-133/100.

In most cases PC-133 will work in a PC-100 system, with a few exceptions comming from older boards which need to use 16M or 8M chips at PC-100 CL2, as opposed to the relatively newer 32M chips which are usually programmed to CL3. Of course CL2 is more valuable, might explain the price difference. But for PC-100 and PC-133 at the same latency, PC-100 is almost always lower in price (wholesale market).
 

Awall

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MMM. That's something to consider. I always heard that Abit boards where great for overclocking, but have never experimented with it. "Overclocking the APG slot, not being a problem with older cards", but what about the Radeon 9800 which is what I think I am using rightnow. Its funny once I get the card installed I can never remember exactly what I bought.
 

Crashman

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PC100 is often sold as a specialty item. As for the exceptions to PC133, 16M chips are available in PC133 as well. Crucial sells PC133 modules that work in chipsets as old as the Pentium 1 TX.

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Crashman

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Running a Radeon 9800 Pro with the AGP clocked to 89MHz (compared to stock 66MHz) could be problematic, yes. Most 2-3 year old cards (and many 4 year old cards) could do it (perhaps they were designed with this in mind), while most newer cards can't.

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