Help on amd

[Guest]

I would like some views on which Duron or T/Bird is the best to put in my new pc.I am looking to o/c and am thinking of getting a Abit KT7a m/b.Any help would be appreciated

 

[JustPlainJef]

These should be close, but aren't exact. This is what I believe you are looking at:
Duron 800 - $61 - Should go to about 1000 Aircooled.
TBird900 - $121 - Should go to about 1100 Aircooled, more Cache.
TBird1GHz "C" - $188 - Should go to about 1.3 or 1.4 with 133MHz FSB, possibly 150MHz bus.

Any other thoughts? Is this about what everyone else has seen?

What's a signature? Oh, those words that show up after all my comments? I don't need one of those!

 

[Guest]

I've had really good luck with my T-Bird 750. Can hit 1G stable, but I usually run it at stock speed as it performs well for me there. I am using the KT7RAID MB and like it a lot, although I have been a bit dissapointed in the disk performance (I do not have RAID implemented). I have heard that 800's do not OC well, but since I have not worked with one, it's a rumor from my perspective.

Mike

 

[jlbigguy]

Mpcmike,

Are you using the ATA-100 controller?

I bought the KT7-RAID because I wanted the ATA-100 interface. The VIA ATA-66 interface is slow and does not live up to its claims. Moving my disk drives from IDE1 to IDE3 gave me a 35% boost in disk performance (non RAID mode).

 

[Nikko]

I've had very good luck with the KT7A. Very good overclocking board. Still, for the best combination of speed and quality/stability I would recommend the Asus A7V133 over the KT7A. Throw a cheap Duron 800 on there and you've got a great system for very little money.

 

[Guest]

Without any indication of what your budget is, it is not easy to make recommendations, otherwise the obvious reply is "stick in a 1.2 GHhz T'bird".

 

[phsstpok]

The Duron provides the most bang for the buck. However, there are limits to the Duron's performance, even overclocked.

Here is a link to a good article which compares the Duron and the Tbird, clock for clock. The article describes the benefits of overclocking both processors. In the end, the article shows that only an 800 mhz Tbird will match the performance of a Duron overclocked as far as 950 mhz. What this means is that you could simply purchase and 800 mhz Tbird and not have to worry about the expense of premium heatsinks and case cooling. Neither do you have to worry about heat and potential (I say potential) instability due to overclocking and you still get the same level of performance. The other conclusion that can be drawn is that if you purchase a 900 mhz Tbird (or faster) you will be buying a higher level of performance than you are likely to get with an overclocked Duron. Plus, you can still overclock the Tbird if you wish.

Here is the link to the article:

<A HREF="http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2000q4/athlon-vs-duron/" target="_new">http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2000q4/athlon-vs-duron/</A>

By the way, you'll have to ignore the price/performance charts as the article is old and CPU pricing has changed quite a bit since it was written.

Phsstpok

Duron 600 @950mhz (1007 mhz for demanding games).
KT7 mobo
OCZ Enhanced PC-133 memory.
VisionTek Geforce256 SDR @135/185 (150/210 during demanding tasks)
Maxtor DiamondMax VL 40 Hard Drive
misc old hardware


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 03/13/01 10:28 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice everyone.I think I'll go with a t/bird 900 and check the difference between the abit and asus boards

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response J. I think it's a 100, but I'll have to check on that. Did they make the KT7 RAID MB in a 66 version? As for moving the drive to IDE3, can you elaborate a little on why that made a diff? I do not have the Highpoint controller enabled yet, but am considering adding another drive....They're so CHEAP!

 

[jlbigguy]

The KT7-RAID has 2 ATA-66 controllers (IDE1 and IDE2). IDE3 and IDE4 are the Hotpoint RAID controllers, and they can be used as ATA-100 without RAID.

The KT7A-RAID has ATA-100 support on all four IDE ports.

According to reviews at THG, the 686A by VIA (used in the KT7-RAID)only runs as fast as ATA-33, though it supposed to be ATA-66.

The KT7-RAID does have ATA-100, but only the Hotpoint controllers support this, which are IDE3 and IDE4. Moving my drives from IDE1 to IDE3 (after installing the drivers and enabling the BIOS), I saw a 35% speed increase.

 

[Guest]

Thanks a LOT for the help. This has been bugging me for a while. I'll make the switch this weekend! When you changed from 1 to 3, did you have to tell the system to look for a device on IDE3 in the BIOS?

 

[jlbigguy]

Yes you do. First, install the Hotpoint drivers. Follow the directions in the KT7 manual. Be sure to reboot and load Windows again before the next steps.

Then, power down, and move the cable to IDE3. Power up, enter the BIOS, under standard CMOS features, set the primary slave and master to NONE.

Under Advanced BIOS features, make the first boot device ATA-100. Enable the "boot other device".

Under Integrated Peripherals, enable the ATA-100 interface.

Save and restart.

After POST, the Hotpoint screen is displayed. Press CTRL-H to enter the hotpoint BIOS. It will show you the drives attached, and allow you to select the desired boot drive.

That should be it.