Athlon XP on KT133 mb

[Jogge]

Is anyone currently using a Athlon XP on a motherboard with the KT133 chipset? I'm planning on doing so but I would like to here comments from those already doing it.

 

[jlbigguy]

Why would you?

The XP is designed to run with a 133/266fsb. The KT133 chipses is 100/200, and cannot be clocked much above 110, if you are lucky.

So, the math is simple. You will take a 25% performance hit by running an XP with a KT133 chipset. Here is an example: A 1ghz Athlon designed for a 133/266fsb has a 7.5 multiplier. Placed in a 100/200 KT133 bases system, will only run at 750mhz (100*7.5).

Get a new motherboard as well.

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[Jogge]

Of course the math is simple, but let's turn it around. If I buy a new mb and a new processor it's going to cost me the double, and I'll also have to buy DDR ram wich cost even more. I'm right now mostly using my computer for random playing and converting divx to vcd. I convert atleast two movies and three series every week and with the SSE support in XP that's going to be a lot faster, even with a KT133 based system.

 

[Kelledin]

<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/" target="_new">Ace's Hardware</A> went over that a bit in their AthlonXP review.

Kelledin
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[jlbigguy]

I do not believe that the 25% performance hit with the KT133 chipset will be overcome by the use of SSE. Using an Athlon XP with a KT133 chipset is a waste of money, and is counter productive. But, my opinion only.....

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[phsstpok]

Ace's Hardware has <A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=45000207" target="_new">another article</A> which might change your opinion regarding the validity of using an Athlon XP with the KT133 chipset.

The article features a Morgan core Duron. Here is a an excerpt fromm the Video 2000, Mpeg-2 encoding results.

"
Morgan 1 GHz PC2100 38.09
Morgan 1.133 GHz 9 x 133 / PC133 32.1
Morgan 1 GHz 7.5 x 133 / PC133 31.05
Morgan 1 GHz 10 x 100 / PC133 30.4
Athlon TB 1 GHz PC2100 29.8
Morgan 1.15 GHz 11.5 x 100/PC133 29.34
Morgan 1.15 GHz 11.5 x 100/PC100 28.1
Athlon TB 1 GHz PC133 26.74
Morgan 850 8.5 x 100 / PC133 26
Morgan 850 8.5 x 100 / PC133 (Slow BIOS) 24.74
Duron 850 8.5 x 100 / PC133 22.73
Duron 850 8.5 x 100 / PC133 (Slow BIOS) 21.43
"

Notice how the Morgan at 10x100, (memory at 100+33mhz) with KT133A (but 100mhz FSB) handily beats a Tbird also at 10x100, memory 133mhz. Notice, even more interesting, the Morgan 10x100 edges out a 1ghz tbird (266) paired with KT266.

Another interesting thing is that the Morgan with the KT133A is on an Abit KT7A motherboard which at the time did not permit SSE to operate. The Morgan is able to outperform in this video benchmark seemingly due to the Morgan's <i>hardware prefetch capability</i>. (See the article it is very interesting reading).

Here is my point. Kelledin produced a link to an article that mentioned that it is possible to get the Athlon XP to run with the KT133. I linked to article that shows that a Morgan (without SSE enabled) with SDRAM outperforms (video encoding) an Athlon with SDRAM or with DDR, even clocked at 133mhz. If an Athlon XP can be made to work on Jogge's motherboard, especially if SSE can be enabled, (we have to wait and see) then clock for clock, the XP would be desirable over a Tbird and thus might make valid upgrade for Jogge's system.

For Jogge it wouldn't matter if a full upgrade to an Athlon XP and DDR might be better. The upgrade to the XP alone still should produce an increase in performance for Jogge's application, video encoding, (assuming VCD encoding gets similar benefits from the upgrade as the Video 2000 benchmark showed).


<b>We are all beta testers!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 11/23/01 04:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Jogge]

Finally someone who understands me. The only thing besides money that currently keeps me from buying an Athlon XP is the lack of multipliers above 12.5. What I would like to find is someone who has tried altering the default multipliers of an XP. How would an mb react on multipliers above 12.5 or 13? There has been Ahtlons with the multiplier 14 for a long time now, so why wouldn't it work on an XP? If someone is willing to try it out the setting can be found at http://www.oc-athlonxp.com/

 

[phsstpok]

<A HREF="http://www.oc-athlonxp.com/bridges/PaloDecode0.htm" target="_new">Here</A> is a link that seems to show how to change the XP mulipliers, up to 18.5x. However, it seems that the default bus speed cannot be changed on the XP. (At least that's the way I interpretted the article which is very confusing).

I don't know the speed which Ace's hardware managed to achieve on the MSI KT133 board. Obviously, it would not POST at 133mhz. So I'm curious what was achieved and how it was achieved.

I've been tempted to buy an XP 1500+ to play with my Abit KT7 but I don't want to be forced later to invest in a DDR rig at this time. I just want a little more performance than my duron provides so I might just pick up a cheaper Tbird for myself instead. I have not yet heard of anyone who has managed to get an XP to run on a KT7 nor of anyone who been able to activate SSE with the Morgan on the KT7. I have plenty of doubts for an Athlon XP/Abit KT7 combination.

What motherboard do you have?

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[jlbigguy]

What is missing is the comparison with the 7.5 x 100 configuration. Minus the 25%, and there is no advantage to the XP.

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[phsstpok]

What is missing is the comparison with the 7.5 x 100 configuration.

You're missing the point of the tests. It was a comparision of Duron (Morgan) vs Duron (Spitfire) with Athlon benchmarks thrown in for frame of reference. The test keyed in on CPU speeds, 850 mhz (Spitfire stock speed), 1000 mhz (Morgan stock speed), and 1.133 Ghz and 1.15 Ghz (Morgan overclocked speeds at both 100 mhz and 133 mhz FSB). 7.5x100 would be a meaningless underclock.

Minus the 25%, and there is no advantage to the XP.

I don't understand. What do you mean minus the 25% and no advantage.

"
Morgan 1 GHz 7.5 x 133 / PC133 <font color=green>31.05</font color=green>
Morgan 1 GHz 10 x 100 / PC133 <font color=green>30.4</font color=green>
Athlon TB 1 GHz PC133 <font color=red>26.74</font color=red> (7.5 x 133, see <A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=45000208" target="_new">article's test notes</A>)
"
With KT133A, the 1ghz Athlon loses to the 1ghz Morgan for MPEG-2 encoding.

The Morgan (even without SSE enabled) clearly looks better than the Athlon. You don't think the XP would outperform as well? Remember, the choice for Jogge is between XP or Tbird with KT133 (if XP can be made to work). DDR mobo is not part of the choice.


<b>We are all beta testers!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 11/24/01 02:56 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jlbigguy]

<font color=blue>"Morgan 1 GHz 7.5 x 133 / PC133 31.05"</font color=blue>

On a KT133 board, the Morgan would run at 7.5 x 100. If you are lucky, you might squeeze by with 110 on the fsb. Here is where you lose 25% of your performance. In my opinion, the cost of the new processor does not make up for the loss in performance due to the restrictions of the KT133 chipset.

So, taking the benchmarks into consideration, and subtracting 25% from the benchmark score, there would be no advantage to the XP running at 100mhz.

Now, are you talking about overclocking the XP? In that case, if you cannot afford a new motherboard and DDR memory, attempting to unlock the XP is a bit of risk to take, should something go wrong and you cannot afford to replace it.

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[phsstpok]

Now, I've got you. Thanks for clarifying.

Jogge was planning to unlock and re-clock an XP, for example, take an XP 1600+ and change the defaults from 10.5 x 133 to 14 x 100. <A HREF="http://www.oc-athlonxp.com/bridges/PaloDecode0.htm" target="_new">This link</A> certainly shows that changing the multiplier is possible but changing the default FSB is unlikely on an XP. So if Jogge just changes the multiplier, and hopes the KT133 uses its own default of 100mhz FSB, then this is risky because somewhere during POST the XP might be attempting to run at 14 x 133.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

SSE isn't recognized by the BIOS. Thats why that bored doesn't support the athlon XP. You would have no SSE and no thermal diode protection. Might as well just buy a t-bird really.

Go to the manufactures web site and see if they support the athlon xp first (read, if the bios will see this SSE). Or email them or call them would help. I might be wrong. I hope so. But from my understanding is that your BIOS has to see the instruction set for windows to pick up and use it.

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[Jogge]

Ok, this is the situation right now: It's possible to use an XP on MSI K7T Pro2A mb, wich uses the KT133 chipset, this has been proven by Ace's Hardware. The XP run fine at 12.5x107, if I remember correctly. I don´t believe that there should be any problems with the FSB, this is easy to test for anyone running an XP on a KT133A mb, just lower the FSB to 100 MHz and try starting it up. I don't belive it's going to hang only because it gets an lower FSB than what's default. The problem is getting those multipliers above 12.5 working. It would be a superb upgrade for every old Duron or Athlon system if you could plug in an Ahtlon XP at 16x100. I belive that that's going to be a lot faster than your old 1 GHz Athlon. This would open up an upgrade path similar to the one provided by the Tualatin adapter from Powerleap for the old BX motherboards.

 

[Ncogneto]

On a KT133 board, the Morgan would run at 7.5 x 100. If you are lucky, you might squeeze by with 110 on the fsb. Here is where you lose 25% of your performance. In my opinion, the cost of the new processor does not make up for the loss in performance due to the restrictions of the KT133 chipset.

First off you are wrong if your are assuming the morgan core duron to run a 133 fsb by default.....it doesn't! It uses a 100 fsb as its older sibling the spitfire duron. This also makes it feasable for motherboard manufactoreres to enable SSE support on their older boards as well. Whether or not they choose to do so will depend on the actual manufactorer but is very feasable.

Now, if they choose to enable SSE with these older boards, there is no reason why the xp will not work with SSE as well.

So, taking the benchmarks into consideration, and subtracting 25% from the benchmark score, there would be no advantage to the XP running at 100mhz.

This is also incorrect. Hardware prefetch and SSE need to be considerd. A 25% reduction is only if run at CPU defaults without taking multiplier adjustments into cosideration. Even if he chooses to run at this reduced clock rate he still has a cpu he can use later if and when he does decide to upgrade his motherboard, whereas a 100 fsb cpu might be a different story altogether.



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[peteb]

Proving it works on a KT133A board is not good logic to base assumptions on KT133 compatability.

Since KT133A support 133FSB it makes sense to recognise AthlonXPs and enable SSE, same as it would to recognise 100FSB Morgans on both chipsets. The mobo manufacturer _may_ not code any sopport for AthlonXP into a KT133 board BIOS since the chip is never designed to run in it.

Sure the thing may boot and run, but if it doesn't recognise and enable SSE, then go for the t-bird as someone suggested. I doubt that the mobo would know what to do with a 16x multiplier even if the chip asked for it.

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[phsstpok]

Looks like I didn't read enough of <A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=45000225" target="_new">Ace's upgrade article</A>.

Here's the MPEG-2 encoding benchmark results.

"
Duron 850 (KT133) 22.9
Duron 850 (KT266A) 24.5
<font color=purple><b>Athlon 1.4 GHz (14x100/KT133) 29.7
Athlon XP 1360 MHz (1500+/KT133) 44.3</b></font color=purple>
Athlon 1533 MHz (KT266A) 37
Athlon XP 1533 MHz (KT266A) 51.4
Athlon XP 1530 MHz (10x153/KT266A) 52.7
Athlon XP 1600 MHz (KT266A) 53.6
Athlon XP 1632 MHz (KT266A) 54.03"

Notice how the Athlon XP at 1360 mhz scores 50% better than an Athlon 1.4 at 1400mhz, both on the MSI K7T Pro2A, KT133 motherboard.
According to the comments, the performance boost is due hardware prefetch and fully functional SSE.

Seems the only limitation of the KT133 that Ace's hardware encountered is the 13x multiplier restriction.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[phsstpok]

Is anyone currently using a Athlon XP on a motherboard with the KT133 chipset? I'm planning on doing so but I would like to here comments from those already doing it.

In light of the Ace's Hardware articles which shows an XP running on a MSI K7T Pro2A (KT133), I'd like to know if anyone has managed to get an Athlon XP to run on an Abit KT7. I know the XP's are supported by the KT7A rev. 1.3 and also work (if not supported) on the earlier versions of that board but I haven't heard of anyone even trying it on the KT7. I'm hopeful because the KT7A (rev. 1.2 and earlier) and the KT7 use the same BIOS.



<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Ncogneto]

Any kt-133 chipset board can run either a athlon xp or a morgan core duron processor. How cost effective this might be is dependent on the quality of the Maker of the board and how well they are at updating there bios's. The Morgan duron and the xp are both palimino core processors. If you have a bios that would enable SSE for the morgan duron it will also enable it for the xp athlon. You are however limited to a 14x multiplier to my knowledge on any kt133 board. Whether or not the board properly idents the xp processor is merely a cosmetic issue.

<A HREF="http://www.msi.com.tw/products/mainboard/mainboard.php?model=MS-6330LE+V1.0" target="_new">http://www.msi.com.tw/products/mainboard/mainboard.php?model=MS-6330LE+V1.0</A>

This is one of the first kt133 boards for the socket a athlon made by MSI. If you look you can see the latest bios revisions do in fact even ident the xp processor. From this one can ascertain that the chipset itself would have no problem at all running the processor, but the degree of functionality would be solely dependent on how current your bios is.


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[Jogge]

Ncogneto, why would I be limited to a 14x multiplier? Is it something in the chipset that prevents higher multipliers? I doubt that AMD initially even had any plans of using multipliers as high as 14 on the KT133 as it seems like some boards have problems with it. The 14x multiplier is also of the same group of multipliers that range all the way up to 18x. So if 14x works, why wouldn't 15x? Oh, if I only had the money to buy an XP right away and start trying it out. I hope someone else has...

 

[jlbigguy]

You miss the point. If you have limited finances, upgrading a KT133 based system to an Athlon XP is a waste of money. Without overclocking, the system will most certainly be slower (even with prefetch and SSE).

Why buy an XP now in anticipation of a new motherboard later? Another poor decision. When he does finally buy a new motherboard (a couple of months from now), the XP will drop significantly in price.

Best off to wait on the XP until he can afford a new motherboard and memory as well.

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[phsstpok]

You are the one that is missing the point. Didn't you even look at the links?

Ace's Hardware ran an Athlon XP 1800+ on a KT133 motherboard and underclocked it to 1360, 13 x 107. You might argue that at 107mhz they are overclocking the KT133's bus but if you take a 1500, normally at 10 x 133, and run it at 13x100 you are not overclocking. It's the same as taking an Athlon C 1.4 and running it at 14x100 instead of 10.5x133. It's still not overclocked.

In Jogge's type of application the XP at 1360, 13x107 outperforms the Tbird 1.4 at 14x100 by a whopping 50%.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Jogge]

Isn't there anyone out there that would like to try upgrading his/her system with an Athlon XP? Anyone who has an old Duron machine as secondary PC could plug his XP in to the old mb and try it out. That would already be of great help, just knowing that it works. Of course it takes a lot of courage to start cutting bridges on the processor when many already have problems with joining them.

 

[phsstpok]

I'm considering it but I'm on a tight budget as well.

There are also known issues with the Abit boards. The KT7A supports the XP but only the 1.3 Rev. The earlier revisions seem to be capable of running the XP but with startup problems, timing issues which make booting difficult. Some people have posted messages saying they can't get the combination to work at all. I haven't heard anything of attempts with the KT7 so I have been hesitant. I really don't do much that would benefit greatly from SSE, (although hardware prefetch seems to be worth a 10-15% general performance gain). So I am looking at the choice of an Athlon XP 1500 for $109 (which might not work at all) or an Athlon Tbird which will work (The 1.4 is about $108). I also have the option of going with just a Tbird 1.0 which should easily overclock to 1.3 (or higher) for short money, about $78.

I don't need to do anything now. So I will wait and see if the XP's come down further in price and to see if anyone gets one to work on a KT7.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Ncogneto]

Best off to wait on the XP until he can afford a new motherboard and memory as well.

BAH......Silly logic! If what he has now is not fast enough for him than it very well may be worth it. By your logic one should not buy new furniture until they can afford a new house as well.


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