The 150 MHz Project, Part 1

The Test System

We decided to overclock by 10-15% again, since this seems to be a slew which most components should tolerate. Our basic system is now running at 133 MHz FSB by default. Again there is the question whether to use a system based on i820 and RDRAM, or a platform using VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset. In my eyes Rambus systems are not particularly suited for overclocking due to the memory issue. i820 can only be faster using PC800 RDRAM, whose actual pricing is as high as low end computers. People who want to spend more money on their memory than others would spend for a CPU usually don't need to overclock their system.

VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset is a platform which is affordable and which should be quite widespread very soon.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Test System
CPUIntel Pentium III
MotherboardAsus P3V4X, Rev. 1.02BIOS 1003VIA 4in1 Drivers 4.17
RAM128 MB PC133 SDRAM, 7ns (Crucial/Micron) CL2
Hard DiskSeagate Barracuda ATA ST320430A,20 GBytes, 7200 rpm
Graphics CardAsus V6600, nVIDIA GeForce 25632 MByte SDRAMnVIDIA Drivers 5.08 for Windows 98 and Ver. 3.68 for Windows NT
Operating SystemsWindows 98 SE 4.10.2222 AWindows NT 4.0 SP6a
Benchmarks and Setup
Office Applications BenchmarkBAPCo SYSmark2000
OpenGL Game BenchmarkQuake III ArenaRetail Versioncommand line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0Graphics detail set to 'Normal', 640x480x16Benchmark using 'Q3DEMO1'
Direct3D Game BenchmarkExpendableDownloadable Demo Versioncommand line = -timedemo640x480x16
Screen Resolutions1024x768x85, 16 Bit
DirectX Version7.0