posted 12-18- 01:32 PM               

- When I went from a TNT to TNT2 Ultra I did not get a big increase in frame rate under SDOE, I'm hoping this means the bottleneck is the CPU/FPU.

- the Athlon has much better floating point scores than the p3 and K6. The AMDK6 chips have poor FPU scores and it causes speed problems in SDOE.

- The pentium 3 is not overclockable, the athlon IS overclockable with a 3rd party connector that clips on the chip. Tom's Harware Guide (www.tomshardware.com) was able to easily overclock a 650 athlon to 750.

- Spanky is right, it may make more sense to go with the athlon 550 and overclock. If I'm laying out $800-$1000 Cdn I want some guaruntee I am going to get at least 600 out of it though.

- To go from a P2 to an athlon setup you can keep the same case and memory, but you need a new motherboard and of course CPU.

- The athlons suck power. They are reccomending 300 watt power supplies which means a new power supply for sure.

- Many of the Athlon motherboards are not overclockable, if in doubt get the Asus one they definitely are.

- The cost of a new mobo, cpu and power supply mean that it does not make sense for me to upgrade from a p2-450 for the speed increase I'll get. I'm going to wait a month for the price war between AMD and Intel to heat up. In the not too distant future my PC will have a sticker saying "Intel OUTside" : )

TS

posted 12-18- 03:04 PM               

"Only two of the Athlon motherboards offer any type of over-clocking options. The MSI motherboard offers the ability to set the front side bus (FSB) to either 100MHz or 133MHz. Besides the fact that the AMD Northbridge doesn't support a 133MHz speed this setting is pretty useless unless you find it likely that for example a 500MHz Athlon processor (best case scenario) can handle a 165MHz frequency increase without the aid of super cooling technology. "

Take a look at these FPU numbers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/99q3/990823/performance-06.html

posted 12-18- 03:09 PM               

Hi man I was thinking a athlon 500 OCed to 650 or so. The place i buy from has the 500 at $337 and the 550 at $433. I'm not sure if I would spend that extra $100 on 50 mhz. Specially if it will OC to the same speed. More research is probly in order though. That extra $100 could go for a Hi quality power supply. To people that don't understand why you need a better power supply its cause the athlon sucks back the juice since its so damn good at #crunching. You could probly run on somthing less but it won't be as stable. One other thing to think about is the extra power some of the new vid card use, all that extra heat they produce is cause of the extra power going into them.

Is I already stated before I am thinking of going with an athlon and I also think the cpu is my bottle neck, I hit 60s and sometimes up to 90-100, I don't think my p2 266 can keep up with my banshee and i don't think the voodoo 3 would give me much more FPS.

Since you are getting a new powersupply you might want to look at a new case unless your really happy with your current one. Sometimes a new PS is almost as much at a case ( I know you know that tail, just letting the rest know that don't)

I would also wait until the spring or late winter, you probly do fine with what you have now.

I love the fact that someone is doing some research behind his purchase instead of the ussuall "i'm buying a p3 500 or a voodoo 3 3000" without taking into account the rest of there system and the changes it will give them.

BTW what kind of ram are you using ? pc100?

I'm buying only pc133 from now on, so it lasts longer before another ram upgrade and so i can overclock more reliably. For those that don't know the pc100 and pc133 ram is just certified to run that fast, you can run it slower. Just like i am running, 1 32meg pc66 and one 64meg pc100.

posted 12-18- 03:14 PM               

Yeah guys even though it won't go to 133 right now. You should still buy 133 ram with the future in mind. If the price difference isn't too much. Its $15 here.

even thought it uses a 200mhz FSB you don't use 200mhz ram it runs data on the rising and falling side of the data wave as far as i know. Read more on toms page for that. he explains it much better then i can.

posted 12-18- 03:24 PM               

I like my case.. full size tower with two fans, slide out mobo tray, slide off side panels, 9 drive bays and a removable hard drive setup. Just needs that 235W power supply updated to 300W.

posted 12-18- 03:35 PM               

Yep that all makes sence, your case sounds good so i would also keep it. How much is that 300watt? if you can get a bigger one for just a little more, I would cause it will last longer.

I hear ya about the price diff but now its 64pc100 $129 and 64pc133 for $147. Its actually down to $122 for 64pc100 cause thats what we just payed.

posted 12-18- 03:39 PM               

About that i'm pretty sure i remember tom saying he seen some 500s that were just marked that way but were actually 650s i wouldn't call it a crap shoot. the yeilds are getting better and they will get even better the longer you wait it all depends on what you have now and what you will have after

i don't have the money for even a 550 so i will go 500 to me even running at 500 with rock

for you it may be better to wait a little more . all depends on how rich you are

posted 12-18- 05:44 PM               

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Cheers
Kat out

[This message has been edited by Katana (edited 12-18-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Katana (edited 12-18-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Katana (edited 12-18-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Katana (edited 12-18-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Katana (edited 12-18-1999).]

posted 12-18- 06:20 PM               

Not sure what you mean about Tom not knowing about Athlon's.. have you seen their article "Make Your Own Athlon Overclocking Device"?
http://www5.tomshardware.com/cpu/99q4/991113/index.html

They really know their stuff. I'll check out those overclocking sites tho.

posted 12-18- 06:39 PM               

Kat i don't know where you got your info on Athlon boards not being standard.

right from ASUS

The K7M is based on AMDŽ AMD-751 chipset with ATX form factor for the latest support in AMD AthlonTM 500~750+MHz (K7) processors. Such new chipset is the first of the kind to incorporate with 200MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) in the x86 platforms.

It does sound like he has a nice case already

posted 12-18- 06:46 PM               

http://www.outsideloop.com/afterburner.htm

posted 12-18- 06:53 PM               

Yeah they might not have a tech back ground but i still know my shit, and i haven't taken a computer course in 10 years back in high school. I also don't put alot if thought into my spelling and grammer but i'm still a smart guy. When your researching this kind of stuff its nice to look at a wide range of site just to see if a couple agree on some points.

posted 12-18- 07:08 PM               

Get Hooked up with new gun sound that really whoop ass: http://tailslide.firelight.dynip.com/?page=http://tailslide.firelight.dynip.com/sdoe.asp

posted 12-18- 07:17 PM               

Looks like we are just talking to each other tail. Come on guys no other opinions? where is the die hard Intel fans?

posted 12-18- 09:00 PM               

I'm running my new Athlon 600 right now on the ASUS mother board - standard ATX case - 235 watt power supply, 128 megs PC100 memory - 20 gig IBM ata 66 hard drive. Oh, Elsa Erazor III TNT2 card, Sound-blaster live!, 56K PCI modem, Logitech wingman force joystick.

Whew! What a fast set-up!

I have 128 megs of 133 memory on the way to aid in over-clocking - I plan to go to 650.

I will report on how well SDOE does and stuff - I'm heading on-line now

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!