posted 02-03- 02:35 PM               

S!

~WWKahuna (Red Baron 3D)
Big Kahuna (SDOE)

posted 02-03- 02:40 PM            

That said, it's my understanding that MHz for MHz the AMD line gives you more bang for your buck.

Werner

posted 02-04- 03:19 AM               

As far as the "special features" of the P3, he's talking about the SSE instruction set. If you have patience AMD will be releasing a Thunderbird with SSE support in the spring.

Stability is more a factor of the motherboard and memory than the CPU. MB- gigabyte, Asus, Biostar, ABit, are all good boards. Get Micron memory from crucial.com, they sell it as cheap as most places sell generic memory.

Werner- go slap some sense into Oleg. AMD is killing the P3 in sales, he's trying to release a great product yet he's willing to cripple the sales by saying a pentium is recommended. AMD has owned the sub $1000 PC market since the first quarter of LAST year, and as of the end of the 3rd quarter they were bumping the P3 out of the top spot for the $1000-$1500 range.

Cripes, don't any software developers pay attention to the marketplace?

posted 02-04- 01:56 PM               

If I buy PC133 memory in a new system what CPU and board should I get to support it?

posted 02-04- 10:06 PM               

1. PC133 runs at 133MHZ as long as the Chipset on the board supports it and the CPU supports it. AMD, VIA and ALi all make 133 MHz chipsets for the Thunderbird.

2. Don't buy an Athlon, Buy a Thunderbird. Don't buy a Slot A motherboard, buy a Socket A board. For a P3, don't buy a slot1 buy a socket 370 board.

3. Next, you need to make sure you get a CPU that has a 133MHZ FSB. For example, the 800MHZ P3 has two models, a 100MHZ and a 133MHZ FSB version. I think all Thunderbirds support a 133MHZ FSB.

4. DDR- this requires DDR ram and a DDR motherboard. Your only real option for a CPU is a Thunderbird. The designations are different from SDRAM but basically 200MHZ DDR ram is actually 100MHZ ram that allows read/writes on both the rising and falling edges of the clock pulse. Standard ram only works on the rising edge of the clock pulse. it's the same theory for 266MHZ DDR.

There are still some issues with the drivers on the DDR motherboards so they don't give much of a performance increase over the 133MHZ FSB boards (Yet).

If you current computer works well, I'd wait 2-3 more months. By then the driver issues on the DDR boards will have been settled, the price on the DDR MB's and ram will have fallen. The SSE enabled AMD chips should (can't say will) be out. You'll have more money saved for your system, and the video card prices will have dropped further.

Between now and then you could get any of the following items you may need:
Hard drives, floppy drives, CD-Rom drives, keyboard, mouse, monitor, modem, and sound card.

One of the reasons for the slump in PC sales is those that want newer hardware know the technology will step to a new level in the next 3 months. By the end of a year, DDR ram will be cheaper than SDRam. So next year it will cost more to add memory to a sytem using SDRam than DDR memory.

posted 02-05- 11:55 PM               

Note though- you can't use a Voodoo5 with this MB. The Voodoo5 is so long it covers the IDE connectors.

If you can- order the memory from crucial.com

You can get a 128 MB stick of pc133 for $61.19, or a 256MB stick for $119 ! Shipping is FREE in the US. This is Micron memory, NOT some generic brand. This is also memory with a latency of 2 not 3 and it does make a difference. This memory is certified for the speed listed.
here's the link http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?model=A7V&x=20&y=13

------------------
"Where'd he GO!?!?"
thunk-thunk-thunk-zing-OUCH
That answered my question