Upgrade my 750 tbird@950 to a 200 mhz 1400??

[Stevepb]

Hiya all,

Ive got a MSI K7T pro2a, which is a KT133 board(=200 mhz cpu bus)

I was thinking about upgrading my whole system, but heck, I could just put a 1400 in and be done with it for less $ and headaches.

Is a 1400/200 system that much slower than a 1400/266 by comparisson?

I do some home brewed video encoding, so I'm sure i'd notice close to a 50 % improvement in that regard. All my games run fine at 950, so it's not necessary for me to have the fastest.

Make me feel good about just getting the processor and avoid a system change till the next generation of Faaasst cpu's come out

Thanks!

Steve

[Rhino]

If ANYTHING, I would upgrade the mobo and RAM and nothing else. Pick up one of those ECS mobos for $60 that uses that SIS 735 chipset, and get a stick of DDR RAM for a little over $100.

I would do that before the cpu. Just my advice.

[storm2k]

ddr ram is a must. the performance jump is good. you shouldn't have too much of a problem with running on the 200 mhz bus, as long as you don't care about top of the line performance. the chip's boost alone should speed up your video encoding.

[Rhino]

Actually I didnt think of that. Those ECS boards don't have multiplier adjustments, so you probably couldnt force your 200 to run 266 and lower the multiplier.

But all said, get a 266 fsb with DDR and a faster chipset would be more advisable than just more mhz.

[Stevepb]

I mean, what I want is the best bang for the buck, with less headaches.

Would my 950 running DDR on a 266 mobo actually be faster than a 1400 @ 200 bus? Actually my 200 mhz mobo runs fine up to 214(107x2), which would put a 1400 at close to 1500, for 120 bucks. If I went the other route i'd spend $160, get a mobo with no mulitplier support/ddr and 950 mhz .

I was keeping close track of the DDR debate a few months ago (I know months are like years with comps) But, from what I remember DDR was more hype than anything giving only a 7-10% increase in system speed in the best situation, with a 266 bus giving the same type of advantage.

Maybe what I'm hearing is a 1400-1500 cpu is bottleneck by the 200(214 bus)?? but so much of a bottleneck that a 950+ddr+266 would be faster(and more $$)??

By my figures, my cpu with DDR and a 266 bus would boost performance to 1100/200/SDR levels. ..maybe

Still seems like 1500 would be faster...and cheaper. Anyone else out there upgrade their aging KT133 mobo with a 1400, or 1300? I used to go for ultimate speed, but wound up getting the latest and greatest every 6 months. I want to actually see 1 year out of the same mobo for a change .

Thanks for the comments,

Steve

[Rhino]

I guess this will be the last comment I make about it, as you seem to only want assurance to get the 1400 chip. But you say you want to do home video encoding. I figured that memory bandwidth would help that more than mhz. Also, a faster hard drive would help too. 7200 rpm, ATA 100. ECS mobos are only $60, and you can get a stick of DDR for $50.

Also, hitting 217 fsb is fine and dandy, but with a SIS 735, KT266a, or even AMD 760 chipset, you can support Athlon XP's and the like for the future, when they hit 2 gig +. Unless you want to hold out for a Hammer eventually, or go for a P4 at sometime, I think that gaining 450 mhz is a poor investment when you could gain the performance back in other areas that would also allow you for future upgradability.

**Edit:
Was also going to mention this. I once compared video encoding to VCD compliant. First system was with a CLassic Athlon @ 950 w/ 256 mb PC133, 5400 rpm HDD, second was a Duron @ 933 @ 266 FSB w/ 256 mb DDR memory, 7200 rpm HDD. The file I encoded took about 7:30 with the Duron, and 8:30 with the Athlon. The Athlon acutally had more mhz, but encoded faster due to many reasons, some of which I believe to be the RAM bandwidth, the HDD speed, the FSB speedand possible the improved cache speed.

[Stevepb]

So, that's not a bottleneck.

As for your video encoding comparrison, it looks spot on. Durons are very close to Tbirds, so I would expect the 266 bus and DDR ram Duron to yeild a 15 % improvement at the same (nearly) clock speed as the Tbird on 200/sdram as I hypothesized.

What I would be looking at is a 50% + increase in processor speed, which would probably translate to 35-40% improvement in real world encode speed.

Actually you answered my thoughts about clawhammer. That's what I'm waiting for as everything out now is still just a souped upped version of what I have. Why keep adding when a new generation of chips are around the corner.

Also, I don't believe the Hard drive speed really matters on encoding, but it sure makes a differance on DV capture !!


Thanks again, and your thoughts/time have been very appreciated!

Steve

[darrelld]

My Duron runs on a 200Mhz FSB, are they running ar 266 now?

If it was me, I would upgrade the processor and keep your machine running for awhile. It's easy to get caught up in having the latest and greatest. Personally I don't usually upfrade until I need to., for example if I have software that my current setup struggles with, something breaks, or I want to do something I can't without an additional purchase.

[Xtreeme]

yep, I agree darrelld. We have a msi k7t turbo that runs on 512mb sdram. I have 1gig ddr400 in this one (asus a7n8x deluxe in DC). And we game on both. IT keeps up GREAT for being sdram. Even plays Battle for middle earth beutifully. Encoding on any older rig will be slower. But face it-its all or nothing when talking number crunching. So if he wants a little boost-he will get it from simply upgrading the cpu.


OR its time for.............
CPU
DDR400
GOOD mobo ($60-$100)
psu probably and case
new hdd

Ya, talking new pc. And while your at it-he might aswell go a64. pshh, gotta know when to say enough.


"My Duron runs on a 200Mhz FSB, are they running ar 266 now?"

They are sempron now. Duron is actually dead.
http://www.informit.com/articles/art...?p=352315&rl=1

[DanU]

You may be able to run a Barton in your old KT133 mobo... check out this site here for more info:

http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.html