A7N8X processor upgrade

[Sam]

I currently have an Athlon XP 2400+ 266 FSB (not overclocked), in my 1.04
revision of this board. My memory is rated for 333, but has been slowed
down so it is now in synch with my processor. Would I see much of a
difference if I upgraded to a Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 333 FSB? Not only
would the CPU be a bit faster, but my RAM could run at full speed as well.
I do graphics processing (Photoshop) and games too.

Thanks.

Sam

 

[S.Heenan]

I currently have an Athlon XP 2400+ 266 FSB (not overclocked), in my
1.04 revision of this board. My memory is rated for 333, but has been
slowed down so it is now in synch with my processor. Would I see much
of a difference if I upgraded to a Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 333 FSB?
Not only would the CPU be a bit faster, but my RAM could run at full
speed as well. I do graphics processing (Photoshop) and games too.

If your 2400+ is unlocked, you can drop the multiplier from 15x to 12.5x.
You can then increase the FSB to 166MHz. If it's stable, raise the
multiplier to 13x. This may require bumping up the CPU voltage to 1.675V or
1.700V, for stability.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:42:48 GMT, S.Heenan scribbled:

If your 2400+ is unlocked, you can drop the multiplier from 15x to 12.5x.
You can then increase the FSB to 166MHz. If it's stable, raise the
multiplier to 13x. This may require bumping up the CPU voltage to 1.675V or
1.700V, for stability.

Unfortunately, it's locked and can't be changed...

Sam

 

[S.Heenan]

Sometime on, or about Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:42:48 GMT, S.Heenan
scribbled:


Unfortunately, it's locked and can't be changed...

That's not the end of the world. Go ahead and bump your FSB up to 145MHz,
RAM in sync. Set RAM timings to User Defined, 8-3-3-3 as read from top to
bottom. Increase CPU voltage as above, if needed.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Wed, 31 Mar 2004 13:17:05 GMT, S.Heenan scribbled:

That's not the end of the world. Go ahead and bump your FSB up to 145MHz,
RAM in sync. Set RAM timings to User Defined, 8-3-3-3 as read from top to
bottom. Increase CPU voltage as above, if needed.

Would that be equivalent to the 3000 Barton chip with a 333 FSB and would I
notice the difference? I normally don't overclock my equipment... I thought
that the larger cache and the higher native bus speed would just make my
system work a bit more efficiently.

Since the Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 333 FSB chip is now less than $150, I
thought it might be a good upgrade. But, I didn't want to do that if I
wouldn't notice much of a difference. I have an ATI 9500pro video card,
some pretty quick hard-drives and 1 meg of Crucial 333Mhz RAM.

Sam

 

[Arnie Berger]

Sometime on, or about Wed, 31 Mar 2004 13:17:05 GMT, S.Heenan scribbled:


Would that be equivalent to the 3000 Barton chip with a 333 FSB and would I
notice the difference? I normally don't overclock my equipment... I thought
that the larger cache and the higher native bus speed would just make my
system work a bit more efficiently.

Since the Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 333 FSB chip is now less than $150, I
thought it might be a good upgrade. But, I didn't want to do that if I
wouldn't notice much of a difference. I have an ATI 9500pro video card,
some pretty quick hard-drives and 1 meg of Crucial 333Mhz RAM.

Sam

How much of a performance boost you will see depends upon where the
bottlenecks are in your system and the type of code you are running.
If the cache hit ratio is good, then the speed of the program will be
visibly faster as you raise the clock frequency.If you have less
memory than you need, then the disk speed will limit performance.

Memory bandwidth is only one of a number of factors determining
performance.

arnie

 

[S.Heenan]

Sometime on, or about Wed, 31 Mar 2004 13:17:05 GMT, S.Heenan
scribbled:


Would that be equivalent to the 3000 Barton chip with a 333 FSB and
would I notice the difference? I normally don't overclock my
equipment... I thought that the larger cache and the higher native
bus speed would just make my system work a bit more efficiently.

Since the Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 333 FSB chip is now less than $150, I
thought it might be a good upgrade. But, I didn't want to do that if I
wouldn't notice much of a difference. I have an ATI 9500pro video
card, some pretty quick hard-drives and 1 meg of Crucial 333Mhz RAM.

With a locked CPU like your 2400+. raising the FSB to 145MHz with the native
multiplier results in 2175MHz, which is very close to the performance of the
3000+. It won't be a night and day difference, but you will see incremental
gains.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:39:55 GMT, S.Heenan scribbled:

With a locked CPU like your 2400+. raising the FSB to 145MHz with the native
multiplier results in 2175MHz, which is very close to the performance of the
3000+. It won't be a night and day difference, but you will see incremental
gains.

OK, just for fun I tried raising the FSB. There was no option for 145MHz,
just 133 and 166. I tried the 166 and the machine wouldn't boot. So,
obviously that wasn't good. I re-set everything again. I have the 1.04
motherboard with the 1007 bios.

Sam

 

[Outback Jon]

OK, just for fun I tried raising the FSB. There was no option for
145MHz, just 133 and 166. I tried the 166 and the machine wouldn't
boot. So, obviously that wasn't good. I re-set everything again. I
have the 1.04 motherboard with the 1007 bios.

To make it adjustable in 1 MHz increments, you have to set the System
Performance setting to User Defined. Then set the Memory Frequency to 100%.
Then you will be able to set the CPU External Frequency in smaller
increments.

Oh yeah - its also a good idea to set the AGP Frequency to 66 MHz, as this
will lock the PCI/AGP bus at the 33/66 MHz speed.

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