Best memory and CPU for A7N8X-E Deluxe?

[G Couture]

My old EPoX 8KHA+ just died last week (burst capacitors), and I replaced it
with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe. Reason for this was to reuse most of my
existing components, considering I was going to move to Athlon64 very soon.
However, given my current financial situation, I think I will have to keep
the Asus board for quite a while now.

As I write this, all is working quite well, but I'm concerned that I am only
using a fraction of what that excellent mobo can deliver. I am using Mushkin
PC2100 hi-perf 222 memory modules in dual-channel config (2x 512MB) and an
Athlon MP2800+. What would be the best memory I could use? Would I gain any
significant performance improvement? I undersand this board supports up to
PC3200 in dual channel mode. Would it be worth upgrading to an Athlon
XP3200+? I can only afford one upgrade at this time, would I be best
investing in faster memory or better CPU? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Happy new year to all

G Couture
Montreal, QC (Canada)

 

[aberger]

Well if you upgrade to PC3200 you'll be able to drop them into the A64
board when you get it and then you can put your old memory back into
A7N8X board and sell it. If you do still plan on upgrading to A64, I
wouldn't buy a new CPU, however, you've asked an interesting question
and the answer is not so obvious.

I usually tell my Computer Architecture class that the best performance
improvement they can make is to add as much memory as possible. This is
a no-brainer when you consider the relative speeds of the virtual
memory on the hard disk and semi-conductor memory on the MOBO. However,
with lots of memory on board, will you see a performance boost with
faster memory and the same speed CPU or vice versa?

This isn't obvious because it depends upon the percentage of the time
that your code is running out of the on-chip caches versus reloading
the caches from main memory. Typical cache hit ratios are around 90%,
so my rough guess is that you'd see more improvement with a faster CPU.
However, this could be more involved then that.

Arnie

 

[G Couture]

Thanks very much for the advice! The suggestion that I can reuse PC3200
memory in an A64 s939 board will probably be the decisive factor. After
doing a bit of research, I found that the MP2800+ and XP3200+ have the same
amount of on-die cache (but the MP runs on 266MHz FSB, whereas the XP3200
uses 400FSB).

Happy new year.

G Couture