Duron vs P4 + motherboard data

[steve]

I haven't bought built a new computer in a while...so, I pick up 2
motherboards pretty cheap. I know they might be old (by today's
standards), but I'm sure they will be fast enough for me.

One is a Duron/Athlon MB = KT266AD Socket A MB with a Duron 1.8GHZ

the other is a SOYO P4VGA (data bus speeds of 400 and 533 MHz) it
takes P4 up to 3.06 GHZ, I have not bought a CPU for this MB yet.

I'm keeping both system, but I want the faster one to be my game
machine.

So overall which MB has more potential ? I know MHz for MHz AMD cpu's
are faster. I was looking at a 2.6 Ghz P4 (expensive compared to the
Duron).

So what's faster, a 1.8 duron or 2.6 P4 ?

Also, overall, which setup is faster considering the motherboards and
memory speeds ?

I'm guessing the P4 setup will have the edge because of the GHz of the
CPU and the DDR memory (HD will be the same).


Thanks,


Please post reply here

 

[Tony Hill]

I haven't bought built a new computer in a while...so, I pick up 2
motherboards pretty cheap. I know they might be old (by today's
standards), but I'm sure they will be fast enough for me.

One is a Duron/Athlon MB = KT266AD Socket A MB with a Duron 1.8GHZ

the other is a SOYO P4VGA (data bus speeds of 400 and 533 MHz) it
takes P4 up to 3.06 GHZ, I have not bought a CPU for this MB yet.

I'm keeping both system, but I want the faster one to be my game
machine.

So overall which MB has more potential ?

Probably the P4 board. The Socket A board can only handle AthlonXP
chips with a 266MT/s bus speed. In theory these are available at up
to the 2800+ level, though those are damn near impossible to find.
Most likely you'll be looking at an AthlonXP 2600+ as the fastest chip
you can find, and even those are getting pretty rare, with only the
2200+ and 2400+ being common (neither are too much faster than the
Duron you've got).

I know MHz for MHz AMD cpu's
are faster. I was looking at a 2.6 Ghz P4 (expensive compared to the
Duron).

So what's faster, a 1.8 duron or 2.6 P4 ?

2.6GHz P4 for sure. Even if you were to upgrade the Socket A board to
an AthlonXP 2600+ the P4 would probably still be a tiny bit faster
(though they would be close).

 

[steve]

2.6GHz P4 for sure. Even if you were to upgrade the Socket A board to
an AthlonXP 2600+ the P4 would probably still be a tiny bit faster
(though they would be close).

What about the memory bandwidth. I have 1 512 PC2700 in the Duron
machine (run at 266 right ?).

I'm looking for some 2 matching PC2100 for the P4 machine, the P4
motherboard runs on DDR (266 dual channel ?) mode, if I said that
right, is it really that much faster ?



Compare to AMD cpus, P4$ are expensive !



Thanks

 

[Yousuf Khan]

What about the memory bandwidth. I have 1 512 PC2700 in the Duron
machine (run at 266 right ?).

I'm looking for some 2 matching PC2100 for the P4 machine, the P4
motherboard runs on DDR (266 dual channel ?) mode, if I said that
right, is it really that much faster ?

Typically, the P4's required that extra memory bandwidth just to match AMD's
in terms of overall performance. P4's typically lived for fast memory, while
K7's could live with much slower RAM.

BTW, you mentioned that you have a 1.8Ghz Duron? I didn't think Durons went
up that high. I had thought they stopped producing them after 1.3Ghz
(although they produced some faster Durons only for the Asian and Chinese
market). Are you sure you don't have an Athlon XP?

Yousuf Khan

 

[RusH]

the other is a SOYO P4VGA (data bus speeds of 400 and 533 MHz) it

and this VGA in the name stands for integrated video controller ? they
tend to SLOW whole system significantly.

Pozdrawiam.

 

[Nate Edel]

Typically, the P4's required that extra memory bandwidth just to match AMD's
in terms of overall performance. P4's typically lived for fast memory, while
K7's could live with much slower RAM.

BTW, you mentioned that you have a 1.8Ghz Duron? I didn't think Durons went
up that high. I had thought they stopped producing them after 1.3Ghz
(although they produced some faster Durons only for the Asian and Chinese
market). Are you sure you don't have an Athlon XP?

You missed the Applebreds, which are around a lot these days. Durons, but
with DD266 ram, and 1.6ghz readily available (with 1.8ghz showing up at a
few vendors, but trickier to find.)

Tigerdirect also has this bizarro board:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ails.asp?EdpNo=709627&Sku=K13-2204&CatId=1228

Mercury - 740CFDMx - SiS Socket A microATX Motherboard (...)
(...)and Integrated AMD Duron 2200 Pro Processor

WTF is a "Duron 2200 Pro" ???
WTF Does "Clock Speed: OverClocked 850MHz Operating @ 2200 PRO Speed" mean?

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

Fresh from an Iraqi prisoner interrogation (e-mail address removed) (Nate Edel)
smirked:

You missed the Applebreds, which are around a lot these days. Durons, but
with DD266 ram, and 1.6ghz readily available (with 1.8ghz showing up at a
few vendors, but trickier to find.)

AMD shows no Duron 1800 on their site that I could find.

Tigerdirect also has this bizarro board:

This wouldn't be the first time they'd 'made up' something that didn't exist.





To reply by email, remove the XYZ.

Lumber Cartel (tinlc) #2063. Spam this account at your own risk.

This sig censored by the Office of Home and Land Insecurity....

 

[steve]

Fresh from an Iraqi prisoner interrogation (e-mail address removed) (Nate Edel)
smirked:


AMD shows no Duron 1800 on their site that I could find.


This wouldn't be the first time they'd 'made up' something that didn't exist.

Funny, I did get it at Tiger Direct. After adding a motherboard to my
cart, the website showed 3 items and asked if I wanted to add them.
One was the CPU, I did a quick price check (internet search) and could
not find another 1.8, Pricewatch shows the 1.6 for $39 plus shipping,
so I said what the heck and added it.

Sandra shows it as a 1.8 GHz cpu.

Amazingly fast chip for $44 bucks (Tiger Direct's price).

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>,
from the wonderful person Yousuf Khan

BTW, you mentioned that you have a 1.8Ghz Duron? I didn't think Durons went
up that high. I had thought they stopped producing them after 1.3Ghz
(although they produced some faster Durons only for the Asian and Chinese
market).

In the UK I can certainly get Duron 1.6 and 1.8 Ghz, both with 200Mhz
FSB. Prices are £24 and £25 respectively (plus tax) .. not sure what
that is in $$ this week .. about $45, maybe?

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

Funny, I did get it at Tiger Direct.

I meant calling it a 'Duron 2200 Pro', as there is no such thing.

As for using an 850mhz CPU running at 1.8ghz, good luck!





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Lumber Cartel (tinlc) #2063. Spam this account at your own risk.

This sig censored by the Office of Home and Land Insecurity....

 

[Nate Edel]

Fresh from an Iraqi prisoner interrogation (e-mail address removed) (Nate Edel)
smirked:

AMD shows no Duron 1800 on their site that I could find.

I don't know if they're marketing it in the US; I've seen it on TigerDirect
and a few other sites that traffic in quirky stuff.

AMD _does_ list the 1.8ghz Duron at
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25848.PDF
(the Duron model 8 technical data sheet)

This wouldn't be the first time they'd 'made up' something that didn't
exist.

They have weird stuff. Never known AMD to sell a non-socketed Duron,
though... smacks of the crappy "GigaPro" processors that are actually Via
C3s.

 

[Tony Hill]

What about the memory bandwidth. I have 1 512 PC2700 in the Duron
machine (run at 266 right ?).

Yup, the Duron uses a 266MT/s bus speed, so you're limited to a
maximum memory bandwidth of 2.1GB/s.

I'm looking for some 2 matching PC2100 for the P4 machine, the P4
motherboard runs on DDR (266 dual channel ?) mode, if I said that
right, is it really that much faster ?

Dual-channel and DDR (double-data rate) are rather different concepts.
DDR means that your memory is sending data on both the rising and
falling edges of the clock cycle. For example, the bus speed of the
Duron above is actually 133MHz, but because it's a DDR bus, it offers
virtually identical performance to a 266MHz bus. In fact, most of the
marketing you read about the chip will actually claim that it has a
266MHz bus. This isn't really accurate, hence the reason why myself
and some others use the "266MT/s", or "Millions of Transmissions per
second", but as far as marketing inaccuracies go, it's a pretty small
one.

Similarly the memory chips your using on both of these machines runs
on a DDR bus, either 133MHz or 166MHz for PC2100 and PC2700
respectively. Effective performance of these memory chips is like
plain old SDRAM running at 266MHz and 333MHz.


Dual-channel memory is something different. Dual-channel means, quite
simply, that there are two memory channels working together. To reuse
a road analogy that is often quoted, picture a plain old two-lane
road. In this analogy DDR would equate to the cars on the road going
faster. This is one method to get more people from one end of the
road to another. Dual channel is the equivalent of making a two-lane
road. This will also get a higher number of people from one end of
the road to another, but in a different manner. As in our road
analogy where you could have both faster cars and wider roads, in your
P4 system you have both DDR memory and a dual-channel memory bus.


Anyway, I think I've drifted away from the original question. The
simple answer is that the p4 has much more memory bandwidth available
to it than the Duron. The Duron is limited to 2.1GB/s of memory
bandwidth while you're P4 has 4.2GB/s of memory bandwidth. One might
argue (rather convincingly) that the P4 needs more memory bandwidth
than AMD chips, though I'm not really sure that is accurate in the
case of the Duron like it is for the Athlon. With the smaller cache
of the Duron it would tend to place a bit more emphasis on the memory
bus while being hit on the other side by having a slower bus to
access. In all, it all comes back in the P4's favor.

Compare to AMD cpus, P4$ are expensive !

Now that is where things swing back in AMD's favor. AMD is just
stomping all over Intel in the price category for that end of the
market. At the high-end of things the two companies are close, but in
the sub-$100 market, AMD blows Intel out of the water. The only chip
Intel has to compete in that market is the Celeron, which offers
absolutely abysmal performance! The Duron just walks all over the
Celeron and still costs less. The P4 performs quite well, but it's
fairly expensive.

 

[Tony Hill]

I meant calling it a 'Duron 2200 Pro', as there is no such thing.

That's definitely just Tiger Direct's marketing dept. going a little
crazy. They seem to do that for a LOT of their low-end chips. The
one I found kind of funny (in a "damn they are lying bastards" kind of
way) was advertising 800MHz VIA C3 chips as "1.3GigaPro". Not only
does the chip not run at 1.3GHz and not only does it not match the
performance of other 1.3GHz chips, but it doesn't even match the
performance of most other 800MHz chips! Unless they are comparing it
to some sort of hypothetical Transmeta Crusoe 1.3GHz chip than I have
no idea what they are getting at!

As for using an 850mhz CPU running at 1.8ghz, good luck!

AMD does produce an 1.8GHz Duron, here's the link to the datasheets:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25848.PDF

You are quite correct though, there's no such product as a "Duron 2200
Pro", that's just a load of marketing nonsense.

 

[Nate Edel]

the sub-$100 market, AMD blows Intel out of the water. The only chip
Intel has to compete in that market is the Celeron, which offers
absolutely abysmal performance! The Duron just walks all over the
Celeron and still costs less. The P4 performs quite well, but it's
fairly expensive.

In fairness, you can still get Tualatin Celerons (whether they're remaining
in the retail channel or still in production I don't know) which still work
with Socket 370 stuff and are reasonably good performers. Not as good as
the cheaper Athlon XPs or the newer Durons, but the C/1.3 and C/1.4 were
pretty competitive with the Duron 1.3... and as such, still pretty
comparable with the Northwood Celerons.

Also, the ULV Celerons which are reasonably inexpensive, albeit without any
reasonable motherboard options... and I'll be curious to see where Celeron-M
prices go.

 

[RusH]

BTW, you mentioned that you have a 1.8Ghz Duron? I didn't think
Durons went up that high. I had thought they stopped producing them
after 1.3Ghz (although they produced some faster Durons only for the
Asian and Chinese market). Are you sure you don't have an Athlon XP?

and European market for sure, those are castrated Athlon XP's (the only
difference is a blocked extra cache).
133Mhz FSB, 192KB cache - this one can be 'tricked' and unlocked to
full 512KB (conductive pen)


Pozdrawiam.

 

[matrixpc]

Tiger Direct is getting this MB from Kobian Motherboards. I don't
know what type of arrangement this company has with AMD but I don't
think it's TigerDirect's marketing ploy.

http://www.kobian.com/products.php?productid=420

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