Help: Fastest AMD for Via KT266A

S

somebody

Was thinking double pumped...it's actually only 133, as kony pointed out
Click to expand...

That's Intel lingo. AthlonXPs uses the DEC Alpha EV6 bus for FSB. And
it's 266MHz (or 200/333/400). More specifically, it runs on a 2X
multiplier on the (FSB-) clock that also controls cpu-speed via
another multiplier. The FSB is not the memory bus. The FSB connects
the cpu to the Northbridge.
The memorybus is between the Northbridge and ram. And DDR266 (double
data transfer rate) runs on 133MHz.

ancra
 
W

Wes Newell

I think my Via KT266 chipset doesn't support T-bred or Barton. I
think I am limited to only Palomino.
Click to expand...
You think wrong. The KT266(A) chipset will support any AMD Athlon/Duron
cpu. Any. And while it will run any, the FSB is limited. Tbred and Barton
cores also run fine on the very first socket A VIA chipset, the KT133,
which you see below. As will the newer cores. See link in sig.
Do you know where on the AMD site it has info on Duron power
consumption. This is the closest I got:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?A59E11CE7
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_1202_2979,00.html

ISTR there is also a chart on a private website with all the data on
Click to expand...

Probably, search.
 
K

kony

You think wrong. The KT266(A) chipset will support any AMD Athlon/Duron
cpu. Any. And while it will run any, the FSB is limited. Tbred and Barton
cores also run fine on the very first socket A VIA chipset, the KT133,
which you see below. As will the newer cores. See link in sig.
Click to expand...

That is not true. AMD changed the specs for signaling, which some boards
may not have incorporated until after KT266A. TBred and Barton CPUs will
most definitely not run on all "first socket A Via chipset" boards, it has
nothing to do with FSB speed or voltage, bios support. The fact that
"some" boards will run them, does not mean that ALL boards will.
 
L

Lee Enfield

I just replied to Tim Chapman. As you also have the same mobo
(version 1.0) then can I ask you the same question I asked him:

Did you have to upgrade the BIOS? My Award BIOS is dated
"02/07/2003" and has this reference after the date:

VT8367-8235-6A6LVE1HC-00
Click to expand...

My BIOS is the same. PSU is 250W.
 
W

Wes Newell

That is not true.
Click to expand...

It sure as hell is.
AMD changed the specs for signaling, which some boards
may not have incorporated until after KT266A. TBred and Barton CPUs will
most definitely not run on all "first socket A Via chipset" boards, it has
nothing to do with FSB speed or voltage, bios support. The fact that
"some" boards will run them, does not mean that ALL boards will.
Click to expand...

I'm talking chipsets, and you're talking boards. And while I can't say for
sure from personal experience which boards work and which don't, I've
never heard of one that wouldn't, given the person installing the cpu has
half a clue as to what needs to be done to make it work, So why not name
some of these boards that you know won't work with Tbred./Barton cores?

I wouldn't name the one below, even though it was the very first VIA
socket A chipset IIRC.
 
P

Piotr Makley

K

kony

It sure as hell is.
Click to expand...

You are correct that the chipset itself has the ability to run a T'Bred or
Barton, but a board that has that chipset is not certain to support
either.

I'm differentiating between theoretical ability of a chipset, and support
as employed on a board, and further a difference between "support" and
"working after a hack or two or at the wrong speed". We seem to have a
different idea of what the word "support" means.
 
S

sooky grumper

Wes said:
You think wrong. The KT266(A) chipset will support any AMD Athlon/Duron
cpu. Any. And while it will run any, the FSB is limited. Tbred and Barton
cores also run fine on the very first socket A VIA chipset, the KT133,
which you see below. As will the newer cores. See link in sig.
Click to expand...

That'snot correct. While most motherboards will support other AMD
models, some do not. I've recently encountered one such situation, where
the motherboard would only accept Palomino cored Athlons.
 
W

Wes Newell

That'snot correct. While most motherboards will support other AMD
models, some do not. I've recently encountered one such situation, where
the motherboard would only accept Palomino cored Athlons.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's correct. ANY socket A chipset will run ANY AMD K7 cpu. Now
boards could be another story, although I haven't encountered any that
couldn't be made to work. You're the second person to state this, but I've
yet to see anyone mention a board that doesn't work.
 
K

Kevin Lawton

| On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 23:23:18 +0100, Piotr Makley <[email protected]>
| wrote:
|
||
||| In addition to the chipset there's also the issue of signal
||| strength on some lines to the processor. In other words,
||| Australian PC User assumed only the FSB mattered, but I've had
||| at least one KT266a that wouldn't accept anything faster than
||| a Palomino, and lesser KT133 boards that wouldn't run anything
||| faster even at 100MHz FSB. Best course of action is to hunt
||| down users of that particular board and see what they're
||| running, or update bios to latest and just buy the CPU from
||| someplace with a good return policy.
||
||
|| What is the speed of the FSB for the Palomino?
|
| 133MHz FSB clock rate, often called DDR266.
|
|| What is the fastest processor in the Palomino range?
|
| XP2100, but that model comes in both Palomino and Thoroughbred, if
| you saw no mention of it being a Palomino it probably isn't.
|
|| Do you know where I can find power consumption figures for the
|| Palomino's?
|
| AMD's website? They have spec sheets listing that, or a Google search
| might find it.
|
| Offhand I'm guessing an XP2100 is about 70W max, typical closer to
| 50W, which at one point was looked upon by Intel fanatics as really
| hot running, but now that Intel has 100W+ chips the perspective is a
| little different. If anything Palominos are easier to cool now than
| previously due to more large 'sinks in the market, and the larger
| core area of a Palomino reduces the need for highest efficiency
| heatsink base... you might have problems with a $8 'sink but certainy
| for under $25 there's a few choices.
|
| Then again a Thoroughbred or newer might work on your motherboard, I
| just don't know. The faster the chip the less likely it is to work
| from an amperage perspective too, that board was designed around
| older CPUs that used less current. It could run for awhile then fail
| prematurely. If it were me at this point I'd be thinking about
| upgrading the motherboard and memory, then whichever CPU fits the
| budget, many people feel a Barton XP2500 is a good choice.

Doesn't the Barton core run on a 333 MHz FSB - putting it outside of the
OP's parameters ?
Thoroughbred core XP2400 runs 266 MHz FSB and the early XP2600 did too -
though newer ones are 333 MHz FSB.
Kevin.
 
K

Kevin Lawton

| On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 19:34:42 +0800, sooky grumper wrote:
|
|| Wes Newell wrote:
||| On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 12:18:47 +0100, Piotr Makley wrote:
|||
||||
|||||| Do you know where I can find power consumption figures for
|||||| the Palomino's?
|||||
||||| www.amd.com, but it draws considerably more power than the
||||| newer cores, and it won't clock near as high, about 1800MHz
||||| tops. IOW's, you don't want one. Get a Tbred B core or a
||||| barton core.
||||
|||| I think my Via KT266 chipset doesn't support T-bred or Barton. I
|||| think I am limited to only Palomino.
||||
|||
||| You think wrong. The KT266(A) chipset will support any AMD
||| Athlon/Duron cpu. Any. And while it will run any, the FSB is
||| limited. Tbred and Barton cores also run fine on the very first
||| socket A VIA chipset, the KT133, which you see below. As will the
||| newer cores. See link in sig.
|||
||
|| That'snot correct. While most motherboards will support other AMD
|| models, some do not. I've recently encountered one such situation,
|| where the motherboard would only accept Palomino cored Athlons.
||
| Yes, it's correct. ANY socket A chipset will run ANY AMD K7 cpu. Now
| boards could be another story, although I haven't encountered any that
| couldn't be made to work. You're the second person to state this, but
| I've yet to see anyone mention a board that doesn't work.

Yes, good point, though it is worth checking that the BIOS verion you're
planning to use will correctly enable all the 'features' of the proposed
CPU. Remember that when AMD moved from Thunderbird to Thoroughbred cores
they gained SSE etc.
I think you'll find that the naming of the VIA chipsets - KT133, KT266,
KT333, KT400, etc - is not referring to the FSB but to the memory bus. It
specifies the fastest it will drive the memory bus (SDRAM or DDR RAM).
For example, I have a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP board with a VIA KT333 chipset. The
fastest FSB it can support is 266 MHz, as in a Thoroughbred core XP2400, and
it can drive the memory up to 333MHz DDR. I could put a Barton core XP2500
in it which in theory can go to 333 MHz FSB, but the chipset can't drive it
that fast so it would be throttled-back to 266 MHz FSB. More expensive than
an XP2400 for very little gain.
No bollox - all based on practical experience and reading specs.
Kevin.
 
K

kony

| Then again a Thoroughbred or newer might work on your motherboard, I
| just don't know. The faster the chip the less likely it is to work
| from an amperage perspective too, that board was designed around
| older CPUs that used less current. It could run for awhile then fail
| prematurely. If it were me at this point I'd be thinking about
| upgrading the motherboard and memory, then whichever CPU fits the
| budget, many people feel a Barton XP2500 is a good choice.

Doesn't the Barton core run on a 333 MHz FSB - putting it outside of the
OP's parameters ?
Thoroughbred core XP2400 runs 266 MHz FSB and the early XP2600 did too -
though newer ones are 333 MHz FSB.
Kevin.
Click to expand...

There are mobile Bartons that use DDR266 FSB, but they default at 6X
multiplier, the motherboard must have the ability to manually set the
multiplier higher. Even so, since they default to 6X (a multiplier under
13X), they're stuck in that sub-13X range since the board likley doesn't
have full multiplier selections, so the maximum resulting speed without
any hacks or bus overclocking is 12.5 mult X 133 = 1.67GHz.

However, we still don't even know if the present motherboard will even
support any Barton... the suggestion I made in the prior post was right
after I'd written "I'd be thinking about upgrading the motherboard and
memory", with the presumption being that the upgrade would be a fairly
modern motherboard with Barton & DDR333 FSB support.
 
K

kony

Yes, good point, though it is worth checking that the BIOS verion you're
planning to use will correctly enable all the 'features' of the proposed
CPU. Remember that when AMD moved from Thunderbird to Thoroughbred cores
they gained SSE etc.
Click to expand...

Palomino was inbetween T'Bird and T'Bred, was the first to support SSE.

I think you'll find that the naming of the VIA chipsets - KT133, KT266,
KT333, KT400, etc - is not referring to the FSB but to the memory bus. It
specifies the fastest it will drive the memory bus (SDRAM or DDR RAM).
For example, I have a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP board with a VIA KT333 chipset. The
fastest FSB it can support is 266 MHz, as in a Thoroughbred core XP2400, and
it can drive the memory up to 333MHz DDR. I could put a Barton core XP2500
in it which in theory can go to 333 MHz FSB, but the chipset can't drive it
that fast so it would be throttled-back to 266 MHz FSB. More expensive than
an XP2400 for very little gain.
Click to expand...

7VRXP was a intentionally crippled. Most KT333 boards could run DDR333
FSB cpus, though it is technically out of spec, the chipset was actually
stable past DDR333, nearer to DDR400, but Gigabyte in particular chose not
to support the 1/5 PCI divider. I had one of those board and had planned
to build myself a system out of it but when I learned of the FSB, PCI
issue I swapped to an Asus KT333 board which I still have as an aux.
system running an o'c Barton.
 
W

Wes Newell

Doesn't the Barton core run on a 333 MHz FSB - putting it outside of the
OP's parameters ?
Click to expand...

They run at whatever the user sets them to. Different models have
different default speeds that they are supposed to run at to obtain the
correct cpu speed for the model.
Thoroughbred core XP2400 runs 266 MHz FSB and the early XP2600 did too -
though newer ones are 333 MHz FSB.
Click to expand...

A Barton core 2800+ MP's default is 133MHz (266FSB) as are all MP models
if I'm not mistaken.
 
K

Kevin Lawton

| On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 00:49:47 +0000 (UTC), "Kevin Lawton"
|
|
||| Then again a Thoroughbred or newer might work on your motherboard, I
||| just don't know. The faster the chip the less likely it is to work
||| from an amperage perspective too, that board was designed around
||| older CPUs that used less current. It could run for awhile then
||| fail prematurely. If it were me at this point I'd be thinking about
||| upgrading the motherboard and memory, then whichever CPU fits the
||| budget, many people feel a Barton XP2500 is a good choice.
||
|| Doesn't the Barton core run on a 333 MHz FSB - putting it outside of
|| the OP's parameters ?
|| Thoroughbred core XP2400 runs 266 MHz FSB and the early XP2600 did
|| too - though newer ones are 333 MHz FSB.
|| Kevin.
|
| There are mobile Bartons that use DDR266 FSB, but they default at 6X
| multiplier, the motherboard must have the ability to manually set the
| multiplier higher. Even so, since they default to 6X (a multiplier
| under 13X), they're stuck in that sub-13X range since the board
| likley doesn't have full multiplier selections, so the maximum
| resulting speed without any hacks or bus overclocking is 12.5 mult X
| 133 = 1.67GHz.
|
| However, we still don't even know if the present motherboard will even
| support any Barton... the suggestion I made in the prior post was
| right after I'd written "I'd be thinking about upgrading the
| motherboard and memory", with the presumption being that the upgrade
| would be a fairly modern motherboard with Barton & DDR333 FSB support.

Sorry, but either I am misunderstanding what you are saying or you are
confusing memory bus speed and FSB speed. DDR 333 is effectively 333 M/sec
on the memory bus (actually 2 x 166 MHz). 333 FSB is 333 MHz on the FSB to
the processor. They don't have to be the same with several chipsets -
including the VIA KT266, KT333 and KT400. The northbridge is able to run the
front-side bus and the memory bus at different speeds. In the old days, both
memory and process would run at the same speed - that of the slowest - or
'wait states' would be intriduced if a fast processor was attached to slower
memory, but now in the twenty-first century we can run them at different
speeds. :)
My appologies for being either pedantic or pernikity, but the OP has a VIA
KT266 chipset - 333 MHz FSB max to DDR 266 max.
Kevin.
 
K

Kevin Lawton

| On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:03:51 +0000 (UTC), "Kevin Lawton"
|
|
|| Yes, good point, though it is worth checking that the BIOS verion
|| you're planning to use will correctly enable all the 'features' of
|| the proposed CPU. Remember that when AMD moved from Thunderbird to
|| Thoroughbred cores they gained SSE etc.
|
| Palomino was inbetween T'Bird and T'Bred, was the first to support
| SSE.
|
|
|| I think you'll find that the naming of the VIA chipsets - KT133,
|| KT266, KT333, KT400, etc - is not referring to the FSB but to the
|| memory bus. It specifies the fastest it will drive the memory bus
|| (SDRAM or DDR RAM).
|| For example, I have a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP board with a VIA KT333
|| chipset. The fastest FSB it can support is 266 MHz, as in a
|| Thoroughbred core XP2400, and it can drive the memory up to 333MHz
|| DDR. I could put a Barton core XP2500 in it which in theory can go
|| to 333 MHz FSB, but the chipset can't drive it that fast so it would
|| be throttled-back to 266 MHz FSB. More expensive than an XP2400 for
|| very little gain.
|
| 7VRXP was a intentionally crippled. Most KT333 boards could run
| DDR333
| FSB cpus, though it is technically out of spec, the chipset was
| actually stable past DDR333, nearer to DDR400, but Gigabyte in
| particular chose not to support the 1/5 PCI divider. I had one of
| those board and had planned
| to build myself a system out of it but when I learned of the FSB, PCI
| issue I swapped to an Asus KT333 board which I still have as an aux.
| system running an o'c Barton.

Interesting to hear of someone else with a GA-7VRXP. :-o
May I ask what CPU and op system you ran and if you had any problems ? I'm
finding mine a bitch to get going with Windows 2000 on an XP2400 !
Kevin.
 

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