A few GC/Memory related questions:

[owada]

What does PC mean with memory eg pc3200 ? Does it matter ?

How do you find out what power supply a card needs ?

Is a Radeon 9600/Nvidia FX5200 compatible with an Athlon1800 (I've read the chip needs to be 1.8ghhz min) ?

How do you know if a card is T&L Hardware capable (whatever that is) ?

Can you use a card that’s AGP 8 in an AGP 4 slot ?

Thought I knew a thing or two about a thing or to but since reading some of the techi posts here I realise what a rank amateur I am.

[Kev367th]

All that really matters is the number e.g. -
4200 = DDR533
3200 = DDR400
2700 = DDR333

just depends if you use max tranfser speed (4200Gb/s or fsb speed 533MHz for measurement)


Check either the manufacturers website or the chipset (ATI or nVidia) manufacturer website.


The reason they are probably mentioning the 1800 is that under that your frame rates will be limited by the CPU. i.e. the video card can output faster than the cpu can process its information. E.g. with the latest crop of vid cards (6800/x800) most people are going to now be limited in their frame rates by their CPU. The only way they will see improvements is to get a faster CPU.


Check the manufacturer website for T+L information. I would go out on a limb and say 99% of all mid to high range cards support T+L now.

Yes you can run an AGP 8 card in an AGP 4 slot assuming the pci slot provides the correct voltage. (check your motherboard manual/website)

[owada]

So I just wouldn't be getting the maximum performance from the graphics card, the card wouldn't damage the CPU or vica versa ?

About memory I'm still not sure which I should buy DDR PC 2700 or 3200 - the higher the better ? or is it limited by the chip I have ?

TIA

[straffo]

Originally posted by owada
So I just wouldn't be getting the maximum performance from the graphics card,  

Yep but it will be marginal

the card wouldn't damage the CPU or vica versa ?
 [/B]

nope

 

About memory I'm still not sure which I should buy DDR PC 2700 or 3200 - the higher the better ? or is it limited by the chip I have ?

TIA
 [/B]

It depend of the speed you want to set to your memory, but usually the chipset use the fastest availlable speed.

To be more clear if you have 2 memory chip one at 2700 another at 3200 the system will use the lower (2700) to acces the memory.
And it's allways possible to downclock a component (there will be no side effect for a 3200 stick running at 2700)

[owada]

Got it, thanks. I'd better read up on all this stuff sometime, find out what's going on in the box...

[Kev367th]

In most cases you want the memory running at the same speed  as the CPU fsb (different for Athon 64's).
Yes you can run the memory faster than the cpu, but it is of no benefit.
E.g. if you have an Athlon with a 333fsb, get DDR333 CAS2 memory, unless you plan to overclock the fsb.
You can use DDR400 but run it at 333 speeds. Useful if you plan to upgrade at a later date to a board/cpu that supports 400fsb.
Athlon 64's/FX's, get DDR400, CAS2 unless you plan to overclock by modifying multipliers and the HT bus.

No the vid card won't damage the cpu, and vice versa.

If you use two sticks of memory, get same size, speed, CAS and preferably same make! Expensive, but Corsair TwinX memory sticks are guaranteed to work together.

CAS is the latency of the memory, the lower the better. I believe CAS 2 is still the best, CAS 3 the worst.

[owada]

How do I know the FSB speed ? The processor is Athlon XP1800+ ~1.5ghz.

The 256 DDR SDRAM memory stick has no definable name on it either so I can't buy the same make again (it came with the board).  Is there a way to find out ?

I see your using the Radeon 9600 SE, I was thinking of getting the Asus version.

[owada]

Sorry yours is the 9800 SE. Athlon XPs have a 266MHz  or 333MHz FSB, but I don't know which for the 1800, probably the lower figure...

[Kev367th]

Looking at Athlon 1800XP specs.
1.53GHz, 266fsb

So that would be PC2100, DDR266 memory.
You could check your current memory settings using cpuid ( http://www.cpuid.com ) . Although this wont show the maufacturer, it will show the speed and CAS settings. Jusy match them with new stick you should be OK.

[owada]

Cpuid gave the chips stats as:

Bus Speed  @ 265.8 MHz (DDR), but Front Side Bus Speed :132.9 MHz
So 'FSB' in my case seems to actually be chugging along at 133 Mhz. Perhaps the additional memory would help improve this ?


CAS Latency (tCL) :   2 clocks @100 MHz, 2.5 clocks @133 MHz
RAS to CAS (tRCD) :   2 clocks @100 MHz, 3 clocks @133 MHz
RAS Precharge (tRP) : 2 clocks @100 MHz, 3 clocks @133 MHz
Cycle Time (tRAS) :   5 clocks @100 MHz, 6 clocks @133 MHz

I guess this memory is CAS2 then:

Must look into this 'overclocking' stuff, sounds like a good way to maximise the performance with a lower end rig. I'll be happy just to get back into the skies for now though.

[Kev367th]

Yup the memory is CAS2 at pc100 speeds, but CAS2.5 at pc133 speeds. So it looks like it is running as CAS2.5.
Your CPU is 266, AMD are clock doubled so 133x2=266

Best overclocker for a while is the 2500XP Barton CPU. Seen it reach 3000-3200 speeds. But with your mem not worth getting.
Best overclock is to up the fsb while lowering the multiplier.

e.g. just generic figures not relating to your cpu
lets say we have a 2Ghz cpu running 5 x 400fsb
better performance with 4.5 x 444fsb
Even though they both add up to 2000.
A 44fsb increase is a lot, but just using it as an example, although I have seen some systems reach close to that sort of % overclock.
Mild overclock are done by just upping the fsb gradually until the system will not boot, then backing it off a little. This usually leaves the multiplier alone.

Of course you may need better cooling, and you must have a PCI/AGP lock option in the BIOS or your AGP/PCI slots start to run too fast and crash the machine. Also would really require something like DDR533 mem.