Author Topic: Athlon Duron Tbird??? (Read 551 times)

[Sg]ShotGun · « **on:** February 09, 2001, 08:24:00 PM »

are these different chips?

whats the benefit of a RAID mobo?

CAS 2 or 3 mem?
Corsair, curcial, or generic?

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Sg
78th FG

DB603 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2001, 04:02:00 AM »

S!

Duron is the Thunderbird with less cache in the processor.Also cheaper.Is a bit slower thatn the Thunderbird,but still very capable.Athlon was the earlier Slot A version and Thunderbird/Duron use the newer Socket A.
For mem..Lower the CAS value faster the mem to put it exaggerated.I would prefer more CAS 2 than CAS 3.Brand of mem sticks can make a difference in quality,but in general they are more or less of same quality.Kingston makes good memory,but pretty expensive too.
Benefit of RAID.Well..it can be called the poor man's SCSI.U can attach up to 4 HDD's to the RAID and use them as one(poor description).Usually it is also ATA100 specified.I have it but don't use it.Cool feature though.Hope this helped.

DB603

[This message has been edited by DB603 (edited 02-10-2001).]

[Sg]ShotGun · « **Reply #2 on:** February 11, 2001, 04:24:00 AM »

wood one be more of a benefit for AH and 3d games than the rest?

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Sg
78th FG

Ghosth · « **Reply #3 on:** February 11, 2001, 09:35:00 AM »

Actually what I'd REALLY like to see is 2 people with the same motherboard, & video do a comparison test in AH on the difference between the Tbird & the duron.

Just how much difference will the extra mem in the L2 Cache make???

Still hanging on the fence here unsure of which way to fall.

PakRat · « **Reply #4 on:** February 11, 2001, 10:29:00 AM »

Went to see if Sharky had any H2H benchmarks and mistyped the URL - had a gazillion sex windows all try to open up. Watch that URL spelling.

Couldn't find anything H2H at Sharky's though. However, I did find some comparisons at Tom's Hardware: (ratios given as TBird 700 to Duron 700)

Sysmark 2000: 153:143
Quake3 Arena: 121.2:116.4
Quake2: 110.9:104.4
MDK2: 119.9:113.3
Expendable: 84.9:76.9
Unreal: 38.7:35.32

Not a big difference. If you divide by 2 to put the numbers in the range of FPS I get with a TBird 900 running at 950, you can see the difference would probably be between 3-5 fps. Not that big really but might be a factor in enjoyment and could be subject to the coding of AH. However in the different games the fps tend to track well with TBird always in the lead.

Hope this helps in the TBird/Duron decisions. The full article with test conditions is in the Tom's Hardware URL given above.

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Rape, pillage, then burn...

[This message has been edited by PakRat (edited 02-11-2001).]

PakRat · « **Reply #5 on:** February 11, 2001, 10:36:00 AM »

Also, the TBird is definitely a different chip than the original Athlon. The original Athlon didn't have on-board cache and had to run external cache like the Celerons and such. This was OK at low speed but when the cores went to higher and higher clock speeds, they had to divide down the clock to access cache more and more making the increased CPU clock less and less effective.

The Athlon Thunderbird and Duron both have on-board cache that runs at full processor speed. Avoid the original Athlon - go for the TBird or Duron versions.

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Rape, pillage, then burn...

PakRat · « **Reply #6 on:** February 11, 2001, 10:49:00 AM »

As to RAID. There are benefits but there is also cost.

There are two kinds of RAID. One gives real time data backup on the second hard drive. You have two drives and they are carbon copies. No performance gain with this setup but if you have one disk fail, the other keeps right on going. This was more important when hard drives had much lower MTBFs than they do now. Also, this kind of RAID generally isn't important for home/gaming use. How much mission-critical data do you have?

The other kind of RAID distributes data over two drives. There is no data backup with this method but with two drives pulling the data off, you get an overall performance gain. On the other hand, lose a drive with this setup (you are now twice as likely to have a failure as your data is spread over two drives) and the whole house of cards comes down.

You can also run both kinds of RAID simultaneously (using 4 drives) to where you have data backup and faster access. But it costs 4 drives and you only get half the storage (i.e. two drves worth).

I went with the KT7 instead of the KT7 RAID ABit motherboard and had already bought a fast hard drive with the ATA 66 access and 7200 RPM spindle speed. Throw in an extra stick of memory and you end up with higher performance for less money IMHO.

You only benefit from the faster disk access if you are hitting the disk a lot - sorting through databases, etc. If you are flying AH or playing/flying other sims/games, the trick is to have enough RAM where you never hit the disk during gameplay. This effectively neuters a RAID setup and you ain't gonna notice the few ms difference in load times at startup. RAM is far faster than even a RAID setup.

So if you don't need the speed, and you don't need the data backup/redundancy, you don't need RAID. I'd rather put my money into more RAM, a single faster hard drive, faster graphics, and faster CPU.

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Rape, pillage, then burn...

Ghosth · « **Reply #7 on:** February 11, 2001, 03:53:00 PM »

Well I had come to the same conclusion as you pakrat on the Raid. Nice to know I was reading it right though.

With a 800mhz proc & 128 mb of pc133 ram and a modern 3d video card, will 5 fps REALLY make a difference? Guess it still winds up being a judgement call any way you look at it.

Long term the extra $$ will probably be worth it.

SC-DeMutt · « **Reply #8 on:** February 11, 2001, 10:27:00 PM »

Well, Ghosth;
I'm running a celeron 466/66[bus] @ 525/75, On a ABIT, BX6-R2 mobo. With 256mb/PC100 SDRAM [4 DIMMs], a 13.6 gig ATA66 HD, and a 6.1gig "D" drive w/750mb of "D" as my dedicated 'Swap File'.

Here's the 'Hard lesson' I'm learning from;
the 1st video card I put in, was a 12meg i740 AGP. IMHO, The most underrated chipset ever made! The reason I say that, Is even tho I rarely got 40 fps from it, (mostly 25-30), I could be in a furball, Over a smokin base, talkin on RW, and STILL have a beautifully rendered 23-25 fps, While Voodoo3 guys would suffer lockups, or the TNT's would drop thru the floor doin the same thing! No FSAA, or any of the other trick stuff, But the AGP memory was on the card! But it didnt catch on, and intel quit makin em. I wanted more frames, So I tried an AGP 16mb Banshee. Worked OK for some things, not at all for others.
Then came the ATI 128, 16mb/PCI. No improvement on fps, But good graphics. I took that back and bought a Diamond, Stealth III, S540 X-Treme, 32mb AGP. Whicjh I'm running now. Frames are OK at 38-50+ on my POS, 'ProView' 17" @ 800x600x32 [18 in smoke], But in AH, and my other fav Delta Force III, The shadows, and dark areas, are DARK! Waaaayyyy tooo DARK! It seems that is because of some lighting thing that is unsupported, and/or a weak point of the card.

What I've gleaned from my experience, And reading the posts placed by this August body of armchair aviators, Is that if you want 'Bang for the buck', Start with a fast CPU/Mobo setup. The real speed of the processor depends 1st on it's on board cache, And 2nd on the speed of the Bus it's sitting on. [ie: mobo/ram/bus]. And any good AGP video card will run good or bad, (for the most part), As a result of those efforts.

And... Of all the tweaks etc. on memory Size and Management I've tried, Putting my swapfile on the Slave drive, with a specified size of 'RAM x 3', Has for me, been the BEST! It works WELL! It's faster because the swapfile can be used without waiting on my main to complete a task first. And because it's a dedicated file, set to constantly refresh itself, About the only time my drives get fragmented, is from uninstalls etc.
So, Thanks to everyone's help, I think I'm getting close gaming heaven! (or divorcecourt!) lol

Take care!

Mutt

"If life gives you lemons; Squeeze the juice into a water gun, and shoot other people in the eyes!"

Ghosth · « **Reply #9 on:** February 12, 2001, 07:32:00 AM »

Well I have to agree with you about the i740.
My old systems both have the Diamond Stealth II G460 8mb cards. (i740 chipset)

Even on my old p2 266's they turn in a steady 25 to 30 fps in most planes.

As far as the new system goes, I'm looking at

Abit KT7a Mboard
Athlon Tbird 800mhz
128mb pc133 sdram

Still juggleing case & cooling fan.

As to video cards, Here is a short list of contenders.

3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 64mb 134$
Evga GeForce MX 32mb 112$ (w/ twinview)
Elsa " " GTS SDram 32mb 140$
Elsa " " GTS DDR 32mb 213$

Sad to say the Geforce "Ultra" 64mb is looking to be out of my price range.

PakRat · « **Reply #10 on:** February 12, 2001, 08:01:00 AM »

Ghost - be sure to check Tom's Hardware for a cooling fan comparison. I've got a CoolerMaster setup (it's what TCComputers supplies with their CPU/motherboards) and was watching temps climb up to near overtemp if I clocked the CPU over 1 GHz.

Anyway, I saw these massive-looking circular jobs - something Orb or another. They looked like they would do a great job and the guy at a local shop said they were selling like hotcakes.

Apparently they suck too. One of the higher CPU temps in the comparison. My CoolerMaster is near the middle but there are some others that really chill the CPU on down.

Had they not been out of stock, I'd have bought a POS fan that would have raised temps.

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Rape, pillage, then burn...

Lephturn · « **Reply #11 on:** February 12, 2001, 09:28:00 AM »

Here is my input:

1. Don't skimp on the RAM. Buy Crucial Cas2 or some other name brand you recognise. This will be the difference between high performance RAM that is useful for years, and a machine that inexplicably locks up while you are gaming. I've built with both, and I'll never buy generic RAM again.

2. Buy a T-bird. The price difference is pretty small, I think it's worth it to buy the slightly more powerful version.

Video is a personal choice. I'd consider the Geforce 2 Pro, the ATI Radeon, and maybe the V5 if you want good FSAA and aren't worried about support. The V5 is a smokin' deal right now too, but I'd only go that route if you have a monitor that limits you to 1024x768 resolution or so. If you have a monitor that will do high resolutions at high scan rates, a GeForce 2 may be a better choice.

If you need to save a couple bucks in other places to get the good RAM and processor, I reccomend picking a CD drive instead of DVD. Unless you REALLY want to watch DVD movies on your computer, don't by a DVD drive. Get a cheap generic CD drive. Optical drive technology is changing rapidly, so down the road you'll be able to get a DVDR/CDR that will read and write both for a reasonable price. Unless you need DVD for a reason now, wait on it.

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Lephturn - Aces High Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome!

Ghosth · « **Reply #12 on:** February 13, 2001, 04:36:00 AM »

Sounds like good advice all around.

DVD wasn't ever in the works, I am shopping for a reasonable CD-R-RW. I've got a burner now but it's a USB ext and if I run it faster than 2x it buffer overruns on me.

Still reasearching intensively this week. Looks like the 16th is the target date for the IRS to make my day with a fat check.