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A few questions on Athlon XPs, motherboards and memory

A

Arkitech

Diamond Member
I've been doing a lot of research and I think that I'm going to purchase an Athlon XP 1800 with a ECS K7S5A mobo. My question is does the ECS board support ATA100 drives?

Also in regards to memory will I see a big difference in performance if go with DDR instead of SDram?

Assuming that I go with DDR is there a signficant performance increase with DDR PC100 vs PC2100-2700?


thanks for any input
 
i'm not sure about ata100 support in the k7s5a. but the ddr pc2700 wouldn't do much if you're not overclocking the memory. i think pc2100 is like ddr266mhz and pc2700 is ddr333mhz.
 
if you still have some, slap it in temporarily until memory prices go down. but if you don't, go straight to ddr. i'd say a 256mb module would be sufficient for everyday use.
 
K7S5A does support ATA/100, yes you will see a fairly large (say 10-15% increase) increase from SDRAM to DDR in games, in Office apps, well more around 5%. But, if you have SDRAM allready, then don't hesitate to throw it in there for the time being, But, if you're gonna have to buy memory, buy DDR because SDRAM prices have shot up as well, and now DDR and PC133 are the same price and there's no reason not to go DDR. As for PC2700, it won't even be used by K7S5A. It doesn't support PC2700. If u bought PC2700, it would work, but instead of running at PC2700, it would run at PC2100.
 
DDR will give you a pretty decent boost in performance. I notice that large amounts of DDR make multitasking a complete breeze. Windows maintains it's "snap" under a lot of pressure. If you already have SDR, just stick with it though. It isn't worth THAT much more to go the DDR route. Also, that board doesn't support PC2700 memory. Don't even bother with that. Don't bother with PC1600 either. It is pretty close to the performance of regular old SDR.
 
In my opinion, PC2100 is the best way to go. Don't get the cheapest brand possible though. Get a more notable brand like Kingston or Micron. If you plan on overclocking get some Crucial or Corsair memory.
 


<< In my opinion, PC2100 is the best way to go. Don't get the cheapest brand possible though. Get a more notable brand like Kingston or Micron. If you plan on overclocking get some Crucial or Corsair memory. >>

I agree. Don't just go Generic, go Kingston, Micron, Crucial, Corsair, Samsung, or any big brand name
 
What about PC2400 DDR RAM in, say, an ASUS A7M266-D board? I'm assuming if o/c is desired, PC2400 would run better than PC2100?
 


<< What about PC2400 DDR RAM in, say, an ASUS A7M266-D board? I'm assuming if o/c is desired, PC2400 would run better than PC2100? >>

Well, here's where that might be useful. Lets say on the A7M266-D you're overclocking the fsb to 150MHz, because AMD 760 requires the fsb and memory clock to be in sync, the memory will be increased to 150MHz as well, and that's where PC2400 comes in because it is guaranteed to run at 150MHz (300MHz DDR), but the reality is that Crucial PC2100 will hit easily PC2400 speeds, and last I checked it was cheaper than PC2400, why some ppl have gotten their Crucial to PC2700 speeds. Most KT266A, MAGiK, nForce, and all AMD 760/760 MP boards keep the fsb and memory in sync, some though do provide an option to slow the memory. I personally think that the memory clock should always be kept in sync with the fsb.
 
i have seen crucial go to 168 front side bus at Cas 2 and Corsair make to 170 fsb. both are very good brands IMO. i have some generic corsair stuff here as well that performs very well . just got some NANYA havent had time to see how well it does



Jen
 
Thanks, Athlon and Jen.

That just might save me a bit of $$. I was looking to get a 512MB stick of Nanya PC2400 (I think it was $159)...still not that bad but I don't know about Nanya chips.
 
conjur

i will be trying out this NANYA chips this comeing week when i put this XP computer of mine together


Jen
 
Cool...feel free to PM the results if you'd like! 🙂

I'd like to build that dual AMD PC in a few weeks but I'm torn on waiting for the .13 die chips.....
 
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