CPU ignorance

[khalraen]

I knew I shouldn't have...

...but, I did. I caught up a little reading on CPU's and now I feel so inadequate.

I'm sorry if this it the wrong forum to ask/post, but I've discovered I'm waaaay out of date as far as CPU's and motherboards are concerned. I've recently gotten a large paycheck, so I went online to see about upgrading my Athlon 650...

I can't say that I understand it all, but I've done a bit of reading, and now I'm looking to have some of my questions answered...
As far as I understand, the greatest and latest (affordable!) technology out there is still the AMD line. The T-birds boast best performance to price -- so I'm pretty set on that. Now, I'm just thinking about what I should pair together.
I'm somewhat looking towards the future, but I'm more so looking at my wallet, so -- as far as my reading goes, the best choices seems like a AMD 1.2GHz @ 266MHz. This runs at a 133 FSB, so I'll need a motherboard that'll do that. It seems like the optimum choice would be the KT133A. I'm hoping to not have to buy new RAM, so I'll be using my PC133 SDRAM....

...now, time for questions:
The AMD 1.2 (266) supports(?) DDR, but in my current configuration, I won't be taking advantage of that, since I'm still using PC133 SDRAM -- is this true?
In the future, will upgrading to DDR be as simple as changing out the RAM? Or am I also limited by the motherboard? I guess what I'm asking is whether the KT133A is simply at boosted-KT133, or is it a true AMD760 chipset?

My final question is...that w/ the AMD 1.33 (or any 133 fsb) out, and the AMD760 chipset out...and with DDR SDRAM prices dropping...am I jumping in the last breath of an old technology?


...or, have I -completely- misunderstood all the articles? 😀

 

[Viper GTS]

DDR support is dependant on the motherboard & chipset, not the processor.

KT133/KT133A based motherboards are SDRAM only, AMD760 boards are DDR. They are totally separate chipsets.

Go ahead & grab DDR, that's the best bet for future use.

Viper GTS

 

[khalraen]

Continued my reading, and I just answered my own questions 🙂

Alright, so you recommend a TB 1.2 running at 266 FSB, w/ some AMD760 chipset, and getting some new DDR SDRAM to boot.

I've checked prices a bit and the TB 1.2's run at about 150, a motherboard at about 150, and ram at about 100. This adds up the about 400...does that sound pretty fair?

Also...what do you think about the Iwill KA266?

- bleh, just found out the Iwills are not AMD760's. Its the ALi Magik 1. Where can I find some material comparing the different types of DDR motherboards available for the Tbirds?

 

[SaiyanGoku]

Benchmark for ddr motherboards can be found here Ddr motherboards
The Ali Magik 1 supports ddr, my friend has one and it runs pretty good.
Also you can get ddr for about 80US at Crucial website