FSB question

[emt8q5]

I have a question about the FSB of a processor. what exactly does the FSB do and how much does it affect performance? I ask because I am looking at getting a Mobile Athlon XP 2600+ with a 266mhz FSB, and a 512k L2 Cache. I plan on overclocking this. Anyway, Other processors out there have FSBs of 333mhz or 400mhz...what advantage does that give them? Is this worth the $300 or so (Mobo, CPU and RAM) the upgrade will cost, or should I go for something better?

 

[kd2777]

None on the mobile bartons, because they are unlocked and will run at any d@mn speed you want. I am running a mobile 2400 right now at 400FSB with a 11 multiplier = 2.2Ghz, that is 3200+ speed. I got this strait out of the box and with no tweaking of the voltage or anything, just soon as I powered the system on, went to BIOS (Abit NF7 2.0) and set the FSB and multiplier.

But to answer your question faster FSB is better. To my understanding it is the Bus from the CPU to the memory (don't quote me on that, but I think it is right) so the faster it is the faster the info travels. But let me reinterate, the mobile Barton does work at 400FSB!!!

What motherboard are you planning on using and does it have adjustments for the Multiplier in it's BIOS.

KD

PS save some money and buy a cheaper Mobile chip.

PSS this is all providing it is going in a desktop.

 

[Jiggz]

The $300.00 is around the ball park. Although, you can probably find something cheaper depending on the mobo you are purchasing. Yes, the Mobile Athlon 2400+ is highly overclockable.

 

[Goi]

The FSB(front side bus) is the bus that connects the CPU with the north bridge, including the AGP/memory controller in this case. So, the faster, the better.

 

[kd2777]

Get this CPU and this motherboard. You will be out 169 bucks for the pair and can OC it to 3200+ speeds with no trouble at all. Pick out some decent pc-3200 or 3500 RAM and you will be good to go. As far as RAM you need at least 512, I would look at something like this from Corsair or maybe for a few bucks more this cool Mushkin set. If you are looking at 1GB I own a set of these and love them. I am running a mobile 2400+ @ 400FSB with a 11 multiplier (2.2 GHz) with the ABIT NF7-S ver2 and the 2.5 CAS pc-3200 Corsair Value RAM and it has been 100% stable for 2 months. Not to mention I OCed it to this speed out of the box. I haven't tried anything higher, basically all I was wanting to acheive was to have a 3200+ for 75 bucks.

Good luck

KD