• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Overclock P4 NW + SDRAM is not too bad at all

W

WhiteMouse

Senior member
Since I am cheap and still want to use my free after rebate PC133 memory sticks, I picked an Intel 845 based motherboard and a P4 1.6A. Moreover, the motherboard is a refurbished, so I got cheaper price and free shipping (from newegg). Plus a cheap CompUSA case, I only spent around $250. Adding my PC133 memory (and I found I still have some new PC100 memory :Q ), old supper slow hard drive, dusty floppy drive, brand new DVD rom, old video card, (there is a 6-ch audio build-in MB), now I have a P4 2.13G PC running.

Of course the memory banchmark cannot compare with DDR, but other banchmarks are not bad at all. CPU banchmarks are the same as other P4 2.13s, and even 3DMark is not far below those DDR systems.

 
Although Running a Northwood on SDRAM is akin to Making an ISA bus version of the GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 😀, people ARE getting good results, excellent way of getting this very overclockable CPU into your system and a lot more powerful than a Williamette 1.6 running on RDRAM methinks.. People have been making good use of their PC133 RAM in Athlons for ages, it`s Northwood`s turn now 😉 .. I`ve got to build a Northwood 1.6 P4 system later on in the week and have to admit that it`ll be RDRAM (it`s a similar price to DDR in the UK currently) but I`ll give them the option of SDRAM and see what they say as they have four sticks of 256 Crucual in their BX system
 
My system is not "finallized" yet, as I am still in test stage, and the main reason for the testing was not for overclock, but to make sure that refurbished mobo is working properly. I still have 10 days to return it.

Here's my current setup:
P4 1.6A
Shuttle AB30 motherboard (intel 845 chipset, 4 USB ports, build-in CMedia 6-ch audio)
512M PC133 SDRAM, PNY 256M + 128M + 128M, NEC and Inf. chips
GeForce2 GTS video card.
4G Hard drive, old, noisy, and slow
LiteOn 16X DVD rom, new
Dusty floppy drive and cables pulled from a P75 PC.
CompUSA case w/ 300W power supply, no case fan

The AB30 motherboard has some problems, maybe that's the reason it was returned. But so far it is still in working order.

It will give warning message about HD changes every time it boots up if overclocked, even nothing has been changed. But seems it's just a warning, and everything is working fine. Default 100fsb does not have that problem.

It has the Vcore setting but it is not correct. The "default" will give 1.4V. Set it to 1.55V, both BIOS and SiS Sandra report Vcore as 1.49V.

FSB can be adjusted from 100 to 166 in 1M step.

It can manually set memory perameters.

There is an "Auto PCI clock", but I am not sure what it is.

Shuttle does not reply email at all. :|

The build-in CMedia is nice, has 6-ch support, but the driver will crash XP. It is not mobo's fault though.

Since Shuttle does not provide support, I do not know if AB30 will lock the PCI speed when running above 100 fsb. But one thing for sure, it does not lock memory speed, which might be good for certain people so they can overclock memory without having to run 132fsb.

Here's the (solid working) settings in BIOS:
VCore: 1.55V (1.49V reading)
FSB: 133 (anything above 140 will not post even with higher vcore)
Memory: PC133, 3-3-3-7 (CL3 and delay 7)
Temp. idle 29C, loaded 45C max, even at 88F room temp. (left house w/o AC turned on, but left PC running burn-in test!)

Talk about the speed, SiS Sandra CPU banchmark is higher than P4 2.0G (of course). The memory banchmark is not even close to DDRs, but since I am running PC133x1.33 = PC177 @CL3 (glad AB30 lets me adjust delay to 7, the default 6 will crash XP in overnight burn-in test), my score is better than any PC133s. The score for worst DDR was 100% faster than my default setting PC133s. But after OC, it's only 50% faster. And sb. just posted some results here, and my score looks even better 🙂

I do not have any game installed on the system, but I do have 3DMark2001. On my non-overclocked GeForce2 GTS 64M, the 3DMark2001 score is 4200. It's among the slowest in Madonion's published scores (using the same OCed CPU, Video card and OS). All others are using DDR based mobo, but I still beat some in certain tests. And seems their video mem are all 32M.

Check ORB for my 3DMark2001 score, and you can judge if it's gaming fast. ( I am not a gamer any more, even I was back to DOS time 😱 )
 
whitemouse, I am laughing....

What the heck do you expect the difference would be in cpu benchmarks??? hence cpu...it doesn't matter the type of memory it is testing the cpu...

3dmark for the most part is testing the video card and is more likely to gain significant score by ocing the memory on the vid card itself....I have tested my sdram and ddr on athlon systems and gained very little by changing system memory speed which was often half the speed of the ddr on the vid card...if the card got so saturated as to use system memory both would effect my performnace negatively. However with 64mb ddr that is unlikely...not a real test to confirm or prove anything...

PLease do not put all your stock in synthetic benchmarks...real world ppl...

Do any of you read the articles Tomshardware did on how as the p4 ramps up in speed and fsb the sdram and ddr ram for that point at their max cannot supply the p4 with the bandwidth it needs to shine...At slower speeds it may not be as evident....

Don't kid yourselves...certain intensive memory application will show the weakness
 
lol duvie you make me laugh


anyways, for the non-power user, i dont think this is a bad idea at all

as a matter of fact, i think its perfectly sane and a good idea

i wouldnt do it, but thats just because i have no SDRAM anymore and if i bought some, it would be DDR...good job though, its cool to know you tested it out 😉
 
Duvie, I guess you missed the whole point. We all know PC133 DIMM can not compare to DDR. The P4+PC133 solution is not good, but not too bad, and it's cheap for certain people who has old parts to recycle.

Right, banchmark is not real-world, but it is a good tool to test my system. And as you said "certain intensive memory application will show the weakness", which we all know about that, but do you think in real world, most people run those "certain intensive memory application"?

And, since NW P4 has 512k L2 cache, instead of 256k, I bet it will help people who normally run those not so intensive memory application. 😀
 
I think P4 NW + SDRAM is a good idea for non power users to get onto the P4 Bandwagon (and get some nice speed with their computers). I remember in tests with the athlon 1.3 GHz or so, DDR memory gave a 5-10% speed upgrade over SDRAM; noticeable to some but hardly a 100%-must-have speed upgrade for MOST users, who do not even require 1 Ghz of computer speed. Building a P4 NW + old SDRAM that you have makes sense for some and is a pretty viable option, it's just when people custom build a P4 and go buy the SDRAM now with its ridiculous prices that makes no sense, when DDR isn't too much more.

Also, Dell and other manufactuers go a bit too far by teasing people with 'fast' P4 systems (usually Williamette) and pairing them up with SDRAM and their trusty old TNT2-M64's. I hate it when people ask me why certain demanding games are slow with their Dell/HP/etc machine. Certainly an Athlon 1.4 GHz+ or P4 1.6+ can't be slow now can it? Of course it can when using a garbage video card (by today's standards).
 
Oh well, tried Prime95, crashed my system within minutes 😱 so that 3-3-3-7 is not "solid" enough, even it can pass Sandra.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top