Upgrade question...

[JimMc]

Local Fry's has a Soyo Dragon + and an XP 1700 for $249. It will require me to buy DDR Ram, whereas going for an ECS K75SA plus the same CPU would be cheaper by $70-80 or so and allow me to reuse my PC133. The Dragon+ would allow for overclocking more easily than the ECS board . Any thoughts on the performance difference between DDR vs. SDRAM?

I'm definately inclined toward the DRAGON+, the built in sound (suppose to be good) and the NIC will save me some parts and $$ when building my son's PC this spring.

 

[ElFenix]

for every day tasks an XP paired with ddr will be a few percent faster than a tbird with ddr, and the tbird with sdr is definitely slower by 15% or so. i'd expect it to perform pretty close to tbird levels with sdr ram, since data prefetch is most of the XP's advantage. and of course for seti ddr + xp rules.

 

[JimMc]

Every day tasks? Huh?? I'm talking SETI, my man! ECS with SDR versus Dragon+ and DDR.

Obviously I'm really looking for confirmation that spending the extra $$ is worth it on some level and I'm not just blowing the family budget for no good reason. I plan to transfer my current MSI KT133 (after a stint in the crack rack) into my son's computer, so my current SB Live, 256 MB PC133 and NIC will be surplus for his PC. Come on, I'm trying to talk myself into some kind of justification!

 

[SWScorch]

S@H will take advantage of the increased bandwidth with DDR, and the overclocking will allow even greater performance. DDR all the way man!!!

 

[medic]

You said:
Obviously I'm really looking for confirmation that spending the extra $$ is worth it on some level and I'm not just blowing the family budget for no good reason.

Then you said....
I'm talking SETI, my man!

Well you just answered your own question...Of course it's worth it!!


XP1700 + DDR = 3-4 Hr WU's!

 

[poopaskoopa]

I have no idea how much gap there is between those two, but I can share with you my home PC's stats to give you an idea of what KT266A + XP1800+ might do:
My home PC's SETI stats

It's XP1800+@139mhz FSB, with the most aggresive memory settings.

the on-board AC97 sound from my Shuttle AK31 is very acceptable for my use(gaming, mp3, etc). I used to use MX300(Aureal 2 chipset).

 

[JimMc]

Fry's is a zoo, but I got the Dragon+. Also picked up 256 MB of PC 2400 Corsair. Damn shame I've got to go out tonight, I'll start stuffing it in tomorrow AM.

 

[Maggotry]

Glad to see you went with the Dragon. Even if SETI didn't exist, why buy the older technology (pc133) anyway? Any good geek worth his weight in mobo's should get the most technology he can afford!

 

[Crazee]

I have the Dragon Plus on two machines and I couldn't be happier. Its a great mobo!

Glad you got the reassurance you needed