What to sacrafice? 33mhz of memory bandwidth or 167mhz cpu speed?

[toph99]

i have a choice to make. my duron 600 can hit 817mhz if i flash MSI's special overclocking BIOS which gives me the choice to give the cpu 1.85V, but this BIOS takes away my ability to run my ram at PC133 CAS2. should i take the extra CPU speed or the extra memory bandwidth? right now it's running at 650, 1.7V

thanks

 

[Spoooon]

Do you notice a difference either way? If not, I would go with the memory bandwidth.

 

[rhinox99]

I'd go with the more memory bandwidth. Isn't it true that most of the time your cpu is just sitting there waiting for the bus anyways? You could also think about it relative to the % increase you get 1/3 more bandwidth or ~1/4 more cpu speed.

 

[Noriaki]

What kind of graphics card do you have?

What do you use it for?

Personally I would take the memory bandwidth, a Duron 650 is likely to be enough CPU power. But that depends on what you use it for.

 

[Neos]

I really thought I set up my PC 100 to run at CAS 2, and I have loaded that OCer's Bios. Am I missing something? Is not PIO Mode 2 in the Integrated Peripherals section the same thing?
Neos

 

[miniMUNCH]

Neos:

NO. Memmory is not a peripheral device. PIO modes refer to they transfer speed of IDE/ATA storage devices like your HD's and CD/DVD roms.

 

[toph99]

the memory area is in Advanced Chipset somethingorother. it'll say DRAM speed: and either, Auto, 100mhz or 133mhz
then it will say CAS Latency - Auto, 2 or 3

oh, and i use this mostly for gaming and have an Asus V7100 GF2 MX 32mb

 

[Quaggoth]

from the looks of it, you have enough CPU/GPU horsepower, I would go with the memory bandwidth.

 

[zippy]

Guys, memory bandwidth does NOT translate to system bandwidth. +33MHz for your memory just means that it will spit out the data faster but it will still have to wait just as long to get into the CPU because the FSB is still 100MHz.

Go with the 167MHz CPU speed.

By the way, the easiest way to tell is to benchmark your system (SiSoft Sandra tests, Quake3, UT) and then go from there. By the way, some of the benchmark demos that anandtech uses have links- so go to "The Test" page for a CPU review or something. At least I know that the UT demo is there.

Good luck!