What's the difference?

[NoTech]

I'm trying to decide whether to get a Thunderbird 800, 850 or 900. Is there enough of a noticeable performance leap from the 800 to the 900 to make it worth the extra 50 or 60 bucks? Where exactly do you see the real difference? Do you see real differences in 50 Mhz increments, or are there sudden leaps when you reach certain levels? I do not plan on overclocking, at least not right away. I want to stick with this CPU for as long as possible, so I'm leaning toward springing for the 900, but I wanted some expert advice to be sure. Thanks in advance.

 

[jaydee]

There is little difference of 100mhz in this situation. You could probably tell if your loading large programs, and had a stop watch handy. Or if you think the extra 15 fps are that benificial in a graphics intensive game (Q3, UT). Otherwise no. Of course, you could overclock the fsb to 108-110, and get 64-80 of those mhz back without connecting the L1 bridge, if its that important to you.

 

[shk]

I gain about 12 FPS in Quake3A in the example of my case, running 800mhz(6x133) I get 119 FPS in my particular fixed graphics setting. When I run it at 882mhz(6x147) and I get 131.9- 132.4 FPS. That's not even a 100mhz diff for great result but because of darn high FSB that help gave a... betta pushhhh.. If you try running SisSoft Sandra 2000, you will also see precise performance difference. If you think of such way that when somebody says 100mhz, 50mhz, etc difference is merely none, then there would be no performance difference between 500mhz and 900mhz system, right?? If you think about it, it makes whole lot of sense. I can even tell if there was a 10mhz difference when I play games because im crazy and sensitive, LOL.

 

[jaydee]

<< If you try running SisSoft Sandra 2000, you will also see precise performance difference. >>


What good is that for? So you can go to LAN parties and brag how much better your computer is benchmarking SisSoft Sandra?


<< If you think of such way that when somebody says 100mhz, 50mhz, etc difference is merely none, then there would be no performance difference between 500mhz and 900mhz system, right?? >>


Not right. Look at the percentages. Going from 800 to 850 provides you with approximately 5.9% more performance. Going from 850 to 900 provides you with 5.6% more performance. And the huge leap from 800 to 900 would be about 11.2% more. Now, this is only if the cpu is the only factor, theoretically speaking, right?. It is not. Because of limitations and bottlenecks in the FSB, RAM, HD ect., the performance increase would be even less. Now, that being said, overclocking is VERY, VERY simple. With a KT&amp;, or K7T pro2, board, all you need to do is go through the bios to change the FSB. It takes 20 seconds. If you have a A7V, then you just switch a jumper or two, and then go through the bios. That's not difficult either. I can understand if you don't want to change the multiplier, somewhat beacuse of the sodering. But if you buy from someone on the forums, I'm sure they'd be glad to unlock the multipliers for you, (or they may be unlocked already if it's used) for little or no charge. I wish you luck.