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So, what's the fastest platfom that still uses SDR SDRAM?

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:16 pm
by His Royal Majesty King V
Hey folks,

Haven't been around for a while. Long commute to the new job (though thankfully not a 5-day-a-week thing), as well as busy with His Royal Majesty Prince V.

But, I've come across a bit of a conundrum.

Along with some memory I acquired recently (thanks, Jim!), I've also just today brought home a new case.

Well, there is an Intel 810e-based motherboard (no AGP slot, and it's got a dead IDE connector too!), along with a P3-667 (133 FSB), and even more PC133 RAM (one day I'll get to test and catalog it all!). But effectively, it's just a case that I can put something in. I'm planning on retaining the power supply, RAM, and possibly the heatsink/fan.

I'm not particularly for or against going with Intel or AMD on this. Basically, I'd like something with an AGP slot, and that can make use of the 168-pin PC133 SDRAM.

If possible, I'd like to get a lower-powered CPU, or at least one that I can go subtle/quiet on cooling more easily, while still getting more performance (ie: in Intel's Socket 370 world, I know that the Tualatin core CPUs are better in terms of speed and power:heat ratio than are the Coppermines).

On the other hand, I know that some Althon platforms supported SDR as well as DDR . . so maybe that's something to consider.

Oh, and of course, since I'm a cheap SOB, I'd like it to be readily, plentifully available, say on eBay or whatever.

Anyway, overall I'm guessing something that probably fits this is between the 1.0 and 1.5 GHz range.

Thoughts or suggestions? What *were* the latest systems that still used SDR SDRAM?

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:37 pm
by Uranium235
Greetings King V, Here's a board you may like, an MSI K7T Turbo2. It uses SDRAM and supports up to an XP2600 Thoroughbred CPU. I've seen reports that Barton's will run on it too. I believe the VIA KT133A chipset boards were the last SDRAM boards available for AMD CPU's.

Check it out:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-MSI-K7T-TURBO-2 ... dZViewItem

It looks like a good deal to me. I prefer buying new because I've been burned buying used boards on Ebay before.

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:43 am
by KachiWachi
What motherboard is it...just for curiosities sake?

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:27 am
by His Royal Majesty King V
KachiWachi: it's an Intel CA810e, or at least, those are the only model indicator's I've found so far.

U235: Definitely looks interesting . . although I'll have to admit to a bit of hesitation with the VIA chipset, especially given the auction itself implies some pickiness with RAM chips. Plus, I'd ideally like one with a 4th DIMM slot (hah! I know, good luck finding one!)

On the other hand, damn! Supports up to XP2600?! That's FAR faster than I thought would be available with the relatively ancient SDRAM. Admittely, the thermal-dissipaton numbers (from this chart have me a bit concerned (compared, to say, the Pentium III-S), but still, I imagine the performance would be impressive compared to that P3 as well.

Ahh . . decisions, decisions . . . I know I actually asked "What's the fastest I could go with this RAM" but now I'm thinking maybe cooler-and-quieter is making that P3-S look better.

And, naturally, I'll put off any actual decision-making on this for several weeks, or perhaps a month or three as real life continues to intrude for me.

I should probably throw in as well, as an "it would be nice" sort of thing, that, whatever board I eventually get, I'd ideally like Win98/WinME drivers available for it, as I'm still quite fond of running 98lite.

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:18 pm
by Uranium235
I've got a 1GB PIII, 133FSB and an almost new FIC FR33 motherboard (no AGP slot :( ) that I would let go of cheap......

http://taiwan.fic.com.tw/product/mother ... odel_id=64

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:21 pm
by His Royal Majesty King V
Yeep! No, I'd definitely want an AGP slot, and I'd most certainly need more than 2 DIMM slots and 2 PCI slots!

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:24 pm
by sylvan2626
EPoX boards are still floating around and they have AGP 4x and 5 PCI slots along with 3 RAM slots (PC133/PC100). I have an EP-7KXA (Slot 1, uses Pentium II and Pentium III) and an EP-6VBA (Slot A) with CPUs for each. They are not in use at the moment, though, so can't provide any test data.

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:26 am
by His Royal Majesty King V
Yeesh, for the money people seem to want for the higher-speed Tualatin CPUs and better boards, maybe I should just spend less money on a much faster Athlon processor, and one of those VIA KT133A-equipped boards (edit: and deal with the additional heat and thus cooling requirements).

EDIT again: Did anyone besides ECS ever make a full ATX motherboard based on the SiS 735 chipset?

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:41 pm
by KGB
Why not a P4 approach? The 845 (non DDR) intel chipset is a viable and very stable chipset. I use it in a Dell Dimension 4300S and my old IBM Netvista 6214 used it. Both had 1GB memory and were spectacular. AGP 4x, ATA100, Asynchronous memory. Unfortunately it supports only 100FSB processors. But many celerons are up to 2.8GHz with 100FSB, as are P4 northwoods, but they are incredibly expensive (the p4's that is). I have an old 1.5 P4 socket 478 with 100fsb not being used. They don't sell for much, ie http://cgi.ebay.com/MSI-845-Pro-w-Intel ... dZViewItem

Look for a VIA KT133A based motherboard if you are looking to hook up an athlon (up to palomino 2000+ in most cases is supported).

I lucked out recently when my cousin, found an Asus P3B-F in the trash with ram and I placed an old Tualatin Celeron in it (with Powerleap Slocket).

You have options, good luck with your search. :)

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:40 pm
by His Royal Majesty King V
Well, I was thinking of going Tualatin because of low heat and low power... until I saw the price premium those boards were commanding.

So, until you mentioned it, I thought the KT133A based stuff was my best bet that could still use the old RAM.

I didn't realize that there were P4 boards that could use 168-pin SDRAM.

That said, don't the P4 CPUs use notably more power, and thus generate more heat, than an equivalent performing AMD CPU? Also, I had assumed that price-wise I could probably get more bang-for-the-buck from the AMD platform, but I haven't really searched that much for it yet (so little time these days)

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:44 pm
by DonPedro
according to what is listed in the benchmark section of everest (2.20), the sis645dx chipset together with the i845 chipset get the most out of pc133 sdram.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:55 pm
by Jim
That is a very good answer Peter. I like your approach to the question.

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:36 pm
by His Royal Majesty King V
Definitely interesting information.

Man, apparently I'm not nearly as limited in terms of how (relatively) modern as I had initially assumed, in terms of what sort of chipset and CPU I could use with this RAM.

I'd thought for sure that there was no way to get past the 1-1.5GHz sort of range and still use the old memory.

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:18 pm
by KGB
hmm, I didn't realize the law of conservation and bang for buck "theories" were being applied in this thread. I just thought, a mere >80% efficiency power supply would keep the relative cost of using a P4 down (even further down for the celery). I imagined it is even better than the pseudo space heater clone (AMD T-bird 1.4 to T-bred 1.8) :wink:

Maybe someone has forgotten the only "hot" chips intel made were the Prescotts (2.8 ghz and above). While the Williamette core does get hotter than northwoods, I honestly cannot say I have felt the affects of it in the dell (superior cooling I suppose?). The SiS chipset is equivalent, but I'd rather trade the 2-3 % performance gain, for INTEL stability (no punch lines please :wink: ), but if you're looking for a Rare motherboard, then by all means do look around.

Tualatin's are premium for entirely different reasons. Its exotic, and persons such as I (and 'lil Jim) are just plain old whore's for old teknoloji. But, its only usefull if you've already invested in Slot 1 or 370 during 99-02 and was waiting for something like Vista and DX10 + to really upgrade in 2008. All the other things are mainly fillers if you're looking for a semi-pro, semi-game, internet pc.

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:27 pm
by His Royal Majesty King V
Well, I'm not concerned that much with power consumption for its own sake, but only in how it'll affect me trying to make it a quiet running system.

And, yeah, a friend of mine had a P4 Dell system, nearly silent as the grave. They have a well-thought-out ducting system by which the CPU has a massive heatsink with no fan, and the ducting channels the air draw from the rear fan (fans?). I wish I knew who made those cases for Dell - if they were available with standard-type connections and with a standard power supply, I'd definitely go for it.

But in any case, I'm basically going to try and perform a balancing act among:
1) How cheaply can I get it.
2) How fast will it be.
3) How easily and quietly can I cool it.

I feel like I'm falling into the performance car enthusiast's conundum:
1) Cheap
2) Fast
3) Reliable

Pick 2 out of 3. :)

Ah well, when I've time to browse ebay, shop, etc., I'll figure something out.




Kachi (and anyone else who was curious) . . . it seems like it wasn't the IDE port that was bad after all . . . tried to partition two different hard drives and it kept puking.... swapped IDE cables, and everything seems fine!

I'm going to do a full OS install on this thing though, just to see if it's fully functional or if I just got lucky during the partitioning/formatting process.