seeking advice of DH grandmasters

Ubergrendle · Nov 26, 2004, 02:45 PM

My rig is about 2 years old right now, and I've committed to some piece-meal upgrades recently. My strategic goal is to buy a 64-bit cpu/system in about 2 years time when there's software that takes advantage of those new instruction sets.

Recent upgrades: Western Digital hd, EIDE 7200 rpm 8mb cache, 160gb. Unfortunately I have it paired on the same cable as my old 5400rpm 40gb drive...my case layout doesn't allow for a more optimal DVD/hd, DVD/hd setup. I've rebuilt WinXP SP2 on the 160gb drive and made that my boot drive now.

Question #1: Is just the mere fact of having the 5400rpm drive on the same cable going to decrease my new drive's performance? Or only when I'm using both hard disks at the same time?

My motherboard is an ASUS A7V333 which I've been very happy with. ~HOWEVER~ I discovered about a year ago that the 333mhz designation was only for DDR ram, and NOT the FSB.

My ASUS A7V333 is a rev 1.01 which only supports 266 FSB, thus the best CPU I can support is an Athlon XP 2600+ Thoroughbred B core (exceedingly rare). To make matters worse, I have 2x 256mb DDR PC 2700 (333mhz) sticks, but a warning at ASUS suggests that my DDR will be limited to 266mhz if I activate the third bank.

HL2 runs decently @ medium settings, with no vsync and anti-aliasing enabled. I'd like to improve my vsync to limit motion-sickness and overall performance. I have a few options remaining with my current rig to upgrade, knowing that i have a limited $100-200 budget remaining.

Question 2: What of the following is my 'best' option in terms of next ugprades?

Option 1: Purchase an 266 FSB XP 2400+, or a 2600+ if possible, and swap out my Palomino 1800+. Theoretically I will get a 20-25% performance gain doing this. I'll sell the 1800+ on eBay.

Option 2: Purchase a 512mb DDR stick and activate the third memory bank. Memory performance might drop to 266mhz. Going from 333 to 266 will be offset by 1gb vs 512mb total system memory. My cheapest & easiest option I'm thinking.

Option 3: Pull out both 256mb DDR sticks, sell them on eBay, and buy TWO 512mb DDR PC 2700 sticks. This will keep my memory bus @ 333mhz, but is a bit of a hassle.

Option 4: Investing more memory / upgrading CPU in a 2 year old system is throwing good money after bad; suck it up, buy a new system in 18 mos instead of 2 years.

Ultimately I think this comes down to: cpu upgrade, or memory?

On the whole I've been really happy with my current system spec. The motherboard is the most reliable I've ever had (I haven't had a h/w lockup ONCE in 2 years). HL2 is probably the most aggressive use I'll put this system through...I use MS Office & productivity applications for work, do some web development, and some Photoshop editing, but nothing onerous.

Your thoughts/advice are greatly appreciated.

Vampyromaniac · Nov 26, 2004, 04:54 PM

#1 The performance will be impacted when using both at the same time, and even then not too much to worry about. Note, though: your mentioned "ideal" setup is in fact not what I'd recommend. Pairing hard drives with optical drives has been the cause of many complaints I've heard. The optical drive usually hurts the performance of the hard drive. It's best to pair hard drives to each other, and optical drives to each other.

#2 I agree most with option 4, with one caveat. Why not buy RAM now, and take it with you when you upgrade in the future?
Here's what I'd do. Buy yourself 2x512 now, and sell your old RAM. And don't buy PC2700, get PC3200. It can run at the lower speed for now, and then when you have a motherboard to put it to full use, it will run at its normal 3200 speeds. There is practically no price difference between PC2700 and PC3200 anyway; there's no reason to buy PC2700 these days. And you would take the PC3200 with you when you upgrade anyway, so there's no money thrown away. And one less thing to buy for your total upgrade.

I did just that, with my upgrade. I had 1x256 PC2100, then bought one 512 PC3200, and ran them both at DDR266 (highest my mobo supported.) Later bought another 512 PC3200 and replaced the 256 PC2100 with it. Then, when I upgraded to Athlon 64, took the same RAM with me and now run them at their normal DDR400.

Ubergrendle · Nov 26, 2004, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyromaniac

Pairing hard drives with optical drives has been the cause of many complaints I've heard. The optical drive usually hurts the performance of the hard drive. It's best to pair hard drives to each other, and optical drives to each other.

Glad to hear that. I noticed that copying files from one drive to the other when on the same paired cable is horribly slow, but I don't do that very often.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyromaniac

#2 I agree most with option 4, with one caveat. Why not buy RAM now, and take it with you when you upgrade in the future?
Here's what I'd do. Buy yourself 2x512 now, and sell your old RAM. And don't buy PC2700, get PC3200. It can run at the lower speed for now, and then when you have a motherboard to put it to full use, it will run at its normal 3200 speeds.

The only stability problem I ever had with my current rig was when I ran two different speeds of DDR in two different banks... PC 2100 (266) and PC 2700 (333) in the other. I was under the impression mixing/matching speeds of RAM was a definite no-no? Or was my experience a rarity?

pr0digal jenius · Nov 26, 2004, 10:30 PM

i'm with vampy....hard drives on one channel, optics on the other, and buy a new system in a bit as the socket A is goign out of style awfully fast

The_Neon_Cowboy · Nov 27, 2004, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ubergrendle

My rig is about 2 years old right now, and I've committed to some piece-meal upgrades recently. My strategic goal is to buy a 64-bit cpu/system in about 2 years time when there's software that takes advantage of those new instruction sets.

Recent upgrades: Western Digital hd, EIDE 7200 rpm 8mb cache, 160gb. Unfortunately I have it paired on the same cable as my old 5400rpm 40gb drive...my case layout doesn't allow for a more optimal DVD/hd, DVD/hd setup. I've rebuilt WinXP SP2 on the 160gb drive and made that my boot drive now.

Question #1: Is just the mere fact of having the 5400rpm drive on the same cable going to decrease my new drive's performance? Or only when I'm using both hard disks at the same time?

[color=lime]NO AS LONG AS THEY ARE BOTH THE SAME SPEED AS IN ATA100 . If one IS ATA100 OTHER ATA66 THEN IT COULD SLOW BOTH DRIVES TO ATA66[/color]

[color=#00ff00]BEST TO HAVE HARD DRIVES ON SEPRATE CHANNELS ESPECALLY WHEN YOU TRANSFER DATA FROM ONE DRIVE TO THE OTHER...[/color]
My motherboard is an ASUS A7V333 which I've been very happy with. ~HOWEVER~ I discovered about a year ago that the 333mhz designation was only for DDR ram, and NOT the FSB.

My ASUS A7V333 is a rev 1.01 which only supports 266 FSB, thus the best CPU I can support is an Athlon XP 2600+ Thoroughbred B core (exceedingly rare). To make matters worse, I have 2x 256mb DDR PC 2700 (333mhz) sticks, but a warning at ASUS suggests that my DDR will be limited to 266mhz if I activate the third bank.

HL2 runs decently @ medium settings, with no vsync and anti-aliasing enabled. I'd like to improve my vsync to limit motion-sickness and overall performance. I have a few options remaining with my current rig to upgrade, knowing that i have a limited $100-200 budget remaining.

Question 2: What of the following is my 'best' option in terms of next ugprades?

Option 1: Purchase an 266 FSB XP 2400+, or a 2600+ if possible, and swap out my Palomino 1800+. Theoretically I will get a 20-25% performance gain doing this. I'll sell the 1800+ on eBay.

Option 2: Purchase a 512mb DDR stick and activate the third memory bank. Memory performance might drop to 266mhz. Going from 333 to 266 will be offset by 1gb vs 512mb total system memory. My cheapest & easiest option I'm thinking.

Option 3: Pull out both 256mb DDR sticks, sell them on eBay, and buy TWO 512mb DDR PC 2700 sticks. This will keep my memory bus @ 333mhz, but is a bit of a hassle.

Option 4: Investing more memory / upgrading CPU in a 2 year old system is throwing good money after bad; suck it up, buy a new system in 18 mos instead of 2 years.

Ultimately I think this comes down to: cpu upgrade, or memory?

[color=lime]SELL WHAT YOU GOT BUY A NEW CHEAP ($50+) MOBO, (80+)NEW MEMORY, (60+) NEW CPU , GOOD CPU COOLER AND O/C YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS[/color]

On the whole I've been really happy with my current system spec. The motherboard is the most reliable I've ever had (I haven't had a h/w lockup ONCE in 2 years). HL2 is probably the most aggressive use I'll put this system through...I use MS Office & productivity applications for work, do some web development, and some Photoshop editing, but nothing onerous.

Your thoughts/advice are greatly appreciated.

...

pr0digal jenius · Nov 27, 2004, 12:56 AM

i reccomend not going cheap on the motherboard, actually...you get what you pay for (my old machine ahd a $48 mobo...this one has a $180 mobo...and it's worth every penny of it)

Falstaff · Nov 27, 2004, 01:08 AM

I know this might be a departure from the norm considering you probably want to bash your own rig, but looik at comparably priced machines from well know manufacterers and see if the savings is there to build your own, from a purest standpoint the question is moot, upgrade now if money is no object, even if your a pragmatist I can see that the rig you have now represents what satisfied your immediate needs at the time, in the spirit of that same desire, upgrade now.

mkk · Nov 27, 2004, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ubergrendle

To make matters worse, I have 2x 256mb DDR PC 2700 (333mhz) sticks, but a warning at ASUS suggests that my DDR will be limited to 266mhz if I activate the third bank.

Actually that is not a real problem because you gain nothing from running the RAM at a higher clock than FSB on that system. You might want to consider a low cost option of buying a third 256MB stick to make a total of 768MB. Since 512MB is a wee bit short for gaming right now that can make a good difference to new games like HL2. Save the rest for that bigger system upgrade in 18 months or so, and maybe get the fastest AthlonXP you can fit on the board a bit later when they've gotten even cheaper. As a mid-term upgrade that benefits other tasks as well. A year and a half into the future you are fairly likely to be looking at all new parts even if for instance you bought a full set of new RAM today. Except maybe if you bought expensive high-speed RAM, but that would in my opinion clearly not be worth it for your immediate needs.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Nov 27, 2004, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0digal jenius

i reccomend not going cheap on the motherboard, actually...you get what you pay for (my old machine ahd a $48 mobo...this one has a $180 mobo...and it's worth every penny of it)

yea buys a $50 stream line board with good onboard sound ....
get good performance no fluff

vs

180 dallor board with bell an wistles and ports an duel eathernet and 8 usb ports onboard sound, active cooling, wireless lan support, talking bios, and i1384 ports etc.... fluff etc...

a whole buch of resourse useage and wasted CPU time and adressing... hell just turning of your usb ports gives you a nice boost in perfomance bost so besides getting the great board you going to loose 5-10% perfomance right off the top....right from the get go

Judas · Nov 27, 2004, 07:31 PM

rule of thumb... imo..

pick the socket and cpu you think is best..... then read all the reviews you can find on the net about all the different boards.. .ask questions about specific boards that have caught your interest best....

weigh out the pros and cons and the featuresets along with upgradeabilities...

And pick the one.... as soon as you get it...... plug everything in.... go into the bios.. setup what you like... and DISABLE everything you are not going to use such as the printer/com/onboard sound and midi/game ports.. specific firewire or lan ports... disable ANYTHING you aren't going to use....

and you'll fly...

Ubergrendle · Nov 28, 2004, 03:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

And pick the one.... as soon as you get it...... plug everything in.... go into the bios.. setup what you like... and DISABLE everything you are not going to use such as the printer/com/onboard sound and midi/game ports.. specific firewire or lan ports... disable ANYTHING you aren't going to use....
and you'll fly...

Actually, given the relatively negative opinions to upgrading posted here ('throwing good money after bad') I've revisited my system config to try and squeeze 10-20% optimised performance instead.

Gone through BIOS, and changed some things. AGP aperture up to 128mb to match my vid card... disabled some parallel/serial ports i never use. Turned on AGP fast writes.

I've also overclocked my FSB to 140/35 (from 133/33) and it looks like my stock cooling can handle it. I run about 55^C under full load for 2 hours for CPU...I'm not sure if ASUS probe is reporting die or thermal diode though. The motherboard detects ambient temp @ 42^C. I've left the memory setting to "auto"...but I'm wondering if I should force 1:1 or 4:5. I believe it defaults to 4:5.

I've had less luck with OCing my ATI 9700 pro though. ATITool locks at somepoint when it's rolling up the max clock...the whole utility dies, although at least WinXP doesn't. I'll probably leave it 'as is'.

I'm getting ~1950 in 3dmark05, which appears very good in comparison to other similarly built rigs.

Anyone else w/ advice?

Nov 26, 2004, 02:45 PM	#1
Ubergrendle Semper ubi sub ubi Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Toronto Posts: 702 Rep Power: 51	seeking advice of DH grandmasters My rig is about 2 years old right now, and I've committed to some piece-meal upgrades recently. My strategic goal is to buy a 64-bit cpu/system in about 2 years time when there's software that takes advantage of those new instruction sets. Recent upgrades: Western Digital hd, EIDE 7200 rpm 8mb cache, 160gb. Unfortunately I have it paired on the same cable as my old 5400rpm 40gb drive...my case layout doesn't allow for a more optimal DVD/hd, DVD/hd setup. I've rebuilt WinXP SP2 on the 160gb drive and made that my boot drive now. Question #1: Is just the mere fact of having the 5400rpm drive on the same cable going to decrease my new drive's performance? Or only when I'm using both hard disks at the same time? My motherboard is an ASUS A7V333 which I've been very happy with. ~HOWEVER~ I discovered about a year ago that the 333mhz designation was only for DDR ram, and NOT the FSB. My ASUS A7V333 is a rev 1.01 which only supports 266 FSB, thus the best CPU I can support is an Athlon XP 2600+ Thoroughbred B core (exceedingly rare). To make matters worse, I have 2x 256mb DDR PC 2700 (333mhz) sticks, but a warning at ASUS suggests that my DDR will be limited to 266mhz if I activate the third bank. HL2 runs decently @ medium settings, with no vsync and anti-aliasing enabled. I'd like to improve my vsync to limit motion-sickness and overall performance. I have a few options remaining with my current rig to upgrade, knowing that i have a limited $100-200 budget remaining. Question 2: What of the following is my 'best' option in terms of next ugprades? Option 1: Purchase an 266 FSB XP 2400+, or a 2600+ if possible, and swap out my Palomino 1800+. Theoretically I will get a 20-25% performance gain doing this. I'll sell the 1800+ on eBay. Option 2: Purchase a 512mb DDR stick and activate the third memory bank. Memory performance might drop to 266mhz. Going from 333 to 266 will be offset by 1gb vs 512mb total system memory. My cheapest & easiest option I'm thinking. Option 3: Pull out both 256mb DDR sticks, sell them on eBay, and buy TWO 512mb DDR PC 2700 sticks. This will keep my memory bus @ 333mhz, but is a bit of a hassle. Option 4: Investing more memory / upgrading CPU in a 2 year old system is throwing good money after bad; suck it up, buy a new system in 18 mos instead of 2 years. Ultimately I think this comes down to: cpu upgrade, or memory? On the whole I've been really happy with my current system spec. The motherboard is the most reliable I've ever had (I haven't had a h/w lockup ONCE in 2 years). HL2 is probably the most aggressive use I'll put this system through...I use MS Office & productivity applications for work, do some web development, and some Photoshop editing, but nothing onerous. Your thoughts/advice are greatly appreciated. __________________ Veteran of the PC Microchannel / EISA wars of the late 1980s.

Nov 26, 2004, 04:54 PM	#2
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	#1 The performance will be impacted when using both at the same time, and even then not too much to worry about. Note, though: your mentioned "ideal" setup is in fact not what I'd recommend. Pairing hard drives with optical drives has been the cause of many complaints I've heard. The optical drive usually hurts the performance of the hard drive. It's best to pair hard drives to each other, and optical drives to each other. #2 I agree most with option 4, with one caveat. Why not buy RAM now, and take it with you when you upgrade in the future? Here's what I'd do. Buy yourself 2x512 now, and sell your old RAM. And don't buy PC2700, get PC3200. It can run at the lower speed for now, and then when you have a motherboard to put it to full use, it will run at its normal 3200 speeds. There is practically no price difference between PC2700 and PC3200 anyway; there's no reason to buy PC2700 these days. And you would take the PC3200 with you when you upgrade anyway, so there's no money thrown away. And one less thing to buy for your total upgrade. I did just that, with my upgrade. I had 1x256 PC2100, then bought one 512 PC3200, and ran them both at DDR266 (highest my mobo supported.) Later bought another 512 PC3200 and replaced the 256 PC2100 with it. Then, when I upgraded to Athlon 64, took the same RAM with me and now run them at their normal DDR400. __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Nov 26, 2004, 10:30 PM	#4
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	i'm with vampy....hard drives on one channel, optics on the other, and buy a new system in a bit as the socket A is goign out of style awfully fast

Nov 27, 2004, 12:56 AM	#6
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	i reccomend not going cheap on the motherboard, actually...you get what you pay for (my old machine ahd a $48 mobo...this one has a $180 mobo...and it's worth every penny of it)

Nov 27, 2004, 01:08 AM	#7
Falstaff Old Codger Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USAFA Posts: 19,048 Rep Power: 207	I know this might be a departure from the norm considering you probably want to bash your own rig, but looik at comparably priced machines from well know manufacterers and see if the savings is there to build your own, from a purest standpoint the question is moot, upgrade now if money is no object, even if your a pragmatist I can see that the rig you have now represents what satisfied your immediate needs at the time, in the spirit of that same desire, upgrade now.