TH7-II : confused about processors

Hi all,

A few questions from a N00B to overclocking.

I currently have a TH7-II running a Willie 2.0Ghz, and Kingston PC800 ValuRAM. I was thinking of upgrading to a Northwood and had a few questions:

1) My supplier offers mobos and processors differentiated by "400Mhz FSB" and "533Mhz" FSB. I am getting confused over the definition of FSB because the manual refers to 400Mhz System Data Bus, but the jumpers and Softmenu III give the option of changing FSB between 100 and 133Mhz. Wassat all about then ?

2) Same as question 1: which processor should I get them to supply Northwood 400 or 533 ?

3) Abit tech support say with the latest BIOS build, the fastest supported processor is the 2.4B, yet I see posts on here from people with faster. What's the score ?

Any help most appreciated !

Craig

1) My supplier offers mobos and processors differentiated by "400Mhz FSB" and "533Mhz" FSB. I am getting confused over the definition of FSB because the manual refers to 400Mhz System Data Bus, but the jumpers and Softmenu III give the option of changing FSB between 100 and 133Mhz. Wassat all about then ?

Click to expand...

The 400 and 533 FSB for the mobos and processors refer to what the board or processor is specifically designed for. The fact that the menu and jumpers have the 100 and 133 option is because a P4 system is "quadpumped": it "pumps" up the data speed by multiplying the FSB set on the board (by menu or jumpers) by 4.

2) Same as question 1: which processor should I get them to supply Northwood 400 or 533 ?

Click to expand...

The TH7-II you have is designed for 400 Mhz processors. If you want to run a 533 Mhz processor in it you have to overclock the board (above its officially supported speed of 4x100=400). This has been known to cause memory problems for this board. If you do not know that much about overclocking, it might be prudent to go for the 400 Mhz processor (which is also sweet ), or even to stay with the 2.0 Willy you have now.

3) Abit tech support say with the latest BIOS build, the fastest supported processor is the 2.4B, yet I see posts on here from people with faster. What's the score ?

Click to expand...

This is done because people here overclock their boards (so they can run the 533 Mhz flavour), and use modded BIOSes.

I hope this helps you a bit. Feel free to ask if you need more help

just set the ram to 300X and the fsb to 133 and youl be fine with the 533fsb chips. theses are the P4Bs. the P4As are 400mhz. im getting a P4 2.26B which is a multi of 17 X 133. if you go with 400mhz fsb the highest you can go is 2.4ghz because of the multi

I would have to say go with the 133 chip all the way. I luv the system the way I have it set up. It's real easy to set up.


Logger

So (forgive me for being rather slow on the uptake) am I right in saying, as long as I don't mind playing with a few things overclock-wise in the BIOS, that I would be best off going for a B chip (533).

In that case, speed-wise, I have a fairly open option. What's the best cost/performance/overclockability chip out there at the mo ?

Cheers, Craig

2.4B and its not really overclocking you are just setting the bios to where the chip should run. you can do it in 1 minute.

Cool, but could I also go for a 2.53B or 2.6B, plus do some overclocking later on if I feel the need ?

Of course but price is an issue????
the 2.4b can be got for $191 I think..
Thats fan @ hs and 3 year warr

Excellent.

So in terms of setting up, it will have a fixed multiplier of 19 or 20 depending on chip (?) - I assume then to overclock you change the FSB up a few Mhz each time until you reach stability issues.

You got it. If you wanna know the exact settings just ask.

here are my BIOS settings.

External clock: 120 / 33
Multiplier factor: x18
AGPCLK/CPUCLK: fix (66.00MHz)
Speed Error Hold: Disabled
Core Voltage: 1.675v
RDRAM BUS Frequency: 400 MHz
Differential Current: 6x

RDRAM Data Intergrity Mode: Non-ECC
System Bios Cascheable: Enabled
Video Bios Cascheable: Enabled
AGP Aperture Size: 256
AGP Data Transfer Rate: 4X
AGP Fast Wright: Enabled

PCI Latency Timer: 32 PCI Clocks

120 FSB is the max I can go due to huge undervolt (1.7v MAX gives me 1.55-1.58 in status)

I dont want to risk the norhtwood pin mod, but waiting for a newer bios that has been modified to allow 1.85v again.

I am afraid you could be waiting for a long time then. I think Abit won't release a BIOS which allows for higher Vcore, and so far none of the BIOS modders has succeeded in doing that.

Jirnsum so Mr naturals BIOS doesn't do higher then 1.7? I thought it did?

No it doesn't. There is a BIOS nr 77 around which allows Vcore up to 1.85, but it is a very early one, and has other issues (cold boot)