cpu speed vs. memory settings.

[sendatooli]

since i am a nice guy i bought some people machines for christmas. i even o/c'd them. i dont know if thats a good thing.

anyways, these are xp1500's. the question is: i can get the machines stable at 1466.52 mhz with the fastest memory timings(ddr). or i can go up to 1500 mhz with slowest memory timings. according to sandra the fromer is quiet a bit faster. should i just trust sandra, or should i use other benchmarks? i dont want to get carried away here. as long as its stable, i think its a decent present.
oh by the way, were talking only fsb increase here. not unlocking the multiplier. i am not that nice!

one more thing, the 150 uses 1/5 divider the 146 uses 1/4 divider. so as long as they are stable the pci and disks are faster at 146 too?
did i answer my own question? or do you guys have some input on this?


i want to try to stay away from these machines after christmas. so i dont become my family and friends free helpdesk!
hmm. not overclock them at all? i still love something more than i paid for, even if i am giving it away!


happy holidays,
sendatooli.

[eobard]

If you don't want to be a help desk then I suggest the settings wherein you have the 1/5 pci divider. This should reduce your chance of being called upon for problems because of quirky pci cards, although it will not be the most powerful choice based on raw stats.

[sendatooli]

well at 150, the only choice with a 1/5 divider the memory is pretty much dried up. it needs to go to the lowest settings. which means the system is pushed to the edge. which further means problems will most likely arise. the 1/4 divider at 146 puts the pci to 36 insteand of 33. i picked the pci cards. they work ok at 3 more mhz. i had this same type of problem with a bogus tyan board. (see my earlier posts). pc 2100 is maxed out at 150mhz in most cases. esp. generic stuff.
even 138 fsb o/c's the pci buss. so 150 doesnt look good. you just said none of the other fsb's look good(they all o/c the pci bus under 150). so it comes down to a fsb that o/c's the pci buss slightly or not o/c it at all. probably best not to o/c it at all. in this case.

just for reference, though as to my original question. is sandra the definitive benchmark in this case? i would tend to think the difference of 34 mhz is less important than the difference of slowest to fastest memory timings. the system is most likely teetering on unstability once you have to back the memory down to nothing,anyways. in 3dmark there isnt a huge difference. i guess this type of thing all boils down to the numbers game. which us overclockers love indeed. as for the recipeients of my gifts, they have no clue what a benchmark is to begin with.

so i doubt this even makes a difference. as for myself, i love to play with anything i get my hands on. so i was just wondering if i was building this system for someone that knew what they are doing(which i am not), whats faster?

i am gonna go let them run prime95 now. even though i dont have much confidence in this app.(see my other post today).



thank you,
sendatooli.

[eobard]

I've often wondered myself wether fast speeds or fast timings rule the memory world. I have no idea myself, sorry. :( I do think that Sandra is trustworthy however so perhaps you should listen to what she has to say.

[RoadWarrior]

in my experience, you have to have severely crappy PCI cards for them to give problems between about 33 and 38Mhz, over that though, you have to select them really carefully. Try the 150 with the 1/4 bus setting, for a 37.5 PCI if they don't get unstable on that under stress/burnin tests then 36 isn't going to worry them much.

Sandra has had noticable deficiencies over the years, I know they are always improving it, but a history of wierd results on some of my hardware doesn't really inspire me to rely on it too heavily. It's an indication, nothing more. However, I would tend to trust it's comparison of results on the same system between two settings, if they aren't absolute, at least they're relative.

33Mhz in the CPU speed is a 2.5% difference really, when you're looking at memory speed differences of maybe 10-15% (?) that's pretty insignificant for most apps, whereas the hit with the mem performance may just be noticable.

regards,

Road Warrior

[sendatooli]

hmm. two of the machines now pooped out on prime95 at 1466mhz with fastest memory timings. i dont really have more time now. so i will just use 138 fsb with fastest till the morning. if that doesnt work. it will be no o/c on these systems. stability is more important then speed here.

i'm still wondering though how important is memory to an xp/mp processor. if you had to choose between no over clock with fastest memory settings, a 60-66mhz oc with medium memory settings, or a 100-160mhz overclock with slowest memory settings. which would you choose? sandra likes fast memory settings but when you get into a 150+mhz oc sandra likes that even better. in the real world the memory might be more important. i hope one of the experts can answer this.


on a side note: my bussiness machine which is very very expensive built with the latest in state of the art stuff and dual mp's. not overclocked at all. everything strictly in spec. cant afford for it to crash even once.
heres the kicker it is having a lot of trouble with prime95! and its not heat. 41c. max. i dont know whats causing this. according to prime95 docs if it crashes your system is a dud. i hope that isnt so. i put all my eggs into this basket(computer)!


thank you,
sendatooli.

[mEKbOY]

Why not just unlock the cpu's.

[sendatooli]

mekboy, thats too much trouble. like i said above i am not that nice! i am just leaving them stock. but i think i did find out that medium memory with the highest fsb you can get works best. instead of fast memory lower fsb or slow memory higher fsb.




sendatooli.

[mEKbOY]

Originally posted by sendatooli
mekboy, thats too much trouble. like i said above i am not that nice! i am just leaving them stock. but i think i did find out that medium memory with the highest fsb you can get works best. instead of fast memory lower fsb or slow memory higher fsb.




sendatooli.
LOL...you are mean guy...i wouldnt even bother overclocking them unless they were paying me extra.

[sendatooli]

thats the point. i am nice enough to give everyone a $600 gift! overclocking it is the frosting on the cake. i think i have done enough just by giving gifts like that!
no honestly, i have bad eyes and shakey hands! unlocking an xp doesnt seem like a good task for me. besides, they werent stable even overclocking a stinkin' 33mhz! so like i said i want these machines to be stable. i am leaving them stock.




sendatooli.

[muddocktor]

If you are giving them to people who don't know anything about computer hardware, by all means leave them running at stock speeds. That way, you minimize your tech support problem and if they want to go faster, then they can come here and learn how to make their rigs sing!:D

[bobt17]

i agree with muddoctor if u are giveing them to people that dont know much about computers and how they work on the inside then u shouldent oc it... maybe teach them how to oc tho and they could get hooked..... just a thought

[eobard]

Originally posted by bobt17
i agree with muddoctor if u are giveing them to people that dont know much about computers and how they work on the inside then u shouldent oc it... maybe teach them how to oc tho and they could get hooked..... just a thought

Just make sure when the decide to join Oc.com that you collect the $20 membership fee personally. ;)

[sendatooli]

i am not going to oc them. that was a dumb idea of mine in the first place. it was more to please myself than those who will receive my gifts. the people that are getting these will need to be showen how to turn them on! i am not kidding. i just thought a few people i know should be interduced to the world of computers. so they are going out un-o/c'd!
these are not people like those of us that frequent this board. were talking about my grandma(93) and the likes. so its best left alone. that way when they have problems(which they will) ill know at least it is not the computer.....it's them!



happy holidays,
sendatooli.