KT133A board, getting a new processor?

GotNoRice · Dec 6, 2002

I have a Soyo K7VTA-Pro, which is based off the Via KT133A chipset. I know for sure it supports up to a 2100+, but can't say for sure anything higher than that.

Right now I’m running a 1.4GhzTBird overclocked to 1.622Ghz.

Would I see much performance increase by upgrading to a 2100+, or would my relatively old board hinder any extra performance the chip would give over my TBird?

I know the ideal upgrade would simply be to get a new Board, Ram, and Processor, but due to limited funds that just isn’t an option right now.... I just don’t want to blow $100 on a 2100+ and only get .07% performance increase.

Alternatively, would I get a larger performance increase if I kept my TBird and simply upgraded to a faster board & DDR Ram?

juliendogg · Dec 6, 2002

i think for now you'd be better off to keep your chip and go with a ddr setup. the memory speed increase is going to help you much more than raw cpu speed. then sometime in the near future perhaps you could pick up an agoia 1600xp for $50 and oc it right up to 1900mhz or so. or one of these tbred a's floating around.

Yodums · Dec 6, 2002

You should take juliendogg's dog suggestion. You should see a heck of an increase jumping from a KT133A/SDR system to a DDR setup (266A/KT333/KT400/nForce2). Right now, the T-Bred 1800+ are 65.00 and the vast majority of them are hitting 2 GHz without a problem and I'd think enjoy the performance boost.

Yodums

OC-Master · Dec 6, 2002

GotNoRice said:
I have a Soyo K7VTA-Pro, which is based off the Via KT133A chipset. I know for sure it supports up to a 2100+, but can't say for sure anything higher than that.

Right now I’m running a 1.4GhzTBird overclocked to 1.622Ghz.

Would I see much performance increase by upgrading to a 2100+, or would my relatively old board hinder any extra performance the chip would give over my TBird?

I know the ideal upgrade would simply be to get a new Board, Ram, and Processor, but due to limited funds that just isn’t an option right now.... I just don’t want to blow $100 on a 2100+ and only get .07% performance increase.

Alternatively, would I get a larger performance increase if I kept my TBird and simply upgraded to a faster board & DDR Ram?

Its way to expensive for most cheapys (Like Me!!) to upgrade from an SDR combo to an DDR combo. The darn ram is way to expensive nowdays.

The cheapest and wisest solution is to buy an XP2600+ processor which was the last of the 266FSB processors, slap that babe in and see how it runs. If it works out for you, you just saved your self alot of cash. If the processor doesnt work in the rig then at least you tried and then you got the processor ready for the new Mobo and ram anywayz.

Its a win win situation, make the most of it.

OC-Master

tom_ozahoski · Dec 7, 2002

Re: Re: KT133A board, getting a new processor?

OC-Master said:
Its way to expensive for most cheapys (Like Me!!) to upgrade from an SDR combo to an DDR combo. The darn ram is way to expensive nowdays.

The cheapest and wisest solution is to buy an XP2600+ processor which was the last of the 266FSB processors, slap that babe in and see how it runs. If it works out for you, you just saved your self alot of cash. If the processor doesnt work in the rig then at least you tried and then you got the processor ready for the new Mobo and ram anywayz.

Its a win win situation, make the most of it.

OC-Master

Buy a 2600+????

it would be cheaper to buy a ddr board, ram and a cheap tbred cpu, and it would be stupid to put a 2600+ in a kt133a board that doesnt support it. buy a decent kt333 board and 256 megs ddr and you can add more ram in the future and upgrade to a 2800+ or better down the road look at newegg refurbs you can prolly get the board and ram for $100~$150 shipped better than $300 for a 2600+ :beer:

EDIT: WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!

juliendogg · Dec 7, 2002

yeah, purchasing a 2600 for a kt133 board would be a waste of money. the performance lies in the mainboard and memory bandwidth. this is much more important than cpu megahertz when you're after a performance increase. i'd place a good wager that even if you could get a 2600 to run on that board, his t-bird in a ddr setup would outperform it by leaps and bounds. i'd recommend an epox kt333 board (i got the one in my sig refurbed from newegg for like $80 i think) and some pc 2700. then you can get the o/c on your bird back just by running up the fsb, and trust me, you'll be amazed at the difference ddr makes.

GotNoRice · Dec 7, 2002

ok, looks like i'll be getting a new board and ram soon then. I'll keep my TBird around for a little longer. At 1.622Ghz, it can still hold it's own.

Just tight with cash around christmas, sure you all know how that is. Thanks for all your help.

juliendogg · Dec 7, 2002

cool, good choice. you could be set up nicely for about $150, maybe even less. you'll be surprised how well that bird @ 1.6 will do in a ddr platform

J.

OC-Master · Dec 7, 2002

Your best bet is to do the win win situation. Buy a XP 2400+ (T-bred B) at least, put that nice CPU in, and see how it performs and if it even runs. If it runs, you will have gained a nice boost of performance! If it doesnt run then you have every reason to go out and buy a KT400 or nForce2 mobo with DDR.

Remember, Hammer is seriously almost here, buying a whole DDR rig now is a complete waist of money (In your situation). The boost in overperformance clock for clock, card for card is around 15% overall so that for sure doesnt make it worth all that cash to buy a whole new motherboard not to mention the crazy prices of DDR ram (Twice the price as SD-Ram).

Athlon-64 is supposed to launch in March, April at the LATEST, so if you can hold on four months, you'll have a quantum leap or performance improvment, not just a little 15%.

By April next year, people on these forums (including me) will have migrated to K8 and all that 333FSB and nForce2 stuff will be history LOL

OC-Master

quegyboe · Dec 8, 2002

OC-Master said:
Your best bet is to do the win win situation. Buy a XP 2400+ (T-bred B) at least, put that nice CPU in, and see how it performs and if it even runs. If it runs, you will have gained a nice boost of performance! If it doesnt run then you have every reason to go out and buy a KT400 or nForce2 mobo with DDR.

Remember, Hammer is seriously almost here, buying a whole DDR rig now is a complete waist of money (In your situation). The boost in overperformance clock for clock, card for card is around 15% overall so that for sure doesnt make it worth all that cash to buy a whole new motherboard not to mention the crazy prices of DDR ram (Twice the price as SD-Ram).

Athlon-64 is supposed to launch in March, April at the LATEST, so if you can hold on four months, you'll have a quantum leap or performance improvment, not just a little 15%.

By April next year, people on these forums (including me) will have migrated to K8 and all that 333FSB and nForce2 stuff will be history LOL

OC-Master

Don't mean to be rude here, but you know that AMD likes to take their time with things. How many times has the Athlon 64's release been pushed back? As for the DDR upgrade, numbers may say 15%, but the performance difference is quite noticable to any avid computer user. When I moved from PC133 to PC2100, the difference was amazing...just like with P4's and Rambus...

I say, go DDR. You won't regret it!

GotNoRice · Dec 8, 2002

well not to sidetrack this thread, even though it's my own, but if I go to DDR would it be worth it to go all the way with something crazy like PC4000 ram or just plane jane PC2100?

juliendogg · Dec 8, 2002

OC-Master said:
Your best bet is to do the win win situation. Buy a XP 2400+ (T-bred B) at least, put that nice CPU in, and see how it performs and if it even runs. If it runs, you will have gained a nice boost of performance! If it doesnt run then you have every reason to go out and buy a KT400 or nForce2 mobo with DDR.

Remember, Hammer is seriously almost here, buying a whole DDR rig now is a complete waist of money (In your situation). The boost in overperformance clock for clock, card for card is around 15% overall so that for sure doesnt make it worth all that cash to buy a whole new motherboard not to mention the crazy prices of DDR ram (Twice the price as SD-Ram).

Athlon-64 is supposed to launch in March, April at the LATEST, so if you can hold on four months, you'll have a quantum leap or performance improvment, not just a little 15%.

By April next year, people on these forums (including me) will have migrated to K8 and all that 333FSB and nForce2 stuff will be history LOL

OC-Master

the guys says he's on a budget, and you're saying he should go out and drop $180 on an xp2400, then if it doesn't work at all or not like he wants he should go back out and spend another $150 or so on a board and ram. then saying it's not worth it to buy a ddr rig right now?? there's no way that any proc on that kt133 would even come close to a ddr 333 system. i'm not understanding where the win is here. he comes out with a new board and ram anyway and broke to boot.

juliendogg · Dec 8, 2002

GotNoRice said:
well not to sidetrack this thread, even though it's my own, but if I go to DDR would it be worth it to go all the way with something crazy like PC4000 ram or just plane jane PC2100?

oops, you were posting while i was posting^^ if it were me, i'd grab a kt333 and some pc 2700. then you can run @ 166 fsb while keeping your pci/agp in spec and without overclocking your ram. whatever you can squeeze out of it after that is just bonus goodies

OC-Master · Dec 8, 2002

juliendogg said:
the guys says he's on a budget, and you're saying he should go out and drop $180 on an xp2400, then if it doesn't work at all or not like he wants he should go back out and spend another $150 or so on a board and ram. then saying it's not worth it to buy a ddr rig right now?? there's no way that any proc on that kt133 would even come close to a ddr 333 system. i'm not understanding where the win is here. he comes out with a new board and ram anyway and broke to boot.

Your kidding me right?? You know how much 512MB of ram costs these days in DDR with like the PC2700 stuff??? Its alot more along with a new motherboard then it is to buy a processor which can be found for $190US or less. The Motherboard alone will at least cost over $100 not to mention I dont think he wants outdated parts.

If you dont have 512MB of ram nowadays, you cant do nottin.

OC-Master

juliendogg · Dec 8, 2002

he can get an epox or a shuttle for considerably less than $100, i don't really see how any of the kt333 boards could possibly be called "outdated", and there's no reason not to get 256 mgs of ddr to start with and more whenever. hell, i'd rather have 128 megs of ddr than a gig of pc133. we could keep argueing all week, but it's really not worth my time. imho it would be completely rediculous to spend $180 dollars on a cpu to put in an sdr board.

Gotnorice, there's my 2 cents, and you saw what everyone else had to say....... be easy and good luck!

7keys · Dec 8, 2002

Save your money for hammer, it's not worth it to upgrade now with what you already have. IMHO

I want a board to last a couple of years. I am in the same situation as you but have a KT7A with a 1000 AXIA at 1333. I am going to buy a low speed (Tbred (Overclock iT) and save my money to buy a hammer system next year.

OC-Master · Dec 9, 2002

7keys said:
Save your money for hammer, it's not worth it to upgrade now with what you already have. IMHO

I want a board to last a couple of years. I am in the same situation as you but have a KT7A with a 1000 AXIA at 1333. I am going to buy a low speed (Tbred (Overclock iT) and save my money to buy a hammer system next year. [/QUOTE

THATS EXACTLY what I plan to do. You took the fingers right out from under my keyboard Well said.

By time you get all that DDR stuff, you could have begun to start saving your cash for Hammer which is coming in less than five months.

OC-Master]

Bruno · Dec 16, 2002

From ocworkbench:

Don't throw away your old KT133A
Posted by overclocker at 7:12

At last we got hold of the AXP 2400+ (Tbred). I took out the old SOYO K7VTAPro KT133A mainboard from my store (covered with dust). I plugged in the CPU and booted. I was not expecting it to POST but it POST and went into Windows!

The BIOS used is a old BIOS dated sometime back in Mid - 2001. I went to SOYO website and was surprised that they actually provided a Oct 2002 BIOS for this KT133A board. I downloaded, flashed it in and it recognises it as a AXP 2200+ (was recognised as Athlon 2000, 15x133.

This is exciting and I am now testing it out. Ran SuperPI on it for 1M 1'29" for 256M SDRAM on KT133A. No problems

OC-Master · Dec 16, 2002

Bruno said:
From ocworkbench:

Don't throw away your old KT133A
Posted by overclocker at 7:12

At last we got hold of the AXP 2400+ (Tbred). I took out the old SOYO K7VTAPro KT133A mainboard from my store (covered with dust). I plugged in the CPU and booted. I was not expecting it to POST but it POST and went into Windows!

The BIOS used is a old BIOS dated sometime back in Mid - 2001. I went to SOYO website and was surprised that they actually provided a Oct 2002 BIOS for this KT133A board. I downloaded, flashed it in and it recognises it as a AXP 2200+ (was recognised as Athlon 2000, 15x133.

This is exciting and I am now testing it out. Ran SuperPI on it for 1M 1'29" for 256M SDRAM on KT133A. No problems

That is excellent news!

Keep us posted with updates

OC-Master

glass · Dec 16, 2002

i bought a 1800xp tbred a today and it works with soltek sl75kav which is kt133a board. .. i posted a thread with some q's though.. all multipliers from 5x to 12.5x work without unlocking/trickery/whatever. anyways solteks newest bios adds support for 2600xp even iirc.

KT133A board, getting a new processor?

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