Athlon XP 2500+ @ 1.83 ? Why?

[kj4ta]

Can someone please tell me why the 2500 runs @ 1.83 while the 2400 runs @ 2Ghz? Did I make a bad choice when purchasing?

What do I have to do to get this chip to and over the 2Ghz mark?

My system specs are below.

 

[Biznatch]

Get better ram (at least 3200) and overclock the FSB.

 

[Shade00]

Can someone please tell me why the 2500 runs @ 1.83 while the 2400 runs @ 2Ghz? Did I make a bad choice when purchasing?

What do I have to do to get this chip to and over the 2Ghz mark?

My system specs are below.

1.83ghz is the stock speed of the Barton 2500+. It has two important differences that negate the 2400+'s clock speed advantage; it has 512k L2 cache, and it runs on a 166mhz FSB by default. The 2500+ should easily run a little faster than the 2400+.

 

[CCW]

Seems to me like the extra cache the Barton Core offers is roughly equivalent to having 200-300MHz extra core speed instead. The Cache is a temporary storage area for instructions in the processor core and it runs as fast as the processor itself. The bigger the cache the more instructions it can hold and fetch quickly. This is useful for 3D apps such as Games and CAD but also why Bartons score better in 3Dmark.

Craig

 

[kj4ta]

Oh, okay. So the Barton is better than the 2400 because of the FSB and the extra cache. Cool.
Speaking of 3DMark, my score was 3737. Should it have been better? I was thinking I would score at least 4000. Is it because of my RAM?

 

[eg1441]

Hi

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this looking at his rig but how does pc2100 RAM run on a 166fsb processor?! (requires pc2700 minimum)


Your RAM is probably being clocked way out of spec without doing a thing! You would probably get memory errors in memtest or prime95!

 

[Foxie3a]

Seems to me like the extra cache the Barton Core offers is roughly equivalent to having 200-300MHz extra core speed instead. The Cache is a temporary storage area for instructions in the processor core and it runs as fast as the processor itself. The bigger the cache the more instructions it can hold and fetch quickly. This is useful for 3D apps such as Games and CAD but also why Bartons score better in 3Dmark.

Craig

That is true in some ways..the cache is not only for instructions. The L1 is for instructions, but the L2(the cache your all talking about) is not. Its for all the data.

Think of the L2 as being RAM that is even closer to where it needs to get to, thus making it super faster. If its not in the cache, which is usually isn't, then it has to go to the RAM, if its not in there...then we have a problem, and have to go to the SUPER SLOW hard drive. That's why you want a lot of RAM, and you want more cache, but you can't really change the amount of cache you have besides changing procrossors.

RAMDrives would be fun to play with, its like a huge hard drive, but made of ram...so its REALLY fast, almost no delay in getting your files, but you'll need to sell your car first...lol

I see nothing wrong with your purchase to buy that 2500. If it is unlocked, you could have the worse ram in the world, and still overclock it. You would then be increasing the multiplier.

And yes, your ram is pretty bad, but if you don't need the performance, then why buy new ram...

People think that just because you have PC2100 ram you can't OC it any...

I can get almost 150mhz out of my ram. That isn't that bad. That ends up being DDR300.

Just increase your multiplier 3 levels or so...then increase the FSB a bit..and you'll have that 2ghz easily..

but watch the cooling and voltages.

 

[ptwearnhardtfan]

I think I would find a new home for that RAM and get something better.

 

[Foxie3a]

No, he's not running it out of spec.

It's called CPU/RAM ratio. If he was at 1:1 which your talking about...then he wouldn't even be able to boot because the RAM would need more voltages probably.

 

[AudiMan]

No, he's not running it out of spec.

It's called CPU/RAM ratio. If he was at 1:1 which your talking about...then he wouldn't even be able to boot because the RAM would need more voltages probably.

CPU/RAM ratios on AMD systems are nearly useless. It creates a huge bottleneck.

If he's running his CPU at 166FSB and RAM at 133FSB, then the CPU would really be performing SLIGHTLY better than 133FSB speeds.

 

[Foxie3a]

CPU/RAM ratios on AMD systems are nearly useless. It creates a huge bottleneck.

I don't know AMD systems. But its not useless when you have a 200FSB processor and PC1600 ram.

 

[AudiMan]

I don't know AMD systems. But its not useless when you have a 200FSB processor and PC1600 ram.

The dividers on P4 systems work very well.

I get much better performance running the 5:4 ratio with 2-2-2-6 timings, than the 1:1 ratio with 2.5-4-4-7 timings.

AMD dividers really stink. In my opinion, Intels awesome divider set up almost makes up for the locked multipliers.

 

[kj4ta]

None of this makes much sense to me. I'm too new at this stuff.
Is my RAM no good for my current system specs? Should I bumb it up to PC3200? Is 512 better or no difference than 1Gb? I play alot of games and want to get the best performance w/o having to OC this thing... yet.

 

[Foxie3a]

Yeah, locked multis are no fun...

I have a P4 1.5ghz now. Unless if I can afford a new P4 2.4c system, I am going to sell this one, and buy a 1700/NF7 combo. Figure that will give me very nice performance for a while. And I wont be spending too much that I didn't gain from selling this P4.

I can't wait for unlocked multis.

 

[DaWiper]

None of this makes much sense to me. I'm too new at this stuff.
Is my RAM no good for my current system specs? Should I bumb it up to PC3200? Is 512 better or no difference than 1Gb? I play alot of games and want to get the best performance w/o having to OC this thing... yet.

If I were you I would get 2 sticks of 256MB/512MB or whatever size you desire. Why 2 sticks you ask. Well, cuz then you can use the nforce2 'dual mem channel' mode for a tiny speedincrease. Remember that they must be identical.
If you will do no oc'ing then good quality pc2700 will do.
Kingston kvr333 is cheap and good and comes with a lifetime warrenty...

 

[AudiMan]

None of this makes much sense to me. I'm too new at this stuff.
Is my RAM no good for my current system specs? Should I bumb it up to PC3200? Is 512 better or no difference than 1Gb? I play alot of games and want to get the best performance w/o having to OC this thing... yet.

If your CPU is unlocked, then get some PC-3200 RAM with BH-5 chips such as OCZ Platinum Limited Edition, or Mushkin Level II.

Since you have an A7N8X, you should easily be able to hit 200 FSB and take advantage of that RAM with optimal timings. (2-2-2)

 

[br408408]

In order to get good performance out of your XP2500, you will need to run your FSB at 200 mhz or more. The first thing you should is find out if your multiplier is locked. Lower it to 9.5 or 10, and see if it will boot. Report that info back here. If it is unlocked, i would try to get memory that will run over 200 mhz, if it is locked, memory that will at 200 should be good enough. I have an XP2500 on an Abit NF7-S and am running my FSB st 227 mhz and some tasks run faster on it than they do on my P4 2.4c @ 3.0 ghz

hope this helps, Bill

 

[kj4ta]

Thanks Bill. I'll be right back.

 

[kj4ta]

What a bummer, I guess! I tried to set it both 9.5 and 10, it would not post. (you do mean the Frequency Multiple, right?)
Is there anything I can do to unlock it?

 

[DaWiper]

Looks like you've got a locked cpu... (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)