PCI device help please?

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Well yeah you can overclock a 700 mhz duron to 1200, but couldn't you overclock a 1500 mhz P4 to like 2000+?I see what youre saying about the price and stuff.  I'm not getting a new comp anytime soon (i don't think) but I'm looking at hardware and stuff, and I'll have time to see if people start writing software to take advantage of the P4 (which they probably will).  If they don't, I'll go athlon.
 
Sure you could O/C a P4, but you'd get the same bad performance with unoptimized code. Most people aren't very comfortable with risking their $500 CPU anyway, Durons are only like $50 a pop so it's much safer to mess with them.
 
OVERCLOCKING your Processor is not recomended at all. Don't DO IT!!!! It will cause a lot of problems.
 
yeah my sister paid one of her mates to build her machine out of pieces and she got it really cheap. is it easy to build a machine like that? theres some pc shops with all the pieces ill need where i live and i know how to install new cd-roms and stuff, or should i pay an expert to do it? maybe an Athlon with 128RAM and around 1GHz would be cool for me. im guessing around £600-£700?
 
Joey's position is overkill, but he brings up a good point. *If* you decide to overclock, you need to know exactly what you're doing. There are a lot of potential side effects (such as heat and controller issues), and overclocking *will* void your warranty. Still, for someone who knows what they are doing it's usually worth it. Now Joey, are you speaking from personal experience?  :wink: Bought a new motherboard and tried to overclock that 486 of yours to 800MHz by any chance?  :wink: (I just couldn't resist...)
 
It does depend how you do it. A friend of mine has an Athlon 800 O/Ced to 1Ghz, but he bought it set up that way from a company specialising in overclocking. Result? Comes with great cooling and even though the manufacturer won't guarantee it, *they* will so long as you don't change the CPU setup.
 
I don't have anything against overclocking...
But with Athlon's highest Mhz (1.33G socketA) price vs. the lowest Mhz (850mhz socketA) price....well..the difference isn't so bad (the P3 is about the same..the P4 is in it's own little section. Hmm, the P4 is a lot like those old Pentium Pros. Remember those things?). There's, like, a two hundred dollar difference in price between the slowest and the fastest. It used to be a good 800 dollars difference in price, in the good ole days.And there is no reason to overclock a 1.3G....or a 1.0G for that matter, because there isn't any software that really needs anything faster than that. And as far as games go....the Video Card Can't keep up with anythink over 900mhz.

As far as overclocking a P4? I don't know if it is possible or isn't. It all depends on the motherboard. And as far as I know, there are not that many to choose from. Can't really say if any of them allow overclocking. I also, doubt that the CPU is unlocked. (The 1.2 Athlon C that I bought was unlocked)

I just benched marked my System with SiSoft Sandra 2001.

The CPU Benchmarks Show the P4 1.6:

Dhrystone ALU 3065 MIPS
Whetstone FPU/SSE2 833/1955 MFLOPS

My 1.2:
Dhrystone ALU 3336 MIPS
Whetstone FPU 1607 MFLOPS

I don't know what either really means, but I'm going to guess that SSE2 is that optimize code that everyone is talking about, because it's only found on the P4 Benchmark Comparson chart. If you look at the other numbers. The Athlon 1.2 beats the Intel 1.6. Especially when it comes to the Float Point Calcs.

It's the memory Bench marks that the P4 excells at. My MSI board is well known for it's stablility, and unagressive Memory Timing (I haven't flashed to the 4-way interleaving, "OC" ("overclocking" beta) Bios. So the Benchmarks are a little lower than they can be. I'm waiting for an official release and if none ever comes, and if there is a way to activate the Raid bios...I heard that it doesn't turn on in that beta version...then I'll do the 4-way interleaving flash.)

Intel 850 PC800 CL2 Rdram:
Int ALU/RAM Bandwith 1374 MB/s
Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth 1400 MB/s

My System:  
Int ALU/RAM Bandwith 490 MB/s
Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth 554 MB/s

But Rdram has it's problems....which makes it look good on paper, but not so good in the field. However it's still faster than Sdram, and cost four times as much!

I said it before...the only thing that's giving the P4 it's edge to the regular consumers base (people who just look at stats and don't consider the actual performace in real world tests) is the Rdram Hype. If you just look at the CPU speeds, Mhz to Mhz, the Athlon is a generation above the P4. (The P4 is nothing more than a P3 with Rambus, at least, that's what It looks like to me.)
 
Its dirt cheap to buy parts and build the comp from them.  A lot cheaper, generally, than buying a pre-built one from companies like Dell, Compaq, etc. anyway.Go to [url="<a]http://www.pricewatch.com[/url]" TARGET=_blank>www.pricewatch.com  and check out the prices they have there.  A lot of computer part retailers enter their prices into there often, so you get a good idea on where you can find the part you're looking for at the best price.
 
However, the more expensive you're buying, at around $3500 the difference between homemade and Dell built is only around $10 savings. And those $10 are well worth the longer warrentee than 30 days per part  :)
 
????Here, at least, the more you spend the more you save! I can save £10-£20 on a £100 upgrade, but I saved nearly £100 off my parents' £500 PC. A full PC, costing over £1000, I could save £200 off the price of a big name easily.

Plus in the UK, you always get at least 12 months warranty on parts- and the big companies won't give more than that unless you're gonna pay for it.
 
That's odd, in my country assembling you own PC is a lot cheaper than buying a whole unit from the above-mentioned companies. Like Fice, most brands also provide at least a year of warranty on the parts in my country.Well, O/C ing also depends on the batch of processors that you have. Certain batches do perform better than others. Sometimes, O/C ing a processor, doesn't only depend on the temperature. In some cases, people actually do a "voltage mod" to gain higher voltages for O/C ing. The highest one i've seen is 2.97's for an Athlon I think....

But honestly, the extra effort spent O/C is sometimes just not worth it. If you like to boast clock speeds not available in the market yet, then hey go ahead. I'm not against O/C here however. I've O/C ed my Athlon 1Ghz to a 1.3 before. But I decided that it wasn't worth the performance increase so I've put it back to 1 Ghz. After all, I don't exactly play games in software mode or anything. My Geforce GTS can easily take care of things.  :)

Threesixty, you have a RAID setup too?
I have 20GB Quantum AS drives running on RAID stripping and I would say performance is excellent  :)

I might as well post my system specs:-

Abit KT7 RAID Motherboard (KT-133 Chipset)
Highpoint 370 RAID Controller built on M/B
256 MB 150 MHz Kingston SDRAM
1000Ghz @ 1300 AMD Athlon Processor
2 X 20GB Quantum AS (7200 rpm) drives.
MSI Geforce GTS 32MB (Core @ 245 / RAM @ 393) w TV output
ASUS RIVA TNT with built in Video Capture.
SBLive! Value Sound Card
Altec Lansing ACS 54 4-point speakers
50X Aopen CD-Rom Drive
Yamaha CRW 2100ES IDE CD Writer
(40X read, 16X Write, 10X Rewrite)
(101 CD-R's in my cupboard)
External ZIP 100 MB USB
Sony 17" Trinitron E200 Monitor (Flat Screen)
Microsoft Professional Natural Keyboard (USB)
Logitech Optical Eye Mouse (not the ifeel one)
3Com US Robotics 56K modem (Yuck!, a disgrace to my PC)
1.44 MB Mitsubishi Floppy Drive (Another, old object)
12 Fans in my PC. (Note all the Fans in my PC are Overvoltages to either 17V or 24V)
Yeah, my PC is as noisy as an aeroplane.  :D
A Scanner and Printer which I'm too lazy to give details about  :)

Hehe, you should see the amount of plug points I use in this room of mine  :)
I have a fax machine, a VCR, A Hifi Set, 2 PC's, a scanner, a printer, a modem, a zip drive, a TV, ,my PCspeakers and a few other electrical components here. :P
 
man you dont have to show of too much SaiNt!  :(. how many kb/s can your 16x re-writer go at when writing? im form the UK too fice, so maybe i'll be better off with a ready made one. i dont think i could be obthered to put all the bits together, and the gaurantee would be nice. i think i should do a bit of bargain hunting on the net and the loacal stores.
 
Umm ... I was recommending putting one together since it's cheaper and you still have a guarantee...
 
man you dont have to show of too much SaiNt!  :(. how many kb/s can your 16x re-writer go at when writing? im form the UK too fice, so maybe i'll be better off with a ready made one. i dont think i could be obthered to put all the bits together, and the gaurantee would be nice. i think i should do a bit of bargain hunting on the net and the local stores.
 
In the US if you go for extreme cutting-edge equipment, the higher your total gets, the closer the price of the major companies becomes, which means, in theory, somewhere around a computer valued $4000, they'll cost the same. For the average PC, around $2000 retail, you can build your own for conciderably less. Mine cost HALF that, and I'm yet to find a company that offers this particular configuration or anything remotely close.
 
Sorry if it sounded like I was boasting. Just couldn't help myself when I started typing the specs out  :)My CD Writer? It burns at 16X(2400KB/s)
Unfortunately, it only achieves 16X after it has written about 25% of the CD. It starts at 12X. The only drive I know that can achieve true 16X Write is the Plextor Drive.
 
i got a cd-rw a while ago at 32x read, 4x write, 4x re-write. its a shame you cant use re-writables for music. well if my processor can only goto about 400MHz i might as well buy a new pc. im really annoyed cos my friends got a pretty good pc, and he just went and bought another one even better becuase his dad was bored. anybody want to give me some money?  :D
 
I'm in the same situation as you are errrr, I have a not-so-good comp (400 mhz, 32x4x4x CD-RW, and its doessn't have a Direct-3D supported card).  My friend has TWO awesome computers that he got recently and I'm mad.
 
My casing?
It isn't any really known branded casing.
Though I've practically modified the whole thing  :)
 
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