XP 2000 to 2600 - worth it ?

[VCDHunter]

I think my MB supports upto XP 2600 and I'm thinking of picking one up. Is it worth the expense and bother to upgrade ?

[flaninacupboard]

depends on the actual expense you will incurr - can you pass on the 2000 chip or do you have a use for it? i'm doing a swap/upgrade from 2000+ to 2400+ for £11, which seems good value to me. if you can't get a good deal it probably makes more sense to hold a few months til the A64 has dropped in price and you can get a 400mhz setup.

[redwudz]

Two big reasons to upgrade from the XP2000 to a XP2600 (Or higher) is the change to a 512KB cache from a 256KB and the FSB speed from 266MHZ to 333MHZ (Or 400MHZ with the XP3000 or above). Or if you are short on cash, the XP2500 is a bargain right now. The extra cache and the improved FSB speed, with the proper MB, can make a big difference in encoding speed. You may need faster memory modules, though.

[flaninacupboard]

I'm guessing the reason the fastest his mobo can support is 2600+ is because 2600+ was the fastest 133mhz fsb cpu, though not widely available. if his mobo supported 166mhz it'd be good up to a 3000+

Also assuming if mobo is limited to 133fsb the ram is limited to 266DDR(or 2100 or whatever made up designation it has) so waiting to jump straight to a 200/400/A64 system might be more sensible in the long term.

[Cobra]

VCDHunter,

What motherboard do you have? AIDA32 can identify this for you.

Cobra

[redwudz]

flaninacupboard: Oh, I see what you mean. I checked the AMD site and saw there are more than one version of the XP2600, I had assumed we were talking about the Barton version, which usually does require a different MB and faster memory. AMD has some strange CPU designations. I have a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro which does accept the faster Barton chip and memory.

[flaninacupboard]

the designations are indeed weird. but you can't expect your average user to care about more than one qualification system - they won't memorise FSB speed, clock speed, L1 cache size, L2 cache size, additonal instruction sets, socket designations and fabrication sizes. it's like cars, L is all that some people understand. some people get L and BHP but that's it. or audio. people understand watts, but give them a THD figure and they think you've gone crazy.

In this lazy consumerist market they don't have anywhere else to go. perhaps they should start using MFLOPS? but then Intel would just have "MFLOP extensions" which they would only licence to AMD for $969,507,840,674,095,684,785,037,963,858,268,934,7 23 :P

[Cobra]

I agree, it would be a lot easier to measure in MFLOPS or even GFLOPS, but there's something about model numbers...

You say that you've got an FX-51 in your machine, I'll be instantly green. 5.654GFLOP CPU doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Marketing.

BTW, I pulled that number out of the air. If it's accurate, I'd best start playing the lottery.

Cobra

[VCDHunter]

VCDHunter,

What motherboard do you have? AIDA32 can identify this for you.

Cobra

Gigabyte GA-7VRXP.

[Cobra]

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-7VRXP(2.0).htm

It can only take FSB266 but interestingly can handle DDR333 memory. They must run asyncronously.

This makes the 266 XP2600+ the fastest CPU this motherboard can handle, and discounts the Bartons unless you want to underclock them.

Concievably, and I don't know how well this would work, you could invest in an XP Mobile 2500+ since they are multiplier-unlocked, run it at FSB266 but up the CPU multiplier to regain clock cycles. Although it's still going to be strangled by a lower FSB and won't reach as high a speed as it should it will still probably be quicker than the standard XP2600.

An XP-M2500+ is £62, which I'm guessing isn't all that much more than an FSB266 XP2600, although I couldn't find one for comparison.

Cobra

[flaninacupboard]

yeah, i was trying to track down a 266FSB 2600 myself, no new ones seem to be available and inevitably people on ebay don't know what they're actually selling. so realistically 2400 is your limit on that mobo. as i said, if you can do something with your 2000 then this would be good, if not, save your pennies and get a whole new system later.

[VCDHunter]

If I can't find an XP2600 FSB266, would the 333 run just as well ? Or is this likely to cause problems ?

[flaninacupboard]

it will run very slow, clock spped is determined by FSB speed and a multiplier. the multiplier is at a fixed level on athlon chips. i think the 2600 333 has a multiplier of 13 (giving it a clock speed of 166x13=2158) so if you run it at 133x13=1729 you will only gain 100mhz over your 2000+

Only way to change multiplier is hardware adjustment - not fun.


A 266 2400 runs at 2ghz, so that's a better option.

[Cobra]

As I say, the XP Mobile 2500+ will probably work in your motherboard under FSB266. These chips are multiplier unlocked, so you can take the clock speed right back up again in BIOS by adjusting the multiplier to 14 (from 11).

This will result in a CPU not as fast as a standard XP2500 because of the FSB bottleneck, but you get the some benefits of a Barton core and it will give you a faster CPU that you could obtain sticking to Thoroughbred cores.

This CPU is £62.

Cobra

[VCDHunter]

it will run very slow, clock spped is determined by FSB speed and a multiplier. the multiplier is at a fixed level on athlon chips. i think the 2600 333 has a multiplier of 13 (giving it a clock speed of 166x13=2158) so if you run it at 133x13=1729 you will only gain 100mhz over your 2000+

This is what I understood - my MB only has a FSB of 133 and I think the multiplier is 12.5, giving me 1662. What the hell is the point of this board supporting the XP2600 ?

A 266 2400 runs at 2ghz, so that's a better option.

Can you tell me a little more here ? I don't understand how I am going to get a 2400 running faster than the 2600.

[flaninacupboard]

because the multiplier on the 2400 is set at 15, to give you 133x15 = 1995. the 2600 comes in two flavours, the 133(266) flavour and the 166 flavour. the 133 flavour has a multiplier of either 16 or 16.5 meaning 133x16=2128. the 166(333) flavour has a multiplier of 13 so 166x13=2158.

If you can FIND a 133 flavour 2600 it'll be quicker than the 2400, but running a 166 flavour at 133 would be slower than a 2400.

So to clarify, your mobo only supports the 133(266) flavour of the 2600, not the 166(333) flavour.

[VCDHunter]

because the multiplier on the 2400 is set at 15, to give you 133x15 = 1995. the 2600 comes in two flavours, the 133(266) flavour and the 166 flavour. the 133 flavour has a multiplier of either 16 or 16.5 meaning 133x16=2128. the 166(333) flavour has a multiplier of 13 so 166x13=2158.

I was under the impression that the multiplier was set on the MB, is this not the case ? My MB has a set of dip switches for CK_RATIO (which I took to mean the multiplier) which goto 12.5 (x 133 = 1662.5 mhz).

[flaninacupboard]

the athlon xp's have an onboard multiplier which you shouldn't be able to adjust. if your mobo limited you to x12.5 then no processor is gonna be faster than your 2000+ anyway.

Maybe the dips are just for duron processors, which you may need to set the multiplier on. motherboards always used to control FSB and multiplier, but intel and amd switched to on chip multipliers when overclocking seemed to be hurting them financially.

[flaninacupboard]

thought id let you know how my upgrade went.

encoding speeds don't seem much improved, but the upgrade s only from 1600 to 1900Mhz so i didn't expect a huge leap on that. games are however a different matter, they fly by now. to give you an idea where in 3dmark01 i was getting a score of 8000 i now get over 10000, so more than a 25% improvement. it feels that way too, battlefield and unreal whizz by with no slow downs.