Athlon overclocking Options

[Josetann]

Ok, I somewhat recently got my Epox 7kxa board and I love it! I changed the bus speed from 100 to 115 and that pushed my Athlon from 650 to 750 (well, 748 but still...). Have a quick question though. The Via KX133 (just like the 133 and 133A) chipset lets you run the RAM 33MHz faster than the main fsb. One thing to note is that this is really based on 1/3 of the bus speed, so if you're running at 115, then this option would add 38MHz and not 33MHz.

Anyways, I've got CAS3 SDRAM. It runs fine as CAS2 SDRAM. Which would be better? Running the RAM at 115MHz at CAS2, or at 153MHz at CAS3? Common sense would say that 100MHz CAS2 is pretty much as good as 133MHz CAS3 (though 133 should have at least a very slight gain). But since it's boosted 38MHz instead of 33MHz, perhaps that makes a very slight gain too. Add two very slight gains together, and you have a solid slight gain (follow me so far?).

This sound good? There a reason I don't know about to run the RAM at 115MHz CAS2 instead of 153MHz CAS3?

[Guest_cjinsomniac_*]

No real reason. I haven't used Athlons, but I think the jump you are making will yield a performance gain, although not as much as if you could run it at 153/CAS 2.

I found that running 3-3-3-10 with my 600E and 128 PC 100 yields pretty much the same performance as running the system 1 notch down with 2-2-2-8 on my Asus P3B-F BX board.

Fortunately, this enchanted stick of RAM runs on the 140 FSB with CAS 2 (7ns-143 mhz) settings.

I also want to say that I really like this forum format. Great job!

C.J. the Insomniac

[the one and only]

huh