UPGRADE TO PENTIUM 4, 1.6GHZ NORTHWOOD AND ABIT SD7-533
Outline:
1. Items, Places of purchase, experience with vendor.
a. P4 1.6a
b. IDE & floppy cables, SD7
c. ATX to P4 adapter
d. Swiftech MCX478 HSF
e. OCz memory
f. Next SD7
g. Antec PSU
2. Installation.
a. About the SD7
b. 5.1 channel sound
c. BIOS version
3. Frame rates in games.
a. V5500 scores
b. Upgrade/cost - video card or CPU
c. Radeon 8500
4. SiSoftware Sandra 2002 test scores:
The maximum FSB on the SD7 is 165Mhz. I was able to get up to 158Mhz FSB at 1.55 volts (vCore). After that I went up to 1.75 volts. With the maximum FSB of 165, the P4 1.6a was stable at 2.64Ghz. That's an over clock of 1040Mhz, or 65%. Not too shabby. Tests were run with the memory timing set to Normal up to 160Mhz, and set to Safe after that. The dividers were set at 4/5/2/1 up to 155Mhz FSB, and 4/4/2/1 afterwards. The dividers work like this: (FSB divider) / (memory multiplier) / (AGP bus multiplier) / (PCI bus multiplier) . So, 165 Mhz FSB results in a divider of 41.25, memory = 165x2= 330Mhz, AGP bus = 82.5Mhz, and PCI bus = 41.25Mhz. At 155Mhz FSB, the memory was 387.5Mhz. Not bad for 333DDR memory.
The computer will be used mainly for gaming, so I tuned for maximum stability and 3dMark 2001SE scores. Although lower FSB settings with more memory bandwidth (using 4/5/2/1) was actually almost 1% faster in 3dMark, I ended up with a FSB of 160Mhz at 1.7 volts vCore and Normal memory timing. I believe in "set it and forget it" and figure these settings are so stable that I shouldn't have any trouble maintaining them even in 90° summer heat. So, I'm running a 1600Mhz P4 at 2560Mhz. I'm satisfied with that.
Here are some SiSoft Sandra 2002 scores:
These next 2 were done along the way, not at 165Mhz (sorry). I didn't deem them necessary at first and it was getting late, so I didn't keep doing them after every series of test runs. I believe they were done somewhere around 150Mhz FSB.
Drive speed (keep in mind that the SD7 does not support RAID so this score is quite impressive)
Finally, this one just shows a speed along the way at 1.55 volts vCore.
February 25, 2002
GTX_SlotCar (Gary DeRoy)
