Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan (
More info?)
André Janz wrote:
>
> Dave wrote:
>
> > André Janz wrote:
> >
> >>Dave wrote:
> >>
> >>>I'm in the process of putting together an old machine for use as a
> >>>secondary computer for young kids. I have a limited selection of
> >>>memory available since I wish to spend as little as possible on this
> >>>machine and use pieces that I already have. I was wondering which
> >>>combination of ram on the S1590 might give better performance with
> >>>Win98SE, 64MB of PC100 or 128 MB of PC66 (combined as one 64 MB PC100
> >>>module and two 32 MB modules of PC66 all running at 66 MHz or the AGP
> >>>bus speed as noted in the Tyan manual)?
> >>
> >>I assume you want to put a FSB100 cpu on the board? In that case it
> >>depends on what programs you want to run. Most socket7 CPUs are already
> >>bandwidth-starved which is not made better by combining them with 66MHz
> >>RAM instead of 100MHz RAM. OTOH if the system starts swapping with only
> >>64MB then 128MB of (slower) RAM will still give a better total
> >>performance. The S1590 does have 1MB L2 cache so maybe PC66 RAM is not
> >>so bad in that case.
> >
> > Thanks for the reply. Sorry about the lack of extra information
> > regarding the CPU. It will have a K6-2 500 and I'll be using a VooDoo3
> > 3000 for the video card.
>
> Now that CPU is nearly as bandwidth starved as possible (apart from
> maybe K6-2 550) but as I said *maybe* the 1MB L2 cache will help. At
> least the additional 64MB are cached (not like on Intel TX chipset).
> I think it really depends on the applications you want to run on it.
> Give it a try with 64MB and if you experience swapping add the other 64MB.
>
>
http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/19980731/socket7-02.html
> "VIA's MVP3 chipset allows you to use a synchronous or asynchronous mode
> for your memory, which means that the main memory runs at a lower bus
> speed than the CPU and the important L2 cache. You can run your PC-66
> SDRAM or EDO at 66 MHz while the 2nd level cache and CPU runs at 100 MHz
> (memory asynchronously) or run the memory synchronously at 83 or 75 MHz.
> This is particularly interesting for all users who want to upgrade, but
> don't want to buy new memory again. In case of asynchronously running 66
> MHz EDO RAM you will see about 80-90%, whilst 66 MHz PC66 SDRAM will
> offer you 85-97% of the performance achieved with PC100 SDRAM running
> synchronously at 100 MHz."
>
> So you will lose at most 15% of performance.
>
Thanks for the extra info. I'll run a benchmark to try and determine if
there's a noticeable difference between the two configurations.
Dave