[FrogMaster]

The latest bios for the Asus A7V333 (1012 beta) shows a new option as standard 166 MHz fsb setting besides 100 and 133.
Does this mean that AMD officially support 166 MHz fsb as standard?
Asus is not a little player and I do not believe they did this without AMD's clearance.
Any idea?

[CrazyKillerMan]

Recently I have read articles saying that the tbreds in teh future (end of this year) MAY support the higher bus speeds, but there was definatly nothing concrete. There was talk about the Barton officially supporting 166MHz fsb, but that wont work on the A7V333 anyways.

;(

[FrogMaster]

Hmm?
Why not?
This motherboard is currently running an xp 1700+ at 162 fsb (11xmultiplier, close to 1800 MHz). Core voltage is 1.9 V.
The cpu cannot go higher stably (gets really hot and locks when landing on the desktop at 166). Not sure the mobo is the limiting factor.
Anyway, the interesting fact is this semi-official support for 166 fsb.
We will have to wait for an A7V400 or A7V500

[CrazyKillerMan]

Isnt the Barton on a different socket? Thats what I was refering to. Wasnt it supposed to be the 64 bit processor? Or am I jsut 100 and 10% out to lunch?

[Brian Frank]

Barton is gonna be the last Socket A core before Hammer. It is not the 64-bit chip either.

[sapiens74]

Might br a good idea if hammer is gonna be delayed, but if they release hammer by December then it might be too late

[CrazyKillerMan]

Quote:

Barton is gonna be the last Socket A core before Hammer. It is not the 64-bit chip either.

Its just that I read an article about the claw-hammer being released as the Barton.

But - seems that I have been proved wrong.

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé]

I heard somewhere that there is or is going to be PC-166 ram, so as for your ASUS board having 166mhz bus speed on the new bios update seems like its going to be reality sooner then we think....personally i think AMD should consider going the full monty and catching upto Intels 533mhz bus speed.....not that AMD really needs to catch up

AMD LIVES FOREVER!!!!

[JP-]

Little review of the 2600+ if anyone is interested

Seems to clock quite well 8)

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQx

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé]

[FrogMaster]

Yes, as it seems that AMD can catch on the speed, their next logical step is to propose 166 fsb versions of their chips, just like Intel did not a so long time ago with the PIIIeb at 133.
I guess this new bios setting is already there for some testing by Asus and maybe some oems.
The chip certainly can run reliablyat 166 fsb, there is no doubt about that. Just pump down the multiplier a little bit and its done.
Competition is good

[JP-]

Ive not actually used an athlon for quite a while, you guys rekon changing it from 133->166 at the same mhz will actually provide some good real world gains?

[FrogMaster]

It should improve memory bandwidth by a fair amount, just like when the PIII went from PC100 memory to PC133.

[clutch]

Checking out the AMD fans at Tom's, it looks like Via is still holding AMD back on memory performance (big shock).

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q3/020821/index.html

[sapiens74]

You gotta figure tho even with a poor Via chipset it holds it own.


Makes you wonder what would happen if AMD made a good chipset.


After the 2800 coming out, it would nake sense to bump the FSB, to get every possible advantage.

[Four and Twenty]

there is a pretty thurough discussion of this fsb issue at 2cpu.com and it seems that a bump in fsb would pretty much require a new set of chipsets or at least an update to the chipsets. But with the hammer around the corner it doesn't seem to be the best time to be changing the current platform.

I really dislike VIA which has caused me to stay away from AMD for the past couple years but a 2600+ and an nForce2 sounds mighty tasty these days. I would probably use that just for a gaming/mutimedia machine. Although the dual monitor dual nic support could make it a pretty decent workstation os. However i think i will hold on to my i840 until i can afford an i860 or something better. I am not a big gammer anyway.