Front side bus issue.

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EthanJM

Member
This is my first post, and I have a question I am hoping someone more educated can help answer.
I am thinking of upgrading, and I found what seems to be a really good deal on tigerdirect.com.
My current computer has an amd 3800+, 2000 mhz front side bus, and 400 mhz ram.
The one I am thinking of buying as an amd 4200+, 1000 mhz front side bus, and 800 mhz ram.

Now supposing that both computers is upgraded to 4 gigs in ram, and both have an nvidea 7800 graphics card, which will be faster? Because that is the card I would be switching out, and I am upgrading one of these systems to 4 gigs in ram depending on the one I have.

This is above my head, and I would appreciate any help. Thanks.
 
I wouldn't bother switching to the machine you mentioned.

You will see no difference and certainly no gain/performance in 'upgrading' to the 4200+

I'd just update your current system a little bit if you have dough to spend.
 
scooter said:
I wouldn't bother switching to the machine you mentioned.

You will see no difference and certainly no gain/performance in 'upgrading' to the 4200+

I'd just update your current system a little bit if you have dough to spend.
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Thanks, but what about the increase in ram speed? It goes from 400mhz to 800mhz. And will the decrease in front side bus have a big affect on gaming?

I am making a deal with someone, they pay part of the money to pay for the new system and they get my current system. I am not sure if I am going to do it though.
 
EthanJM said:
Thanks, but what about the increase in ram speed? It goes from 400mhz to 800mhz. And will the decrease in front side bus have a big affect on gaming?

I am making a deal with someone, they pay part of the money to pay for the new system and they get my current system. I am not sure if I am going to do it though.
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Hey man,.

I stick with what I said..even with faster ram..not much diff in my humble opinion.

Have you considered saving that $$ and a bit more and build yourself something that will give you much better specs/performance?

If that is not in the cards for you now--I'd just stick with what u got!
 
scooter said:
Hey man,.

I stick with what I said..even with faster ram..not much diff in my humble opinion.

Have you considered saving that $$ and a bit more and build yourself something that will give you much better specs/performance?

If that is not in the cards for you now--I'd just stick with what u got!
Click to expand...

It may sound crazy, but I would be paying the same price upgrading to a new system. It is a bare bones deal, the computer is only 150 bucks, not including the operating system, hardrive, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. and I would be switching all that stuff over, so that would only lead to me paying half for the computer plus whatever a basic version of vista would cost.

So I get what you are saying, IF it were a full package computer. But as you can see money is no issue, if it would make me go 10% faster I would switch. I am just curious if less front side bus in the new system would slow me down or not.

So all money aside, would I see any increase in speed, even a little? That is what my decision is based on.
 
This is my first post, and I have a question I am hoping someone more educated can help answer.
I am thinking of upgrading, and I found what seems to be a really good deal on tigerdirect.com.
My current computer has an amd 3800+, 2000 mhz front side bus, and 400 mhz ram.
The one I am thinking of buying as an amd 4200+, 1000 mhz front side bus, and 800 mhz ram.
Click to expand...
Firstly, just to clarify, in case of AMD CPUs there is no "Front Side Bus", it's called HyperTransport or HT Link (somewhat equivalent to Intel FSB, though). And as someone said the RAM speed increase won't give any performance boost, mainly because both of those CPUs are too weak to use up all the bandwidth anyways, but a tiny bit also because I suspect that the 400MHz RAM is DDR rather than DDR2 and DDR in general has much lower latencies & command rates, which makes AMD CPUs happy...the latter has insignificant effect unless you're using some slow generic-brand RAM with realy high latencies (like DDR2-533 @ 5-5-5-15... that would be horrible).
 
hackapelite said:
Firstly, just to clarify, in case of AMD CPUs there is no "Front Side Bus", it's called HyperTransport or HT Link (somewhat equivalent to Intel FSB, though). And as someone said the RAM speed increase won't give any performance boost, mainly because both of those CPUs are too weak to use up all the bandwidth anyways, but a tiny bit also because I suspect that the 400MHz RAM is DDR rather than DDR2 and DDR in general has much lower latencies & command rates, which makes AMD CPUs happy...the latter has insignificant effect unless you're using some slow generic-brand RAM with realy high latencies (like DDR2-533 @ 5-5-5-15... that would be horrible).
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You just went way over my head.
I have an amd right now and it says 2000mhz fsb right on the tower.

So you are saying the lower fsb would not make a difference? And the 400mhz ram is DDR, the new computer is DDR2.

Ok, I am going to type the specs for both computers as they would be if and when I invest in them.

Old
AMD Athlon 3800+ 64x2
4 gigs 400mhz DDR ram
2000mhz front side bus
Nvidea 7800 GT

New
AMD Athlon 4200+ 64x2
4 gigs 800mhz DDR2 ram
1000 mhz front side bus
Nvidea 7800 GT

I hope this helps. So which one of these setups would be quicker? The new or the old? And I don't care if the difference is small because as I said upgrading the old or getting the new is not much difference in price. I just want to know which one would be faster.
 
So you are saying the lower fsb would not make a difference?
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HT Link. Anyway, no, it won't make a difference. HT Link provides a fair bit of bandwidth, there's been a review, manually lowering the HT Link from 1000 to even 600 didn't result in any performance loss... you definitely won't see any performance loss with lower-end CPUs, they simply aren't enough to use up all the bandwidth. HT Link bandwidth only becomes a problem in multi-CPU setups (and I'm talking about something like 8 CPUs per board).

For a single-processor setup (i.e. anything you would get), the HT Link speed really doesn't matter. It's a pretty much useless factor when comparing performance.

EDIT: The rig with the 4200+ would be marginally better, but I doubt you would even notice it, performance-wise it's certainly not worth it. However, if you plan on upgrading in the future, get the new rig because it's got an AM2 CPUs and AM2 is easier to upgrade (support for DDR2 RAM and most AM2 boards support Phenoms, some even Phenom II).
 
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hackapelite said:
HT Link. Anyway, no, it won't make a difference. HT Link provides a fair bit of bandwidth, there's been a review, manually lowering the HT Link from 1000 to even 600 didn't result in any performance loss... you definitely won't see any performance loss with lower-end CPUs, they simply aren't enough to use up all the bandwidth. HT Link bandwidth only becomes a problem in multi-CPU setups (and I'm talking about something like 8 CPUs per board).

For a single-processor setup (i.e. anything you would get), the HT Link speed really doesn't matter. It's a pretty much useless factor when comparing performance.

EDIT: The rig with the 4200+ would be marginally better, but I doubt you would even notice it, performance-wise it's certainly not worth it. However, if you plan on upgrading in the future, get the new rig because it's got an AM2 CPUs and AM2 is easier to upgrade (support for DDR2 RAM and most AM2 boards support Phenoms, some even Phenom II).
Click to expand...

Thank you, the help is much appreciated. I will go ahead and buy the new system then.
 
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