ATA66 vs ATA100 - Socket A vs Slot A

[yajaboat]

And the confusion mounts ...
ecommendations would be greatly appreciated here ...
Looking at the ASUS A7V Socket A ata100, pc133 and the ABIT KA7 Athlon Slot A, ata66, but am not sure what to go with ... 2nd delimma is then choosing one of the AMD Athlon processors (what's the differences between the 700mhz up to their 950mhz?) (If the HD has to be considered, we're looking at the 30g 7200rpm (but again, not sure on whether it should be an ATA66/EIDE or the ATA100/EIDE).

[scada]

If your interested in upgrading down the line. Then stay away from any "slot" based motherboard.

There is no difference between a 700MHz and 950MHz processor of the same TYPE. They are officially rated to run at the speed marked on their die but you are free to run them at a higher speed at your own risk. (the speed difference of the processor has to do with the yields the manufacture is producing and the "spot" on the silcon waffer the processor came form.)

If however your comparing the classic Athlon with the T-bird the difference between the two processors is the L2 cache. The T-bird has a faster L2 cache which makes it a faster processor than the classic. So a 950MHz T-bird will be faster than a 950MHz classic Athlon.


For me the most important aspect of a hard drive is it's rated drive speed.
I would never buy any drive slower than 7200rpm. Most of the newer motherboards will have ATA100 support so if you are going to buy a ATA100 drive you'll want to go with a newer board. Otherwise its not that big a deal. (unless your into video editing or someother app that uses very large files.Then the extra transfer speed of the ATA100 will come in handy)

Hope this helps some. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by scada (edited 01-20-2001).]

[yajaboat]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Definitely helped!
http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif But have 1 more question ...
Is there a difference between a "classic" Athlon and any other Athlons? (That part kind of confused me.) If an Athlon is an Athlon is an Athlon, then I guess we'll get the T-bird.

[rkmca]

Classic Athlon is Slot based processor and Thunderbird Athlon is Socket based processor. As "scada" mentioned, the difference is "classic athlon" L2 cache is running at 1/2 the speed of core and TBird athlon L2 cache is running at same speed as core, so its a faster processor. The difference is the size of the cache, 512K vs 256K or 392K.

Get the TBird, get a good heatsink and fan and any speed above 800MHZ, you will be happy.
Also definitely ATA100 7200rpm HD.

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RM

[scada]

Just think of the T-bird as the Athlon2. It's just the next generation of the Athlon processor.

[Randy_tx]

All you really have to remember when ordering or buying the computer is that you want a Socket A AMD Athalon......that will ensure you that you are getting a Thunderbird !