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**paulcs** · 4 January 2001, 16:53

The board defaults to *extremely* conservative memory settings, thus the wimpy scores. You also have a tweak-happy board, and Abit gives the user the responsibility to find, experiment with, and change the zillion or so settings to optimize performance.

I assume the KT7's settings are similar to the KA7's. You might want to try some more aggressive settings in 'Advanced Chipset Features':

Bank DRAM Timings: Turbo
DRAM Bank Interleave: 4 way
Delay DRAM Read Latch: Auto
MD Driving Strength: Hi
SDRAM Cycle Length: 2

Keep in mind, the more aggressive your settings, the greater the potential for instability. You have to experiment. However, I suspect you can do a lot better than what you're doing.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 05 January 2001).]

**paulcs** · 4 January 2001, 17:09

Damn, the forums just aren't working for me today.

I have a 750 MHz Slot A TBird on KA7-100, 128 MB of the Crucial 7E RAM. For the sake of comparison, I'm getting the following scores:

Int ALU/RAM Bandwidth: 434
Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth: 499

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

**SteveC** · 4 January 2001, 17:20

Is your RAM running 133Mhz? What about your CAS setting?

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

**Guru** · 4 January 2001, 17:23

also enabel DRAM 4k page mode, and set your "DRAM Clock" to "HCLK+PCICLK"

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**paulcs** · 4 January 2001, 17:40

Steve and Guru are getting at the same thing. I assumed your RAM was running at 133 MHz, but maybe it isn't. The DRAM clock setting Guru mentioned will get your RAM to 133 MHz if your CPU is running at 100 MHz and your PCI bus is 33 MHz. (HCLK = 100 Mhz + PCICLK = 33 MHz = 133 MHz.)

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

**SCompRacer** · 4 January 2001, 18:25

Looks like I missed the "DRAM Clock" to "HCLK+PCICLK" when I reflashed last time. Last two BIOS updates from Abit won't allow me to boot from SCSI, so I have to keep going back to the old BIOS. This PC/133 is new to me, so I missed that setting. Was set at CAS 2 but all other settings default.

Just going to "DRAM Clock" to "HCLK+PCICLK" jumps me up to:

Int ALU/RAM Bandwidth: 362
Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth: 397

Will try the other settings, thanks again!
-----------------------------------------
paulcs,

Whats the performance difference between the slot A and socket Athlons, processor speed being the same?

[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 05 January 2001).]

**SCompRacer** · 4 January 2001, 19:03

Looks like

Bank DRAM Timings: Turbo
DRAM Bank Interleave: 4 way
Delay DRAM Read Latch: Auto
MD Driving Strength: Hi
SDRAM Cycle Length: 2

are the way to go!

Gotta tell you I had not touched my PC from June to December. Was stored while we lived in temporary housing till we moved into new house. Kept visiting the forums and reading about all this impressive hardware you guys got. Dec 28 found me rushing to my supplier (only day he was open during holidays) like a junky needing a fix to update it!

This BIOS has alot more tweaks in it than the P3B-F I had so what a learning curve.

Thanks again!

**paulcs** · 4 January 2001, 20:19

As I understand it, all other things being equal, a Slot A TBird should perform about the same as a Socket A TBird.

There's always a bit of a learning curve when you buy a new Abit motherboard, particularly when transitioning from an old, familiar BX board to one of the newer VIA chipsets. So many options. I spent days fiddling with them when I first got my KA7-100, and there were still settings I missed. It's amazing what a difference they make.

If you're using cheap RAM, these settings can really kill you. As soon as I saw you had the Crucial 7E stuff, I knew you could get away with a lot.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

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