ASUS motherboard performance?

I was wondering how the DMA performance of the ASUS T2P4 (HX) motherboard compared to the ASUS TVP4 (VX) motherboard (w/SDRAM) What kind of DMA scores does the (VX) board get? Similar to the HX? Thanks, Michael Gilbert

From my understanding, the ASUS VX board has a PCI Latency Timer setting in its BIOS. This means that you can tweak it for the best possible DMA scores. With this in mind, it should give quite good scores. In terms of overall performance, a VX board with SDRAM should be very similar to an HX with EDO. Despite the extra cost, I'd recommend the VX/SDRAM combo. You'll want SDRAM in the near future anyway, so why keep buying the outdated EDO? -- The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

> I was wondering how the DMA performance of the ASUS T2P4 (HX) > motherboard compared to the ASUS TVP4 (VX) motherboard (w/SDRAM) What > kind of DMA scores does the (VX) board get? Similar to the HX? > Thanks, Michael Gilbert I have an ASUS TVP4 and get 90+ on the DMATEST with a this setup: Pentium 166 overclocked to 188 16 MB EDO ram 256k cache I hear that this is high for a VX board, but this VX is able to run at a 75MHz bus, which i suppose has given me top notch scores.

I thought SDRAM had been superceded by something that went above SDRAM's 100Mhz limit? Stuart -- Stuart Booth Somewhere in Oxfordshire, England, UK Note: My email address is in disguise! Remove trailing Z

Well there's RDRAM, but it's a ways off. Since we will not be seeing boards surpass the 100mhz bus speed for some time anyway, SDRAM will be the RAM of choice for nearly all users. Officially Intel hasn't even surpassed 66mhz yet, and even the newest TX boards so far don't go over 83mhz. -- The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

>I think past the 100mhz barrier is..Rambus, I believe... Or Synclink. Or FerrousRAM, or perhaps Samsung's latest technology, or perhaps the latest from the Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Motorola group, or perhaps..... Nothing is sure except that it won't be what we expect - that much at least is sure! Cheers! John

>>> Despite the extra cost, I'd >>>recommend the VX/SDRAM combo. You'll want SDRAM in the near future >>>anyway, so why keep buying the outdated EDO? Someone over in the chips group did a test on a VX board using SDRAM and EDORAM and found that there was a very negligible performance increase. Considering the cost difference he felt it wasn't worth the upgrade to SDRAM. Not speaking from experience of course, but, I would seriously take this into account. -- Nos

True there is not much of a speed increase as the VX chipset really doesn't know how to use SDRAM. For now, that's not of much concern. Considering EDO can barely handle 83mhz bus speeds without conservative timing settings in the BIOS (these and faster bus speeds are going to be necessary soon), why keep buying it since SDRAM handles these speeds without any hesitations. Sure SDRAM is more expensive, but it will save you another upgrade down the road. -- The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/