I went for the MSI KT4 Ultra FISR, and have to say that there is no noticeable usability speed increase over the KT3 setup I built for a relative. There is just an odd feeling of more power behind the scenes.
I compared this with my old system, which is running an XP1600+ on a KG7-RAID (AMD 760/KT133 chipset), and there's not a lot to choose between them in terms of useability, although the KG7 certainly feels slower.
Enough of the "touchy-feely" - I'll run Mad Onion on both and post the scores - when I get a moment.
I'm surprised that your benchmark figures are lower, even given the fact that MSI boards consitently outperform Gigabyte boards in most benchmarks, and the KT266a is a landmark chipset; Maybe it's to do with latency?
I assume you're running a Palomino with the older "Mustang" or A core (266Mhz) rather than the newer "Thoroughbred" B core (333Mhz).
My theory is *and it's only a theory - if anyone wants to rip it apart, then great!* that there is a bottleneck in terms of latency between the 166Mhz Memory, the 200Mhz FSB and the 133Mhz processor caused by synchronisation. It's possible that everything has to be stepped to a common denominator, or that additional wait states are introduced by this combination.
On to slightly simpler things - if you're using all the onboard stuff, it's probably stealing CPU cycles - especially sound, and probably LAN. Try disabling some of it.
The manufacturer's "Best Performing" settings aren't always the best - does your RAM allow CAS 2? Is there a "Normal, Fast, Turbo(AKA lockup) setting? Check everything that has wait states - it's possible that these can be lowered in many cases, but you may experience the odd lockup if you change too much. You may even get away with a Mhz or two increase in FSB speed, even on a "locked" processor...
Here are a few BIOS tweaks you could try, although RAM tweaks usually only account for a 5-10% gain in performance in any setup;
You should have a setting for RAM clock. If set to auto, this will run at the same speed as the CPU. You should be able to set this to 166.
***The following is taken from Ars Technica's BIOS tweaking guide (
Delay DRAM Read Latch
Options: Auto, No Delay, 0.5ns, 1.0ns, 1.5ns
Marginally different from the one that only has Enabled or Disabled, this tunes for high RAM loads. One single-sided DIMM isn't a high load. Two double-sided 256MB DIMMs are. For lower RAM loads, lower the latch and have it at no delay. With more DIMMs, you need more of a delay or the chipset may find itself unable to properly latch onto a bank. A higher latch reduces performance. If you have crashes after upgrading your RAM, this is the very first setting you should look at.
DRAM CAS Latency Time / DRAM Cycle Length
Options: 2, 2.5, 3
This is the famous CAS latency. It's part of the wait between the chipset requesting data and the DRAMs getting ready to send it. A shorter delay is better; 2 is less of a delay than 3. However, your RAM needs to be able to handle the increased rate and may not be able to do this if the FSB is overclocked or the RAM is of a lower specification. Increasing the CAS latency will therefore allow you to overclock the RAM further (if the chipset and CPU will let you). 2.5 is only available with DDR.
DRAM Cycle Time Tras/Trc / Minimum RAS Pulse Width / Row Active Time
Options: 5/6, 6/8
Like the CAS latency, a lower setting is faster. Like the CAS latency, it's more stressful on the RAM when it's lower. Hannibal's excellent RAM guide will take you through this and all other RAM-related jingo. A low Row Active Time will force the data out of the RAM sooner, but it may not leave the row open long enough for transactions to complete, in which case you either need to get faster RAM or increase the setting up to 6/8.
DRAM Interleave Time
Options: Disabled, 0ms, 0.5ms
Specifies the time to wait between interleaved transactions. Disabled and 0ms are the same thing and are the fastest. You know the drill with these RAM settings. Give it that 0.5ms if you're using three or four sticks of high capacity RAM just to keep the chipset playing nicely with the high load.
DRAM RAS Precharge
Options: 2, 2.5, 3
The third part of the x-y-z notation used in SDRAM, the other two being CAS and RAS to CAS. Like its brethren, it's better lower but also more stressful lower. See the pattern? 2.5 is only available with DDR.
DRAM RAS to CAS delay/R2C Latency
Options: 2, 3
When RAS is asserted, there must be a small wait before the CAS can be pulled. This setting controls length of the wait. Like CAS latency, it's a delay before you get your data, so while your system is faster at a lower setting, it's also more stressful at that setting. Your RAM may handle it, or it may not.
Fast R-W Turnaround
Options: Enabled, Disabled
This is a setting related to the CPU's side of the chipset, but it still involves RAM. When the CPU switches from reading to writing, it has to delay. This shortens that delay. Enable it for best performance; disable if it causes problems. You know how it is with these things.
Force 4-Way Interleave
Options: Enable, Disable
Even if the chipset doesn't detect four banks, this will insist that the chipset uses four-way interleave. If the chipset gets it wrong, the user obviously knows best...right? You should really disable this. The chipset is likely to turn four-way interleave on if you specify it in the Bank Interleave setting.
MD Driving Strength/Memory Data Drive
Options: Low, High
With a high RAM load (as mentioned in Delay DRAM Read Latch), the signal strength may be insufficient. Change from Low to High to remedy this. Also, this increases stability when using overclocked RAM. This setting only affects stability and not performance.
Read Around Write
Options: Enable, Disable
The chipset can issue read and write commands out of order from the chipset's R-A-W buffer, resulting in higher performance if this feature is enabled. The buffer also has other benefits, so it's a good idea to enable this.
Read Wait State/Read Latency
Options: 0, 1
When something reads from RAM, the chipset services the request. However, it usually holds the data for one cycle before making it available. Disabling this delay (set to zero cycles) helps performance, but the data could arrive too early and the requesting device could not be ready for it, which would result in instability.
Refresh Interval/Refresh Mode Select
Options : 7.8 µsec, 15.6 µsec, 31.2 µsec, 64 µsec, 128 µsec
Normally SDRAM and DDR are refreshed every 64ms. However, refreshing every cell simultaneously will result in a power surge. That's not good. So the refreshes can be staggered from one row to the next. 128Mbit and smaller DRAMs like to have this at 15.6 microseconds. 256Mbit DRAMs have twice the rows, so half the interval, 7.8 microseconds, is appropriate.
The JEDEC standards do call for 64ms (not µsec!) but today's DRAM can handle more than that between refreshes, so for performance and power (mobile users listen well) reasons, you may want to increase this all the way to 128 microseconds to add a small delay on top of the 64ms already. It helps performance by keeping RAM available for longer. It helps power usage by not refreshing as often.
SDRAM Command Leadoff
Options: 3, 4
Yet another setting that's faster lower. Set it to 3 if you have badass ninja RAM. Set it to 4 if 3 doesn't work.
SDRAM Idle Limit/SDRAM Idle Timer
Options: Disabled, 0 Cycle, 8 Cycles, 12 Cycles, 16 Cycles, 24 Cycles, 32 Cycles, 48 Cycles
(Note: cycles may also be called "ticks"
This tells the SDRAM how long it should idle before recharging. Increased values allow the SDRAM to postpone a charge and reduce RAM latency. Tune this with the Refresh Interval to get the best settings. I recommend 12 cycles for machines with less than 512MB in total and 32 cycles for all others.
SDRAM Precharge Control/SDRAM Page Control
Options: Enable, Disable
This determines whether the chipset or the RAM controls refreshing. It's better to let the RAM do it itself (enabled), but doing so can cause stability issues with large amounts of RAM installed or with poor-quality RAM. In those cases, you should disable it for a small performance loss but better stability.
Video RAM Cacheable
Options: Enable, Disable
Disable this. You don't want to be wasting the L2 cache on fast video RAM when you have slow system RAM to deal with. The bandwidth of your system RAM is unlikely to be over 3GB/sec, yet video RAM can easily top 10GB/sec and a 4x AGP bus is 533MB/sec. The tiny amounts of L2 we get these days to go with our massive system RAM sizes relegate this setting to being Disabled.
***The above taken from Ars Technica's guide to BIOS tweaking***
CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk
) and just shove the board into an existing Windows build? Makes a world of difference, even though it takes a long time.