15 FPS loss with new motherboard

***lowlight*** · February 19th, 2000

Here are my specs:

P3 Coppermine 550E
NVidia GeForCe 256 DDR (Creative Pro)
128MB Ram (PC100)
8.4gb ATA/66
Vortex 2 soundcard

and a) Abit BE6 (Intel 440BX Chipset)
and b) MSI MS-6153VA (Via Apollo Pro 133 Chipset)

I guess you know why I bought the VIA board; I wanted to run my CPU at
733MHz, with a 1/2 AGP divider. In this way, it works.

The thing is, there's a slight problem.. Check it out:

Quake 3 framerates, 32 bit, 1024x768, EVERYTHING turned on. Full texture
detail, etc.

I'm running at 550MHz here.

BE6: 60.1 FPS
VIA 133: 45 FPS

That is a BIG difference, wtf is wrong? I installed a bunch of drivers which
were on the CD, and they seemed to speed it up a bit (before the drivers, it
was about 30 fps). AGP 2x is enabled, and NOTHING is overclocked.

Can someone help me?

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***lowlight*** · February 20th, 2000

I just read a review over at Anandtech, and saw that they actually had the exact same benchmarks with this chipset.

Dammit.

They said the 133a fixes that for the most part...

so... if to do an exchange, I guess...

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***FlyingPenguin*** · February 20th, 2000

Ugh.... you went from a BE6 to a VIA? BE6 II is one of the best mobos ever made. I wouldn't use a VIA chipset mobo as a door stop.

There's more to a computer than just the speed it can attain. If you can return it I would.

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The Flying Penguin
http://TheFlyingPenguin.com

***lowlight*** · February 20th, 2000

Penguin I agree completely

The thing is, being able to run my coppermine 550 at 825 appealed to me (I was able to attain that speed btw)

Another thing I appreciated about this board was the ability to run my slower PC100 ram at 100MHz, while having a FSB of 150MHz.

Those were the reasons I opted for the switch; they seem like good ones on paper, don't they?

Overall, the MSI board was excellent. It had some great features, like troubleshooting LEDs on the board, two temperature sensors (one right under the cpu slot), and great software utils, including one that lets you change the FSB from windows (similar to H. Oda's software).

If MSI makes a good intel board like this, I may just switch over...

I might still give the Apollo 133a a shot. It supports AGP4x, but I also hear it is quite a bit faster than its sibling 133...

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***cheewee*** · February 22nd, 2000

When I switched from a Abit BH6 (Intel BX) to MSI-6199VA (Via 133), my frame rates dropped about 10 fps (unreal) too. Really sad, so I changed my MSI-6199VA to an MSI-BXmaster and I got back my fps. Wow, 10fps is a big difference.

No doubt the Via chipset is good on paper, but to sacrifice 10fps is out of the question.

***lowlight*** · February 22nd, 2000

I just ordered a Tyan Trinity 400, which is based on the Apollo 133a chipset. This is supposed to be a faster board, and it also offers AGP4x. I'll let you know how things go..

The thing about using a BX chipset is that I can only overclock my 550e to 633.. With the VIA I can clock to 733 easily, and 770. The MSI wouldn't go to 825, but I'll see how things go with the Tyan.

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***Doolybird*** · February 22nd, 2000

Hi Lowlight

I don't know why you are getting such low scores. My system is as follows:

P3 500e @ 667 Iwill slocket2
256 meg siemens ram
Soyo vba 133 MB latest bios (via 133)
Leadtek geforce ddr video card (3.68 drivers)
MX300 sound card

Win98 SE
+via ide drivers
+via agp drivers 3.59

Quake3 scores demo 01
everything on 32bit colour etc

800*600 70fps
1024*768 60fps

I noticed on my system that before i installed the via 3.59 agp drivers my scores at 1024*768 where about 15fps lower so that might be your problem. If you are using win98se DONT load the 4in1 drivers off the cd go to the viatech web site and just get the latest agp and ide drivers and load them.

I know my scores arent quite as good as a bx board but they arent that much lower (2-3 fps). So Im happy with my via board and I definitely wouldnt use it as a doorstop

Cheers Doolybird

***lowlight*** · February 24th, 2000

OK I just picked up a Tyan 1854 Trinity 400 yesterday.

There's a few things I don't like about the board layout; the IDE connecters are upside down, and the ATX power supply is in a shitty place behind the ram.

Also, the MSI had cooler features; the Tyan doesn't have hardware monitering, on-board debugging LED's or anything like that. Just a plain vanilla board.

But it's a LOT more stable, and a LOT faster than the MSI Apollo 133.

My framerate is up to 57 fps or so in Q3, in 733MHz. That's not as fast as the BX at 682MHz, but it's only 1 or 2 frames off. Besides, all other windows applications run a lot faster with the 733MHz processor.

I have the ram running at CLK-33, which means 100 MHz. I have a feeling that it would be a bit faster if I had PC133 ram running at full speed.

For some reason, I can overclock stably with a FSB or 140 or 150 MHz. 140 locks up after a while, and 150 doesn't boot. I don't think I should have to change the voltage settings with this chip, and it's not getting hot at all, so that's wierd.

Anyway, I just wanted to get 733 out of my 550, and I got that, so I am happy now

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***Doolybird*** · February 24th, 2000

Hi lowlight
Im glad you are a bit happier now, youll find quite a hit in q3 when running the memory at -33. I had my machine running at -33 and my timedemo 1 score was around 53fps...7fps lower than it is now with the ram running at 133.

Cheers Doolybird

***lowlight*** · February 24th, 2000

Thought so...

---Anyone have any experience with VCMSDRAM? Is it faster?

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