What's the diff between A7N8X and A7N8X-X ?

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Silence Seeker

For the life of me, I can't find any meaningful (to me) differences
between the two, except for the chipset which doesn't tell me much:

A7N8X-X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-468
A7N8X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-455

There is a $20 price difference between the two and Newegg says the
A7N8X is newer and "supports AMD Barton 400Mhz". What is "AMD Barton
400Mhz"?

Also, the specs for A7N8X-X state that it, too, supports
Thoroughbred/Barton Core and max. FSB is 400MHz. So it seems the two
Mobos have no differences? I am confused...

One last question please: I also noticed the A7N8X-VM which has
integrated VGA in it. Sounds attractive, since I am not a gamer and
don't need the latest and greatest graphics engine. The max. FSB,
however, is 333MHz. Will it be foolish of me to buy the A7N8X-VM
instead of the A7N8X? I intend to initially install a XP-3200+ CPU on
it.

Many thanks!
Sam
 
Silence Seeker said:
For the life of me, I can't find any meaningful (to me) differences
between the two, except for the chipset which doesn't tell me much:

A7N8X-X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-468
A7N8X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-455

There is a $20 price difference between the two and Newegg says the
A7N8X is newer and "supports AMD Barton 400Mhz". What is "AMD Barton
400Mhz"?

Also, the specs for A7N8X-X state that it, too, supports
Thoroughbred/Barton Core and max. FSB is 400MHz. So it seems the two
Mobos have no differences? I am confused...

One last question please: I also noticed the A7N8X-VM which has
integrated VGA in it. Sounds attractive, since I am not a gamer and
don't need the latest and greatest graphics engine. The max. FSB,
however, is 333MHz. Will it be foolish of me to buy the A7N8X-VM
instead of the A7N8X? I intend to initially install a XP-3200+ CPU on
it.
Click to expand...

I think most of the differences can be determined by looking here:
http://www.asus.com/ and comparing the differing A7N8X models.


Why spend big bucks on the XP 3200+ when an XP 2500+ can be had for about
25%, or less, of the price of the XP 3200+? The XP 2500+ will, in most
cases, overclock easily to the XP 3200+ level.

Newegg: XP 3200+ = $458.00 (retail); $445.00 (oem)
Newegg: XP 2500+ = $90.00 (retail); $85.00 (oem)
(all prices as of 15 October 2003)


400 MHz DDR = 200 MHz actual frequency
333 MHz DDR = 166 MHz actual frequency


The majority of the 333 MHz DDR Barton CPUs will run at 400 MHz DDR if the
power supply, motherboard, and ram can support it.


--
callsignviper


The truth is out there. You just have to look in the right places and ask
the right questions.
 
Silence said:
For the life of me, I can't find any meaningful (to me) differences
between the two, except for the chipset which doesn't tell me much:

A7N8X-X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-468
A7N8X: http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=13-131-455

There is a $20 price difference between the two and Newegg says the
A7N8X is newer and "supports AMD Barton 400Mhz". What is "AMD Barton
400Mhz"?

Also, the specs for A7N8X-X state that it, too, supports
Thoroughbred/Barton Core and max. FSB is 400MHz. So it seems the two
Mobos have no differences? I am confused...

One last question please: I also noticed the A7N8X-VM which has
integrated VGA in it. Sounds attractive, since I am not a gamer and
don't need the latest and greatest graphics engine. The max. FSB,
however, is 333MHz. Will it be foolish of me to buy the A7N8X-VM
instead of the A7N8X? I intend to initially install a XP-3200+ CPU on
it.

Many thanks!
Sam
Click to expand...
The -x has the nforce 2 400 chipset. The normal one has the nforce 2 400
ultra chipset. The main difference is the -x can't do dual channel
memory and therefore has lower memory bandwidth, but not drastically.
The Barton is the latest revision of the Athlon XP core and is capable
of a 400 MHz bus speed. Before the Barton it was the Thoroughbred, and
before that the Palamino.
 
callsignviper said:
Why spend big bucks on the XP 3200+ when an XP 2500+ can be had for about
25%, or less, of the price of the XP 3200+? The XP 2500+ will, in most
cases, overclock easily to the XP 3200+ level.

Newegg: XP 3200+ = $458.00 (retail); $445.00 (oem)
Newegg: XP 2500+ = $90.00 (retail); $85.00 (oem)
(all prices as of 15 October 2003)
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct. I changed my mind - I will go for the XP
2500+. I don't really need the latest and greatest.
400 MHz DDR = 200 MHz actual frequency
333 MHz DDR = 166 MHz actual frequency
Click to expand...

Could you tell me please how this relates to FSB? I haven't been
following the latest Mobo tricks for a while and I am confused about
this issue.

I would also appreciate any link/tip to help me get an idea whether a
P4-based system that supports an 800MHz FSB is supposed to perform
much better than an AMD-based one that only supports 533MHz FSB.

Thanks!
Sam
 
Barry Walsh said:
The main difference is the -x can't do dual channel
memory and therefore has lower memory bandwidth, but not drastically.
Click to expand...

Barry - thank you so much! That is exactly the clarification that I was looking for.

Sam
 
Silence Seeker said:
"callsignviper" <[email protected]> wrote in message

You are absolutely correct. I changed my mind - I will go for the XP
2500+. I don't really need the latest and greatest.


Could you tell me please how this relates to FSB? I haven't been
following the latest Mobo tricks for a while and I am confused about
this issue.
Click to expand...

Simply put it is the FSB speed in either actual frequency terms or in DDR
terms. DDR = Double Data Rate. DDR = Data is transferred twice per clock
pulse of the square wave frequency waveform (E.g.: 2 x 200 MHz = 400 MHz
DDR). This method usually uses the rising and falling edges of the pulse (or
some other method the engineers for a particular motherboard have chosen to
use in their design). Note: Most of the time you will see the higher number
in advertising hoopla because the marketing types are pretty clueless as to
what they are trying to sell!!!


Here you go (from Upgrading and Repairing PCs - 13th Edition):

"Processor Bus. Also called the front-side bus (FSB), this is the highest
speed bus in the system and is at the core of the chipset and motherboard.
This bus is used primarily by the processor to pass information to and from
cache or main memory and the North Bridge of the chipset. The processor bus
in a modern system runs at 66 MHz, 100 MHz, 133 MHz, or 200 MHz and is
normally 64 bits (8 bytes wide)."


Additional explanation from the same source:

"The processor bus (also called the front-side bus or FSB) is the
communications pathway between the CPU and motherboard chipset, more
specifically the North Bridge or Memory Controller Hub. This bus runs at the
full motherboard speed - normally between 66 MHz and 400 MHz in modern
systems, depending on the particular board and chipset design."

HTH.


--
callsignviper


The truth is out there. You just have to look in the right places and ask
the right questions.
 
Silence said:
Barry - thank you so much! That is exactly the clarification that I was
looking for.
Click to expand...

Just ato add confusion, altough it has not dual channel, and in theory less
bandwidth, that doesn't appear to be the case in benchmarks. Dual channel
is not as impressive as it could be in most circumstances. It shines with
onboard video, otherwise, it's hardly noticeable. I suspect that it helps a
tad if you are using lots of DMA'd I/O as well - not benchmarked it, or even
sure how to, but thats my edumacated guess. :-P

In other words... don't make the lack of dual channel influence your
decision much, if at all.

Ben
 
Silence said:
Could you tell me please how this relates to FSB? I haven't been
following the latest Mobo tricks for a while and I am confused about
this issue.
Click to expand...

FSB connects the northbridge to the CPU.

Memory bus connects the Northbridge to the Memory.

It's almost always best to have the two buses running at the same speed and
as fast as possible.

As you can see, not all data transfers must go to the CPU with this
configuration (using a mechanism called DMA - Direct Memory Access, devices
can dump data to from RAM directly, so there could be advantages to running
RAM faster then FSB, but only on I/O intensive tasks - not the sort of thing
your average home PC is geared up around)

Basically they are two completely isolated buses, doing different tasks.

All devices (AGP, PCI, USB, etc) are connected to the Northbridge (sometimes
via the Southbridge, which usually provides peripheral devices such as axtra
PCI buses for RS-232, USB, Sound, Parallel Port etc.). The Northbridge is
the centre of all data communication, if you will - if data is shifted,
it'll go via the Northbridge (somebody prove me wrong :-)
I would also appreciate any link/tip to help me get an idea whether a
P4-based system that supports an 800MHz FSB is supposed to perform
much better than an AMD-based one that only supports 533MHz FSB.
Click to expand...

Sooo many benchmarks out there. I usually go to anandtech first for these
matters.

FYI, maximum FSB of Athlon XP is 200MHz DDR (DDR400) and on P4 is 200MHz
quad pumped or 133MHz quad pumped (533MHz and 800MHz in the literature, I am
not going to do this discussion again. I will just say that the maximum
number of transfers is 400Million/s on AMD and 800Million/s on Intel)

Ben
 
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