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A few questions about my Socket 7 build

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First post, by Crinale0

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I've just got my socket 7 pc up and running (spec is in my sig) and have a few questions

1, I tried Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and at 640x480 16 it does get pretty laggy and I'd like to overcome this. Is this a GPU limitation (ATI Rage II) or CPU? Or both?

2, can you passive cool Pentium 1 CPU's? I seem to recall my old Packard Bell Pulsar had a large colored heatsink but no fan on a Pentium 1 200 MMX. I've ordered the cooler below which even states on it "200Mhz" so I'm guessing it should be ok? Right?

s-l1600.webp

3, I have a normal P1 166mhz which does have cache and FSB control in the BIOS but I'm new to DOS games and restarting constantly to try games is really annoying but i've discovered setmul on Phils Computer Lab and it seems the MMX variant has a few advantages when it comes to slowing the clocks down on the fly so... I've ordered a 200Mhz P1 MMX which, i had as a kid as well so a bit of nostalgia sprinkled on top never hurt. Is my GPU about on par for the spec of this CPU or could i use something better? I seem to be using this PC a lot more than i expected so if i can get a better GPU than my current ATI Rage II + DVD GPU I will (not a Voodoo though as though i would LOVE one, the prices on those are stupid now, sadly)

4, I've opted to buy 64MB of SD RAM because it costs literally nothing will this help at all with performance over EDO ram? Any issues in DOS games using SD RAM instead of EDO?

5, are my scores currently about right for the spec?

PlayerBench 640x480 I'm getting 18.1

Virtual Reality Playhouse score is 99.0

Athlon XP 2400+ @2Ghz|512MB DDR RAM|QDI 7X/400|PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128MB w/ AGP 8x|Sound Blaster Live

Reply 1 of 1, by Shponglefan

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Your PlayerBench score sounds about right. For comparison, I benchmarked a Pentium 166 with a Matrox Mystique and got a score of 18.2 (640x480).

I also suspect the CPU is holding back Jazz Jackrabbit performance. I've noticed that benchmarks across the board go up with a Pentium 200 versus a 166. This is using the same motherboard, RAM, and video card. A Pentium MMX will also have double the cache which should further help with performance.

For cooling, I generally don't like to go fully passive. I try to have some airflow either via CPU fan or a case fan. In my Pentium 200, I have a heatsink similar to yours without a CPU fan, but I also have an 80mm case fan blowing air towards the processor.

Looking at the case you posted previously, I'd probably try to add a fan in somehow. Especially if there are cables otherwise blocking airflow. If nothing else, keeping the processor running cooler should extend its lifespan. Even rigging up a small 40mm fan would be better than nothing.

SDRAM should be faster than EDO RAM. I would expect a marginal performance boost.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

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