tpg Posted September 14, 2003 Share Posted September 14, 2003 Hi all. I am going off to college in a year, and my current comp sucks... So, my mom has agreed to finance the parts for a new comp for me. I will be using AMD, despite the differing opinions... I am fiercely loyal to them. I will use an nForce2 mobo, Enermax case+PS, ATA133 HDD, Volcano9 CPU fan. The two processor/RAM options are: Athlon XP2400+ (2.00GHz @ 266FSB) w/ 512MB DDR266 Registered ECC Athlon XP2600+ (2.083GHz @ 333FSB) w/ 512MB DDR333 Registered ECC Will there be a large noticeable difference if I go with the DDR333 and ever so slightly faster processor? Thanks all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 14, 2003 Share Posted September 14, 2003 The best buy is the Barton core based 2500XP,costs peanuts and if needed overclocks like a champ(3200XP stable seen often). WIth 512KB cache and also a 333FSB BTW you will be wasting money on ECC memory,ECC is a must in servers using vast amounts of memory.Just use brand names like Kingston/Micron(Crucial)/Corsair/Samsung/Infineon and you should be A ok.Dont settle for garbage can no name memory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpg Posted September 17, 2003 Author Share Posted September 17, 2003 OK, I have redone this (had to change companies to fit everything in) to accomodate some different stuff... we now have: Enermax case and PSU (350W) Abit NF7 mobo (DDR400, 8x AGP, 6-ch audio, LAN, ATA133, USB2.0) Athlon XP2500+ Barton Core (1.833GHz, 333MHz FSB) 512MB Corsair DDR400 RAM 60GB ATA133 7200RPM HDD 52x CD-RW will use old geForce3 TI200 from current comp Win2000 Pro Does that sound as though it will work well for my ever so slight gaming addiction, as well as holding all my songs and being STABLE? (my current comp is ver UNSTABLE.... it ran SWAT3 for all of 5 minutes a few days ago... I used to play that for hours... I don't know what is wrong.) Thanks On a side note: All this is overclockable, correct? Clock speed, FSB, and videocard? I plan on running the CPU at least at 2.00GHz, and I would like the FSB at 400 instead of 333, and if possible make the TI200 a TI500 or a slower geForce4. Some major cooling will go on. Monitor will be my TV for a while... (20" flat panel) and speakers will be my HT via optical connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 tpg, Yes the 2500XP Barton core AMD should be stable at 3200XP.Now the ABIT mobo is a great choice for overclocking,in fact ABIT ranks at or near the top in the most overclockable sweepstakes. The Ti200 will NOT reach Ti500 level because of memory limitations(unless you are lucky and have very fast DDR on your Ti200),the classic GF3 will reach GF3 Ti500 levels with ease. And to make a Ti200 perform even like a Ti4200 GF4 is but a dream and not much more,mega cooling...pointless since you could buy a ATI Radeon 9600PRO and overclock this little gem to insane levels and WHOOP the living hell out of any Nvidia card in HalfLife 2. I would direct you towards ATI for your next vid card,they heat less,perform better and cost less.Nuff said Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpg Posted September 17, 2003 Author Share Posted September 17, 2003 Well, that should work well then... maybe in the somewhat distant future I'll add an ATI... the TI200 will have to suffice for a while... Just to double check, I can use the DDR400 memory even though my processor only has a 333 FSB (unless I o/c it). Correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 Correct,you could by even the latest and fastest PC4000 memory and use it at a slower speed.But frankly anything above PC3200(400DDR)is a grand waste of money since over 3200XP rating all Athlons say "NAH NO MORE" and will make your system very...unstable. Proved in testing over and over.Unless supercooling is used and voltage is raised.But then...why spend 500-$1000 on supercooling when you can buy in a few months the UBBER Pentium 4 at 3200MHz with 2.5MB(yes 2.5megabytes of)cache!!This CPU will trounce the supercooled AMD chips(unless you use the 64BIT Opteron in a specific app). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpg Posted September 18, 2003 Author Share Posted September 18, 2003 Will Win2000 work well for gaming and such? Would XP be any better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 26, 2003 Share Posted September 26, 2003 Windows 2000 works great for gaming,but I use Windows XP Pro for future update sake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpg Posted September 28, 2003 Author Share Posted September 28, 2003 Thanks Ear... I will switch the OS to XP Pro, I think. As of now, the comp is looking like this: Enermax CS-305-S case with 350W PSU Abit NF7 nForce2 mobo (400FSB) Athlon XP2500+ Barton core TaiSol fan+heatsink 512MB DDR400 Corsair RAM 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM, 8MB cache, serial ATA HDD Lite-On 52x CD-RW geForce3 TI200 (until I can get something better) Win XP Pro Look decent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CO1 Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Looks fine to me. Personally I would use two Western Digital Raptors if you want to go serial but what you got will do the trick. I'd also go bigger with the power supply if you plan to O/C because then you don't have to worry about weather or not your PS is holding back your O/C. Enermax is good and that is what I mostly use but I have had a few Antec and IMHO they are better. I know this sounds stupid because I use Enermax but that is because I get a good deal on them from the place I buy all my parts. If it makes you feel any better I have gotten more than a 1000Mhz O/C on a 350 Enermax but I didn't have much else in that machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yura Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 Yea system looks good but couple points: Its better to have 2 sticks of identical ram so you can use dual channel on memory controller. This will give you a slight speed increase - but for this you will either have to get 2x256 or 2x512. Better get a kit with CAS2. Now for heatsink fan - i personally like Zalman 7000Cu. Don't know if it will fit your case/mb combo though. HD - if you have EXTRA cash - get a 36 gig WD Raptor ( 10.000 RPM SATA disk - fast as hell, very close to SCSI perfomance). On Motherboard - i assume you are getting NF7-S which has SOundStorm ( DolbyDigital encoder 5.1) - right? With good colling and good parts - you can push your CPU upto ~2.6 real GHz. But your rig looks good right now... im just talking about EXTRA stuff. For video i recommend Radeon anywhere from 9500 (non pro) and up. Its best to have 8 piplines and 256bit access on memory. Cuz some radeons are downgraded to use 4 pipes and 128bit access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yura Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 TheEAR -- Intel EE CPU's get only 5-7% speed increase due to more cach. They cant be really compared to Opterons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 I am getting the Athlon FX51 in the next few days. The P4 Extreme Edition will replace my 2.4Ghz in the next few months only.I want the FX51 first,its a marvel of a CPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yura Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 What I really want is a dual G5... On the other hand - i can take an applebread 2400+(2000 real) CPU and make a full-on Barton out of it, then clock it to 2.6 real Ghz... So to get close to Barton 3200+ all i need is a $50 CPU and a good MB like Abit NF7-S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 A 2500 Barton core AthlonXP can beoverclocked with ease to 3200XP level,but what I am after is a level no barton will touch and the FX51 non overclocked eats any Barton.And when the FX51 gets a good boost...it untouchable. Only the P4 3.2 Extreme can overtake it in Quake 3(Q3 engeine based games). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinipig523 Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 hey ear - i read that the fx-51 can actually hit 2.8ghz, with proper cooling. this means a performance rating of between 4000-4500+!! and imo, performance is not all about the mhz or ghz.... its all about how much instructions a cpu can crank out per cycle - and how many cycles it cranks per second. the above mentioned is true mostly for graphics intensive software, but for other things that require pure speed - then the greater the ghz, the better the run (p4 takes the cake in this circumstance). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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