Advice for buying CPU/Mobo... and question about durability and stability...?

[RDSport323]

I am in the market for a new CPU, and I was wondering if you guys could offer a little advice..

1. Do you guys recommend purchasing a "already tested pre-clocked Duron XXX @ XXXX" from stores such as overclockers store, or icompz"? Are they trust worthy? Are they reliable?

2. should I just buy a CPU and attempt to overclock it myself? And what CPU should I get that would offer the best stability, speed, and overclockableness? Duron 800 or TBird 1.1ghz, or... considering that a lot of the CPUs are different and have different speed limits. Which motherboard? I'm torn between the Abit KT7 and Asus A7V, both are good, one has BIOS options to change the multiplier, while the other is jumper.

3. If I overclock the CPU, does that mean that every part of the motherboard is overclocked? (ie memory, PCI/AGP slots?) So, I already have 2 128MB PC 133 (one infineon, the other nanya), would that be okay? I also have an AGP ATi Radeon AIW. BTW, how do you overclock memory and videocards?

4. I read somewhere in these forums that the lifetime of an overclocked system is a lot shorter than normal... how long is that? Basically, I just want a fairly fast (at least faster than the PIII 550mhz Celeron that I have right now) computer, and not have to worry about it too much.

5. What is CAS 2-2-2, CAS 3-3-3, etc..? and how do I change it?

Well, basically that should answer all of my questions...

thanks a lot!

 

[Snyper182]

Sport,
1- With prices for pretested chips so low, why not pick up a Duron@1Ghz for 70$!!!

2- Lets see... 70$ -or- What core to get, will it work, will it cool OK, does 800 work, how about 900, up the voltage, OOPS!, core is FRIED, start over... $70 looks good, doesn't it.

3- A good Clocker board like the A7V from ASUS, or the KT7 (if you are not experienced, don't get KT7-RAID, more settings, more confusion). They allow different motherboard subsystems to run at different speeds. For example: Overclocking the CPU while not overclocking the RAM or AGP.

4- The lifespan of a safely overclocked system varies. From what I've heard, overclocking an Athlon/Duron CPU from 750/800 to near 1000 reduces the lifespan from 10 years to 2-3 years. If you think that this is too short, how long ago did you get your Cellie 550?

5- CAS 222 or 333 is a RAM Specification. It is called "CAS Latency" or CL or CL=. It is how long it takes RAM to refresh after a data burst. RAM specified at CL=2(or CL2 or 222 or 2-2-2) refreshes in 2 clock cycles while CL=3 takes three. CL=2 refreshes faster and is somewhat more expensive. CL= is not the same as the operating speed (PC66, PC100, PC133, PC150). You can not change CAS Latency, you buy it (Crucial, Mushkin, Corsair...).

PS- If you are just interested in somthing that works, how about a Overclocked T-Bird CPU, Cooler, Motherboard Combo from Overclockers for 350-400$ Drop it in and Rock!

Snyper182

AMD Rules!, To hell with Intel.
Overclock the world!!!

 

[paulip88]

1. Dunno. Never tried it for myself.

2. This'll work too. I would go with a Duron 600/650 or a TBird 900/950, depending on how much money I feel like spending. As for a mobo, I would go for the MSI K7T Pro2a. OC from BIOS, stable, and cheaper than the Asus and ABit. Also easier to set up as I understand it.

3. Not necessarily. Most of the OC for Socket As is done by multiplier, which only throws the CPU out of spec. You can also do some smalltime FSB OCing, which OCs all components. For OCing your video card, this is usually done though the drivers in the OS you are running (if it lets you do it at all, don't know about your AIW).

4. Heh. Its prolly true, but if you think about it, its prolly OK. If you let your CPU live out its natural life, it would probably spend most of its later years in retirement. Might as well make it work harder while its working and have it die an unnatural death. Even then, it'll probably be able to reach retirement before you kill it.

5. Synper182 covered what CAS2 and 3 are. However, I'd like to point out that you can change these settings on some boards. If you have CAS2 RAM, but your mobo is running it at CAS3, you can get a slight speed boost by changing the setting.

 

[slpaulson]

I have heard too many people say they got ripped off by overclockers store to recommend them. You should get the cpu ram and motherboard in a combo from mwave.
Check resellerratings.com to see what I mean.

 

[RDSport323]

Wow, thanks for the feedback... a few more questions, or concerns.... a Duron 600 OCed to 1ghz, would that honestly be comparable to a non-overclocked 1ghz? For example, could I say to my friend "hey, I got a new 1ghz Duron or T-Bird for only $70", and be able to prove or at least fool him into think that it really is? I am just a bit skeptical as to the power of overclocking a piece of hardware... The reason is because, if I am going to buy one that is already pre-tested to run at ***mhz, and its original settings were 600mhz, that's not much of an upgrade from my 550mhz celeron...

As for the MSI motherboard, my friend has it and I dunno if it was just him not taking care of it, but he had a Slot A Mobo with an Athlon 800...his fans broke so his CPU was running w/o proper cooling for a few weeks, and then boom, his motherboard stopped working. That was just my first impression of the MSI motherboard... I hardly find people that support the motherboard, but I guess I should look further into it.

I was looking at Mwave.com, and I noticed that it had some decent prices, but do they sell pre-o'clocked items? I figure that would be my best solution... I don't want to fry my CPU/Mobo within the first few minutes of actually having it. And I don't want to worry about the week, the color, or what not. So, what would be a good vendor thats reliable and trustworthy? Seems like everyone has mixed reviews about one place or the other, so, it's confusing... but then again, if I bought one pre OC'ed, that kind of takes the fun out of it. It's like buying a pre fixed-up BMW and showing it off as if you made it when in reality, you are just an idiot who couldn't do it himself...

So, thus I am left with that problem, shoudl I take the gamble and play with the toy, or should I just be $$$ conscience and be spoon fed one?



Thanks!


ps. the Kingston ValueRAM, are they CAS 2 or 3? does anyone know?

 

[Ulysses]

Mwave is a decent vendor - I don't know if they sell pretested chips. Check out vendors at ResellerRating.com & stick with those with 5.0 or better rating from a lot of raters.

You might as well get a pretested chip. The overclocking procedures are really cut and dry - see overclocking guide and Socket-A mobo roundup - if you know what you are doing it takes maybe 10-15 minutes max to push a CPU to its max overclock. Remember that you can't make a chip overclock more than it is capable of, so if you buy an untested chip and it is a dud, then you are stuck.

The Kingston Value RAM is in all probability CL3. Maybe consider the Rev. 1.5 or 2 PC133 SDRAM at Mushkin, which is CL2.

Here's what I did recently with a P3 on my old BX board, as a comparison.

 

[DACracker]

kingston has both. i just bought pc100 valueram that's cas2. speakign of that, does anyone kno whow overclockable valueram is?

 

[paulip88]

This is how a OCed 1GHz Duron would compare to a non-OCed 1GHz chip: It would run about 10% slower. This is not because OCed chips are slower, but its just because the only 1GHz chips are PIIIs and TBirds and at 1GHz, the Duron is about 10% slower.

Duron vs. 550 Celeron? The Celeron will get spanked. In general, Celeron's run about 10-15% slower than a Duron at the same clock speed. Its also cheaper.

About your friend's board: Are you sure its the mobo that died? It sounds more like his CPU may have overheated and killed itself. A dead fan normally does not cause the board itself to become inoperable. Personally, my MSI boards have been pretty troublefree.

BTW, what fun is a toy if someone plays with it for you?

 

[L3]

Others have answered your general questions better than I could've, but I did recently buy a pre-tested chip & mobo combo from overclockerz. Let me say that when I was buying, reseller ratings was down, broken, or for all I knew, gone away forever! The comments about the vendor in these forums was mixed, and I rolled the dice on an Abit kt7 / Duron 600 (1Ghz oc'ed) combo. After a few days experience, my report:

1) Overclockerz needs to work on customer service. They claim that they are struggling with e-mail since a move, all I know is that to get a response to repeated e-mail and voice mail inquiries about order status, I had to threaten to call Visa to get their attention.

2) Having got their attention, they called me. told when they'd ship, and lived up to their commitments.

3) Assembled chip, mobo, and in-house cooler (which they accurately described as very noisy) and system, set-up bios, and running at 1 Ghz since. Too damn easy, really!

My $.02