advice needed: check my upgrade parts pls...

[rh71]

Not very up-to-date with this stuff and just want to upgrade to a 2.0GHz from my 1.0GHz T-bird / 384MB PC133 RAM machine... only planning to swap the core parts to make it faster...

AMD Barton 2800+ OEM
ASUS nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Model "A7N8X" -RETAIL
Speeze "WhisperRock II" CPU Cooler (good enough?)
512MB DDR PC(????) RAM

I basically need confirmation/recommendations since the only thing I'm sure about is that I want as close to reliable 2.0GHz as possible for the cheapest price, w/o O/Cing. I guess my budget is $300, but the lower the better since I still have an ATI 9800Pro to pick up (outside of this amt).

So please chime in with your opinions... I basically went with that mobo since it's one of those that support 400FSB (for the future) and about the cooler... well if there's better, let me know - I like Speeze coolers from past experience... also not sure about the speed of RAM that's compatible here - I want DDR333 at the minimum here, correct ? Should I go with DDR400 anyway ? Don't tell me I'll need RAM cooling too...

Thx.

 

[Soulkeeper]

are you going to overclock or just be happy with the stock speeds ?

 

[rh71]

stock speeds will be fine... thx.

 

[myocardia]

Go ahead and buy PC3200 ram, since it's now the same price as the PC2700. You can use it for another system at a later date, and besides, you know you're gonna try overclocking. That WhisperRock II will be fine, but I wouldn't pay the extra money for an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe, when for around $90 on newegg, you can get a better board-- the Abit NF7-S. And I would recommend OCZ ram to you. It's great low-latency ram, for about the same price that Kingston and Corsair sell them crap (value series) ram for.

 

[dqniel]

If you are absolutely positive that you aren't gonna overclock then do exactly what the guy above me said. But if there is just the slightest chance that you will do a mild OC by keeping stock voltages and just up'in the fsb (and I hope you do ) then get a 2500+ instead and save yourself some money.

 

[rh71]

Well it's the regular non-deluxe A7N8X... is the NF7-S still better overall ? They're approx. the same price. I'll check out the RAM also...

About O/C'ing... if I can save $40 and get it at the same speed stably... then I'll give it a shot also... but if it means spending more for more reliable components for that purpose, then I'll just go stock.

 

[dqniel]

I'd say the nf7-s 2.0 is better overall. Both boards are good but most people get the nf7-s I'd say. I made the suggestion to get the 2500+ just because it's so easy to take this 80 dollar cpu to the 3200+ speed without even increasing the vcore. 166fsb to 200fsb, and poof, you've got a the same performance as a 3200+ for like 80 bucks less or whatever.

 

[rh71]

Can't the 2800+ be O/C'd to way above a 3200+ then if I wanted to go that route ? Just curious.

I'll probably stick with the 2800+ chip. If in the future I want to clock it more, still go with the Abit board ? I see it's $103 at newegg, not the $90 as mentioned before...

 

[dqniel]

The abit nf7-s 2.0 is a great board for the stock user and oc'in user alike.

 

[myocardia]

If you get an Asus A7N8X-X, then you're gonna have to be happy with running your cpu at stock speeds, because the A7N8X-X is NOT an overclocking board, like the N8X-Deluxe is. If you think there's ever a chance you might want to even try overclocking, get the Abit NF7-S, like I suggested before. You won't be sorry, if you do.

 

[rh71]

Abit it is. How important is the RAM then ... because I'm about to get some OCZ PC3200 this or this ... I think CAS 2 timings are important, no ?