an35n-ultra/mobile 2400+/corsair valueselect pc3200 200 fsb feasible?

[Super56K]

Ok, around the end of march I'm gonna be ordering a budget system for myself mainly and for the rest of my large family.(pretty much so my family and I don't have to get on the computer in shifts, lol.) This is really going to mainly be a pc for gaming. The key word on this system i'm building is budget. I chose the shuttle an35n-ultra mobo over the abit nf7 and asus a7n8x's because I won't be using any sata, and the shuttle's price is very cheap compared to them. I chose the mobile athlon 2400+ because, technically, it will oc a lot better vs. a regular athlon xp 2400+ because of the lower stock vcore and it being unlocked, correct? I originally had selected the ocz enhanced latency series pc3200 ram. The price from newegg was around $115 or so I think for a 512mb stick. I searched around more and found the corsair value select ram for $84 for a 512mb stick of pc3200. That's a lot of dough saved just in the ram cash wise, but what about performance wise?

The rest of that parts I already have. I'll be putting this stuff along with a 60gb seagate hdd, a dvd-rom, cd burner, and propably an ati radeon 9000 pro 128mb into an antec sx835II case. I may get a faster card, but i'm not going too until I'm sure I need the performance boost from it. I have one running in my family's system(athlon xp 1600+, k7s5a pro mobo, 512mb pc133) and I have most of the new games and can play them on decently set graphics. The games I play the most are BF1942 and expansions, call of duty, halo, rise of nations, ut2003 and ut2k4 demo, c&c generals, and a few other fps's and strategy games. The only games I have trouble running at max settings are BF1942 and ut2k4. BF1942 starts to lag like something awful if I crank up the bot numbers in single player(anything above 330%) and if I crank the details in ut2k4 it gives me a little lag when a lot of actions going on. I believe the gpu will give me the performance I'm looking for. Well, I HOPE the gpu will give me the performance I'm looking for because I could get a second one for this pc i'm building for around $30-35 from a friend.

All in all, the only thing I'm concerned about is the performance of the ram I have picked out. Oh, and another thing. What would be a decent HSF for my processor? Maybe one is the sub $20 range. Being noisy isn't a factor for me. Yes, the post's a little long for what I'm asking but all input will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Avalon]

The difference between the two RAM's performance would probably be small
For a sub $20 HSF, the only one I have experience with is the Thermaltake Volcano 7+
I think it went for $18 on newegg, and it cools my system down decently

 

[myocardia]

You know, for roughly the same money, you could get much better performance than you would with the parts you listed. Exhibit #1: Biostar M7NCDfor $53. This board overclocks very well. I put one in my daughter's system, and I really like it quite a bit. I probably would have bought one for my system, but they weren't out when I bought my Epox 8RDA3+. Exhibit #2: 2x256MB of Buffalo PC3200 ram for $88. If you've never heard of Buffalo ram, just read the reviews posted by the people who've bought it. Buying name-brand ram is a very good idea, but only if you can afford the good stuff, like Corsair XMS or Kingston HyperX. Final argument: for $141 you get a motherboard which is a proven overclocker and ram that will run over 200mhz (400 DDR), and you get to have run your ram in dual-channel mode. As you can see, the Corsair Value Select doesn't run as low timings as the slightly cheaper Buffalo, and only one person says his will overclock. Of course, if you're wanting to only run it at 200mhz, it will do that just fine, but are you sure that 200 will be all you are going to want? My system is notably faster at 10.5x212.5 than it was at 11x200. You get quite a bit more performance when you have a higher fsb.

 

[Super56K]

That looks like a decent HSF Avalon. I'll look into it. myocardia, I've looked at the m7ncd board a couple of times and it really does have the same specks as the shuttle's board for about $9 less. Neither of those boards will give me dual channel though, right? I was maybe thinking of buying this biostar board instead since it has the dual channel capabilities. It would only cost me and extra $3 for it over the shuttle board. That buffalo ram does look a lot more promising than the corsair. I'll definately try it out. And I think your right about the oc'ing. Right now I'm shooting to hit 200fsb stable but I doubt I'll be able to stop there when I could maybe push it a little further. I wonder how long the mobile athlons will be in stock? I might order now in case they become OOS again, but I was hoping they might be a little cheaper towards the end of march. Hmf, decisions, decisions.