HELP - have ABit KT7a with Athlon 1 Gig - is Athlon XP that much faster on Nforce 2?

[GratefullySaved]

Hey all,

I have an Athlon 1 Ghz running at 1.2 Ghz on an Abit KT7a RAID (no raid in use). Would an Athlon XP 2100+ show me a big speed increase for Photoshop work assuming I have the same RAM in either machine? Also, will an XP 2100+ run optimally on my Abit, or will it slow down bus speed wise? I'm much more a mac expert than a pc guru guy, so all help is really welcome.

Also...I've thought about upgrading my mentioned pc, but figure that by the time I upgrade my GeForce 2 MX video card, add firewire ($50) and add RAM, that I might be better just buying an Nforce 2 with IGP instead (with a new chip), and MAYBE even getting one of those really cool small XPC form factor things like the Shuttle option on Anandtech's home page right now. How much are those - the article doesn't say anything and I can't find a retailer in my limited research?

Anyone out there using an XPC for a gamer/medium-power machine? Mine is intended to be a Photoshop backup unit to my PowerMac work station, and serve as a good (doesn't have to be AWESOME gaming platform for the off hours and network games with friends - I DO want to be able to run Unreal II and Unreal Tournament 2003 very well at at least 800x600 though.)

Thanks to all, I really need some advice here...

GS

 

[mechBgon]

The KT7A-RAID uses a different kind of memory than nForce2 boards do, so you'd have to buy new DDR memory if you wanted to get an nForce2 rig. I'd expect your Photoshop stuff will benefit most from the increase in clock speed that an AthlonXP will provide.

Judging by Anand's results in UT2003 benchmarking here, don't expect too much from the onboard video in an IGP board. Not that you couldn't play, but even a budget add-in card will be faster.

 

[mechBgon]

By the way, I was looking at the BIOS revisions available for the KT7A-RAID to see if they mention any AthlonXP support, but they only mention standard (non-XP) Athlons. However, it does support up to a 1.4GHz Athlon Thunderbird with 266MHz bus, if you stumble across a good deal on those.