Need Upgrade Suggestions

[PolymerTim]

I'm working on an upgrade for my system and wanted to know if you guys had any suggestions and could help clear me up on a few questions.

I'm looking at buying a mobo, cpu, and ram and trying to keep it under $300. The best combination I've found so far is Epox 8RDA+ ($85), Athlon XP 2500+ Barton ($93), and 512MB C3 PC3200 Kingston RAM ($73). Since I last looked around a lot of new stuff has been coming out so let me know if this is still a pretty good deal. As an alternative I'm also considering the 512MB C2 PC3200 Corsair RAM ($95.20). Is it worth the extra cash for this? I only know basics about hardware so any ideas you have would be helpful. All these prices are from newegg.com current today.

Question: If the Epox 8RDA+ runs 333MHz FSB, why does it take 400MHzDDR memory? I'm a little confused on this. Does it also work with PC2700 and is there a benefit to using PC3200?

Also, I'm definitely not an overclocker, but are there any tried-and-true straight-forward tweaks for this system that could get me a little extra performance?

Thanks in advance for your ideas. I'm hoping to go ahead and by this stuff in the next couple of days, so let me know what you think.

Tim

 

[pac1085]

Id get an nforce2 ultra 400 based board...that way you can drop your multiplier and up the bus to 200, or overclock. my friend bought a soltek SL-75FRN2-RL for $89 shipped from newegg and its got to be the best board I've ever seen for the money. I think the barton 2500+ is a great deal also. You might want to look into getting some PC3200/3500 C2 ram, mushkin had that promo build deal for $89 shipped, but I dont think its going on anymore.

 

[PolymerTim]

What are a few examples of nForce2 ultra 400 mobos? Also keep in mind that minor overclocking is really icing on the cake that I might experiment with. I've never overclocked before, so if you have any suggestions along that route please be detailed on what exactly you're talking about since I don't know all the lingo. (I know about FSB and clock multipliers, heard of voltages, and that's about it).

OK, so I just found some reviews on ultra 400 mobos. They look good, but I can't find anyone selling them online yet; I guess they're just too new. I'm guessing they won't be in my price range though. To fit into my $300 total budget the mobo prob needs to stay under $100 - $120 (esp if the RAM is gonna be more expensive).