New System So Far.. Need Advice

[jmeyer2718]

I'm in the process of putting together a new PC. So far, here are the items that I currently
have for it.

Antec Plus 1080AMG w/ 430w True Antec PS
PNY GeForce 4 Ti4600
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 80GB Ultra ATA/133 HD

So I need a CPU, MB, and RAM now. Im considering the following:

P4 1.6a
ASUS P4B533
512 MB Corsair XMS PC3200

I have never built a system before, though I feel fairly confident in my ability to do so. With
that said, I still have some questions that I cant seem to find the answers to. Hopefully some
of you can help. I apologize if they seem stupid. Like I said, Im new at this. Here goes.

The MB says it supports PC2100 ram, yet the stick I am interested in is 3200. I know you can
use the ram with the MB since a lot of people do, but how does that work?

Do I need to also buy an ATA133 card for the HD, or does the board support 133?

Does the MB have the PCI/AGP lock?

Ive seen many different versions of the motherboard. Is there a big difference between each
version? I dont need RAID support, just a board that will overclock well. Which version is the
best to get in my case?

Thats all, for now 🙂 Thanks to anyone willing to answer any of my questions. I really appreciate
it.

 

[Mikki]

Good choices. Yeah, use can use XMS3200 with the board, if you run at default speeds your ddr will only run at 266mhz. To run at 400mhz, you'll have to overclock to 150fsb, which generally is doable.

This board doesn't support ATA133, so you would have to buy a card to run your Maxtor at ATA133 or just run it at ATA100 (which would still rock). You could just get the Western Digital JB or Special Edition drives, which kick butt anyway, and use your Maxtor as a second drive or whatever.

Yes, it has the PCI/AGP lock and the ratio is fully adjustable.

Get the P4B533. The P4B533-E has the raid, and the -M is a micro-ATX board.

HTH 🙂