Older Board - Fastest Chip I can Run? AMD Socket A?

[itakey]

I've had an Asus A7N8X Deluxe running and overclocked AMD 2100+ at 2.2GHz for quite a while now. I was wondering what the standard is now on CPU chips. Could I upgrade my older AMD chip to something half decent with the Asus A7N8X mother board? Or do I need a new mother board too?

What is the fastest chip I could run on the A7N8X? Would it be worth just upgrading the CPU on this board to whatever the fastest chip it could run is?

Anyone know the fastest CPU this older board could run?

Thanks

 

[itakey]

Seems like the Athlon Xp 3200+ might be as high as this board can handle.

Anyone know the details around this? Is that the highest? Was this a good chip? Is it a worthy upgrade above my XP2100?

I learned a bit from here:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Socke...62%20(Socket%20A).html

 

[o1die]

Not worth the money. Better off getting a socket 939 dual core and cheap board while you still can. Manchester core 4200 is only $63 shipped at newegg. 939 will work with pc2700 or pc3200 memory.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Do you feel like you're missing out on something or your system is holding you back?

There is not a good upgrade path for you from a $$$ standpoint. You can find a new Barton 3200+ - for roughly the price of a new mobo/X2 cpu!

You will not see quantum leaps in performance upgrading your system to a new box unless you do some serious video/photo editing/gaming/multitasking. Max out your system memory and save your money - you should be good for a while.

Your agp more than anything else is what has you backed in the corner - and that's not such a bad thing because that saves you money

If you feel like you want to move up in the gaming world a Radeon X1950 Pro would set you back around $150.

That Asus nf2 mobo may be a little 'long in the tooth' but it's still got some life in it . . .

 

[Denithor]

For starters, do not buy a socket 939 cpu or motherboard. S939 is approaching EOL quickly and soon will not be available at all.

If you want to recycle your RAM, AGP card, etc, I would recommend the ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 motherboard for $66 and the e2140 for $76 for a grand total of $142. The motherboard can use either DDR or DDR2 memory and features both AGP and pci-e slots so you can upgrade components easily in the future.

For another $60 you could get the e4400 and not have to worry about your cpu for several more years.

 

[itakey]

Great Responses everyone!!!!

Now I am starting to really catch on since I haven't built a machine or follow hardware updates other than processors.

I do not play ANY games and don't watch any movies or videos other than what shows on YouTube. I do however use lots of resources with photoshop, and other heavily resource hungry programs at the same time. So my goal is to possibly up my memory in this process. I would probably use about 1.5GB at any given time, so I like the idea of having 2+GB.

For memory, I currently have 1-512MB stick of Kingston Hyper X PC2700 ram. I then have a matching pair of 2-512MB Patriot NewEgg special PC3200 chips found here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16820220006

I used to run all 3 of these chips together but eventually I was blue screening so I removed the hyper x and left the 2 patriot's. This could also be due to the fact that I haven't reloaded my windows for a while which I plan to do if I upgrade. So now I am running at 1GB and usually am tapping about 300 or 400mb onto my disk which sucks and is super draggy and slow.

I will be running Windows XP for now, but would like to consider running Vista in the future.

I definitely want more ram so if I have to scrap one of these chips to add in a 1GB Chip of some sort I will. I would like at a minimum of 2 GB, or higher.

For Video, I have a dual head ATI Radeon 7000 64MB family card. I know it is ancient, but I don't game at all so it is good enough for the normal windows work. I have a 128GB BFG Technologies card sitting on my shelf but I forget the specs. I think it is AGP so I could use this if needed.



Any additional suggestions around my needs?

 

[aka1nas]

2GB DDR2 kits are so cheap right now I wouldn't even bother getting the Asrock board, especially if the OPs DDR is only PC2100. You can get an E2xxx chip and a decent no-frills PCI-E board for practically nothing at the moment.

 

[itakey]

So from what I can tell from your responses, my best bet is to either get more RAM for my current A7N8X/XP2100+ setup, or upgrade my mother board and CPU.

Since it seems like RAM may be one of my main issues, I would like to consider either 3GB or 4GB. Can someone help me pair together a decent motherboard and a decent CPU, and some RAM to make this machine scream once more?

I have a combo of IDE and SATA drives, and I run a few external USB's so it will be ideal if the board can still accept IDE HD's.

The E2140 seems reasonably priced.

I guess what I am doing is trying to upgrade what I have with MORE MEMORY, a half decent motherboard, and a chip that will be good enough to hold me for at least a year or more.

Can someone help put together a combo of these 3 things so I can start considering what it is going to cost?
Thanks to everyone who is helping!!!

 

[aka1nas]

Here's a higher-end budget-ish setup:


Abit IP35-e

2x1GB Corsair PC667 DDR2 Kit

E2140

MSI 8400 GS

That GPU should be fine if you aren't a big gamer, has Vista compatability and IIRC, HD playback acceleration to boot.

You can probably find a better deal on that mobo if you look around, and other RAM kits in that price range can be found pretty easily.

The above machine should be fine for regular usage, you can throw a 2nd RAM kit in for 4GB and that board could eventually take a Quad core chip later on down the road if you feel you need one.

You'll need a 64-bit OS to be able to fully utilize 4GB or more of physical memory.

 

[itakey]

Thanks AKA1NAS for the specifics.

So that machine you've suggested will cost roughly:
$70(2GB) or $140(4GB) for the ram
$75 for the CPU
$50 for the video
$90 for the motherboard

This comes out to roughly $355 before rebate and $275 after rebate if I go with the 4gb setup.

Will the Abit overclock the E2140 well?

Anyone have any tweaks or other suggestions around aka1nas's suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: itakey
So from what I can tell from your responses, my best bet is to either get more RAM for my current A7N8X/XP2100+ setup, or upgrade my mother board and CPU.

Since it seems like RAM may be one of my main issues, I would like to consider either 3GB or 4GB. Can someone help me pair together a decent motherboard and a decent CPU, and some RAM to make this machine scream once more?

I have a combo of IDE and SATA drives, and I run a few external USB's so it will be ideal if the board can still accept IDE HD's.

The E2140 seems reasonably priced.

I guess what I am doing is trying to upgrade what I have with MORE MEMORY, a half decent motherboard, and a chip that will be good enough to hold me for at least a year or more.

Can someone help put together a combo of these 3 things so I can start considering what it is going to cost?
Thanks to everyone who is helping!!!

Your memory is definately holding yah back. If yah stick with the Asus for $100 Patriot Signature 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)

Verify for your mobo! The latency would conflict with your current pat sticks. 3Gb (3x1Gb) PC3200 would be around $150.

No doubt a new dual core rig would be a little smoother - as far as a leap in performance with PS that would be a tuff call.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: itakey
Thanks AKA1NAS for the specifics.

So that machine you've suggested will cost roughly:
$70(2GB) or $140(4GB) for the ram
$75 for the CPU
$50 for the video
$90 for the motherboard

This comes out to roughly $355 before rebate and $275 after rebate if I go with the 4gb setup.

Will the Abit overclock the E2140 well?

Anyone have any tweaks or other suggestions around aka1nas's suggestions?
Thanks!

The IP35-E should be good for 400Mhz FSB at least, which would give you 3.2Ghz with the E2140(it has an 8x multiplier). Most people have found that the 2xxx series won't go much past 3Ghz on high-end air cooling. You may need DR2-800 to actually hit 400FSB. The DDR2-667 kit I picked out is a decent deal due to the rebate, but you can probably find a faster DDR2-800 kit for $60-80 without a rebate.

My brother was able to pick the mobo up for like something $80 with a $20 MIR a week or two ago from mwave, so I'd look around for better prices on it.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: itakey
Thanks AKA1NAS for the specifics.

So that machine you've suggested will cost roughly:
$70(2GB) or $140(4GB) for the ram
$75 for the CPU
$50 for the video
$90 for the motherboard

This comes out to roughly $355 before rebate and $275 after rebate if I go with the 4gb setup.

Will the Abit overclock the E2140 well?

Anyone have any tweaks or other suggestions around aka1nas's suggestions?
Thanks!

- 1GB HP/Crucial DDR2 667 RAM...$10/GB AR with a limit of 5 sticks. RAM is good up to 400MHz with 2.0V/5-5-5-15-2T. IP35-E will boot with four sticks of HP RAM.

- Go with the $75-$80 E2160. It has 9x multiplier. Less stress on RAM and MB. Most should be able to hit 3.2GHz. I've seen a few north of 3.4GHz with 1.47Vcore.

http://www.costcentral.com/pro...ail/HP/PX976AT/L49299/

So $40 for 4GB RAM, $65 Abit IP35-E (there's a $5 PriceGrabber review bonus), $80 E2160 CPU, and the rest on GPU.

Check out my review of Abit IP35-E at MB forum.

 

[itakey]

Since it seems like I will need to buy more ram that is compatible and matching anyhow, maybe I will start by buying the memory first, seeing how my machine runs with a fresh reinstall, and then consider the mobo-cpu upgrade.

Can someone help me choose which memory is the best for my current Mother board -Asus A7N8X Deluxe.

Here are the specs on is:
Memory
Dual-Channel DDR 400
3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets
Max. 3 GB unbuffered PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR RAM Memory (Twinbank)
Expansion Slots


I am considering either 2GB or 3GB. Any specific sticks of ram and links to them will be helpful.


SerpentRoyal, do you think those rebates will actually show up? Anyone confirm if they got their cash back on them?

And the E2160 is a little better than the E2140? I probably won't actually overclock much since I would rather have it run stable on air, than toy with it too much, but I want it to run its course.

For the price after rebate, it is definitely a no brainer to upgrade the Mobo/CPU/RAM, but if those rebates don't show it is a whole different story.

Decisions. Anyone think I should just stick with my Asus A7N8X Deluxe with new 3GB of ram? Or should I upgrade?

Thanks

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I've used this HP rebate twice this year. Received my $ in about four to five weeks. HP's rebate is $ in your wallet.

E2160 uses 9x multi...less stress on your RAMs.

 

[aka1nas]

itakey, DDR is dead and DDR3 is already available. You are going to pay a premium for it over DDR2 and none of the current platforms use DDR except for a few value boards like the Asrock mentioned earlier. Such boards will usually only give you 2x DDR and 2x DDR2 slots, which means you won't be going past 2GB of RAM with DDR.

I wouldn't recommend putting any money into a socket A or even socket 939 systems anymore.

 

[itakey]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
itakey, DDR is dead and DDR3 is already available. You are going to pay a premium for it over DDR2 and none of the current platforms use DDR except for a few value boards like the Asrock mentioned earlier. Such boards will usually only give you 2x DDR and 2x DDR2 slots, which means you won't be going past 2GB of RAM with DDR.

I wouldn't recommend putting any money into a socket A or even socket 939 systems anymore.

Aka1nas and SerpentRoyal, so the combination of stuff you suggested is all the newer breed of stuff???? If I go with the Abit IP35-e, the DDR2, and the E2140 or E2160 that is my best bet at this point?

I agree that I do not want to buy memory for my current board if it is going to prove obsolete faster than the rest.

The Abit at $90-$20 rebate seems reasonable. Where can it be had for $65? So this board is a winner going forward for sure and I shouldn't bother shopping any other boards?

How about RAM. So I am looking for DDR2 at the minimum from what I understand. Can someone suggest a 2GB kit that is PROVEN compatible with the Abit IP35-e board? Is that HP ram good enough if I want to do multi-tasking, but don't do any video or gaming? If this board will hold 4GB, I will definitely consider it with that rebate deal. So is the HP memory a winner in my situation? Or should I spend the extra and get some better ram? As long as the machine moves quickly for photoshop and other heavier windows xp based functions I will be happy.

Lastly, the processor. So should I go with the E2140, or the E2160? The price difference is $75 or $84 between the two. Is the E2140 a more popular chip? SerpentRoyal says it is less stress on the RAM. I don't care if I can't overclock it a ton, I just want it to run faster than it is currently. Which is best?

Thanks to everyone for helping out! I can really use it!

 

[SerpentRoyal]

IP35-E will suppot the new 45nm Peryn chips. Per my previous post, you can run up to four sticks of HP RAM with IP35-E. 2GB is fine for most users but I would suggest 4GB if you're working with Photoshop.

If you have a very good E2160, then you can push it farther with the DDR2 667 RAMs (up to about 3.6GHz).

http://computers.pricegrabber....opular-/popup1_attr_id[]=278/

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099932&enterthread=y

 

[itakey]

Thanks SerpentRoyal.

So it looks like I am going to highly consider this upgrade.
MWave has the processor for about $5 cheaper but I like NewEgg so will probably just go with them.

Here is the break down so far:

Abit IP35-E
$89.99-$20 rebate=$69.99 (Before possible $5 off)

HP DDR2 Ram 1GBX4
$199.80 - $160 in rebates = $39.80

E2160 CPU
$83.99

MSI NX8400GS Video Card
$46.99

TOTAL UPGRADE FEE with E2160:
$420.77 Before Rebate
$240.77 After Rebate

OR


TOTAL UPGRADE FEE with E2140:
$411.77 Before Rebate
$231.77 After Rebate

Is this the best route for my upgrade????Anyone agree or disagree? Any other video cards recommended? Or does anyone prefer the E2160 over the E2140?

Thanks!

 

[aka1nas]

The E2160 or even E2180 will make it easier to OC as they have higher multipliers, 9x and 10x respectively compared to the E2140's 8x. That means you can hit the same clockspeeds with a lower FSB and RAM speed. RAM speeds are often the bottleneck with Core 2 Duo overclocking, as you can only run the RAM speed at a 1:1 ratio with the FSB or higher with most Core 2 Duo chipsets. A 10x multi would let you do something like 333x10 for 3.33Ghz(no guarantee the chip will get quite that high, but you can always do a little less) and you would only require DDR2-667 speeds to pull it off.

I've heard good things about the HP/crucial RAM in the deal SerpentRoyal mentioned. Serp actually owns the board so he would have a good idea as to compatibility.

 

[itakey]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
The E2160 or even E2180 will make it easier to OC as they have higher multipliers, 9x and 10x respectively compared to the E2140's 8x.

I've heard good things about the HP/crucial RAM in the deal SerpentRoyal mentioned. Serp actually owns the board so he would have a good idea as to compatibility.

Thanks for the personal feedback on these. After thinking more and more about it, I probably won't play with the overclocking too much in the end. My current machine I played with it in the beginning, then left it at a stable number and never touched it again. I don't have a ton of time to play with the instability of overclocking to the limits anyhow so even a tiny little extra bit of boost will probably be enough.

So if I am not going to overclock a ton, which chip is the best in terms of cost and performance? E2140/E2160/E2180?

Any feedback on this video card, or another? I will be planning to run 2-19" LCD's off of it, and can run one in analog if necessary. I do however want to consider a card that can run a 22" or 24".

 

[aka1nas]

The higher multiplier models will be nice then as they already have a higher clockspeed and you can give them a slight OC without making any other components break a sweat.

As to the video card, that 8400GS has a single DVI and a VGA. Nice thing is that it has enough graphics RAM to handle two reasonably high resolution displays with Aero enabled if you end up running Vista during the rig's lifetime.

1920x1280(24-inch LCD's native res) requires 128MB per display, so that card would still be able to handle two of them with Aero.

Dual DVI cards start a bit closer to $100, and something more like an 8500GT for current models.

 

[itakey]

Thanks again Aka1nas for the feedback.

So it sounds like I am on the right track with everything.
The processors range from $75 to $92 so there isn't a huge difference in them. Does anyone know if one of the 3 is considered the best, or most stable of the 3? Or should I just go for the E2180 since it is the fastest of the 3?

I think that video card will be just fine for me, especially if it can run in Vista and 2 nice big size monitors. If I get to the point where I have dual DVI big monitors i'll consider the upgrade later.

So for a power supply, I think I have an Antec True 330W. When I bought it this was a better power supply for overclocking so that is why I went for it. Will this be sufficient for this upgraded setup?

How about a heat sink on the new chip? I have a fancy Copper one, and am sure it probably won't be fitting a new chip, so what is a decent heat sink? Can I get away with the stock one if I am not overclicking a lot? Any details here will be great.

Also, will the case that I am currently using for my Asus A7N8X Deluxe work with the new motherboard setup? Will all align correctly?

Thanks

 

[aka1nas]

I'd just get the E2180 and not worry about it in your case. Those models only differ by clockspeed/multiplier.

A 330W Truepower might be pushing it as it might not have a strong enough +12v rail for a Core 2 Duo system. Does it have an extra 4-pin CPU power connector? It's probably fine, worst case it might limit your overclocking ability a bit. Your existing ATX case should be fine.

The stock sink should probably be ok into the high 2.xGhz range. If you want something better/quieter than the stock sink, Serp probably knows which models will fit that board without issues.

 

[itakey]

I am not sure if it has an extra 4-pin cpu power connector or not. Do you mean, an extra standard plug, like one that goes into a HD? If so, yes, there are tons extra, I am not using as many as it has.

If this power supply won't cut it, is there one that you recommend that will definitely work well, but won't break the bank? Just thinking ahead since I am almost considering upgrading my machine, and then maybe building a complete new system out of the same hardware.

Any power supply info will be helpful.

SERP-If you can suggest an upgrade heat sink to fit the E2180 that will also be helpful incase I go that route.

THANKS AGAIN! YOU GUYS ROCK!