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rate my budget rig & help me out.

meltdown75

meltdown75

Lifer
Hi there. I am new here. I originally posted this on the AMD Forums but no one was replying. I want to know what the status quo opinion is on this budget system I put together. Any help would be great! 😀 and it went a little somethin like this:

Hello all

I didn't have much money to upgrade from my Duron 900 which is on an ECS mobo (K7V7A i believe? not 100% sure) but this is what i ended up buying.

Asus A7N8X (plain, no -X or -E etc) $76 us (ebay)
Athlon XP 2700+ thoroughbred 333fsb $77 us (ebay)
ATI Radeon 9600 pro 256mb $109 us (ebay)
512mb Ultra pc3200 400mhz $120 us (tigerdirect)
Coolmax CX-400B PS (400w) ~$45 us (tigerdirect)
Spire WhisperRock IV HSF ~$20 us (tigerdirect)

I'm still waiting on the video card and the CPU. In their place is my old stuff, the Duron 900 (the a7n8x thankfully supported older ships via a small jumper change on the mobo) and my ole Geforce 2 mx-440.

Also in the case is:

Audigy Gamer sound card
Western Digital 60GB 7200rpm HD

I am running XP pro SP2 also.

Anyhoo, now on to my questions. I am pretty new to most of this so forgive me if I sound like a newb.

The CPU's max fsb is 333, right? So is it bad that I bought 400mhz ram? What are the best BIOS settings for this setup? Is this crappy ram or has anyone heard anything good/bad or otherwise about it?

I was severely restricted with what I could spend, or I would have chosen a slightly better video card and perhaps some name-brand ram. Overall though all I want is a system that can run the new games such as Doom 3 and HL2 decently at regular resolutions (1074x768) without overclocking. I don't think I want to get too much into that overclocking business.

With those goals in mind... how'd I make out?
 
Sweet. I updated the BIOS to the 1010b file so they are right up to par. I don't know much right now but this mobo seems to be very nice.

So when you say I can have 400 fsb, what do you mean. Like, from the ram right? I bet I need to read a newbie FAQ. I have read a lot of forums but I still feel like a low level tard talkin here.
 
Yeah you should be able to run your 3200 if your BIOS is updated..

No doubt somebody smarter than me will also help you out.

-green
 
Hi meltdown75, your system specs look pretty nice for a budget build 🙂

My own system is similar - I also use the 2700+ XP processor but I use Corsair XMS RAM and a 9700 Pro vid card... but that wasn't exactly budget stuff when I got it 😉

The max FSB is 333 for the proc (unless you overclock), but what you can do is set the BIOS to run the FSB at 333 and you may be able to lower the latency timings on your RAM to CAS 2.5 or lower (depending on what RAM you're using) because it's running below rated speeds. You really want to run synchronous FSB for CPU/mem on nForce 2 boards because that gives best performance.

Hope that helps.

-ariafrost
 
Just a quick question for anyone

I received the new Athlon XP 2700 chip in the mail, and it works great. I have a couple questions about the BIOS settings.

I have the Frequency setting at 166 and the multiplier at 13 [2.158ghz, proc rated at 2.17]. This seems to be running fine and the temp stays at or around 40C (usually slightly lower, and slightly higher after I play a game).

How should the ram be set? Right now at the post screen it says "200mhz, single channel mode". I only have the 1 512 stick but I assume you can only effectively run it at 400mhz if DDR is enabled right? Thanks again all. Lovin the forum.
 
Originally posted by: meltdown75
Just a quick question for anyone

I received the new Athlon XP 2700 chip in the mail, and it works great. I have a couple questions about the BIOS settings.

I have the Frequency setting at 166 and the multiplier at 13 [2.158ghz, proc rated at 2.17]. This seems to be running fine and the temp stays at or around 40C (usually slightly lower, and slightly higher after I play a game).
Looks fine

How should the ram be set? Right now at the post screen it says "200mhz, single channel mode". I only have the 1 512 stick but I assume you can only effectively run it at 400mhz if DDR is enabled right? Thanks again all. Lovin the forum.
Set it manually to 166 in BIOS. For AMD XP systems you want the cpu & ram running insynch (at the same speed) for best performance. You can't "enable" DDR, it automatically does that. That's what kind of ram it is.
Click to expand...


Fern
 
wow, thanks. that is the most kickass repsonse i have ever had in this forum.

When I did what you said, synced the ram and used "aggressive"... I experienced a big performance boost and noticed it said "performance ddr timing enabled" at post. Thanks
 
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