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Seeking upgrade advice

C

CactusJak

Junior Member
Like so many others, I'm coming to you all for advice. I've done a bunch of research and now my head is swimming. It's time to ask the experts!

My primary use is gaming, and I'm not into case mods, LEDs, glowing cables, etc. I don't bring my computer to LAN parties or anything like that. Mostly, I just sit in my cave and play games.

I'm only buying the parts I need for now. I'm holding off on getting a new hard drive and case (if I can help it). I will need to buy a new power supply, at least 480w. Price isn't much of an issue, but I'm trying to control myself. And I like getting a big bang for my buck.


Here's my list of parts, along with some questions:
(links and descriptions borrowed from NewEgg.com)

Motherboard
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

I'm totally new to overclocking but I would like to try, and from what I've read this is a great board to use. DFI makes alot of different boards and I'm wondering if there's some specific benefit to getting a different board.


CPU
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail

The 3200+ is literally $10 more, but is it as good of an OCer CPU as the 3000+? If they both OC well I could just as well buy the 3200+. The 3500+ is $60 more than the 3000+, but I would be willing to get that if it can be OC'd as well as the 3000 or 3200. I need advice on which one to start with.


CPU HS/Fan
ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink - Retail

This sounds like a good HS/Fan combo. Is it overkill? Or not enough for an OC'd 3x00+?


Memory
OCZ Gold Edition 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail

Tons of memory choices. Do I need to pay close attention to the latency of the memory if I'm looking to OC?


Video Card
XFX PVT70GUDF7 Geforce 7800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

The XFX is a great price and comes with Call of Duty 2, which adds even more value to it. I hear alot of people say eVGA is better because of the lifetime warranty, but XFX's website says they have a lifetime warranty too. Any opinions?



I'd be very interested in hearing opinions of my selections, as well as alternate suggestions. Any help is appreciated. Many thanks!
 
Sounds pretty good. I just built a very similar rig.

I went with a 4xx Watt Fortron power supply... you probably couldn't go wrong with an Antec, though. I'm not up to snuff with power supplies, someone else will have to comment.

The DFI mobo is among the very best. Very, very easy to overclock once you understand the settings.

I've heard both of those CPU's are good overclockers. I used a 3000 Venice in mine, and I did a one shot overclock from 1.8ghz to 2.4ghz since it sounds like this is a very stable speed. I changed my settings ONCE and left it. Took me what... 1 minute to set the settings and then ran prime95 for a bit in Windows. Stable as a rock.

I've heard the stock heatsink for these CPU's are pretty decent for these overclocks. Personally, I went with a Thermalright XP-90. I think it was like $25.00. Supposed to be best in it's class. Zalman should be good as well.

OCZ Ram is supposed to be great. Personally, I went with Patriot. I'm running 2x1GB in Dual Channel with stock timings of 2-3-2-5. Runs great. By the way, incase you aren't aware, stick your RAM in the same colored slots to run dual channel. I think mine are in the orange slots. The manual doesn't say anything about this, lol.

I'll supply some overclocking tips, but remember this is based on the 3000 Venice. I am not sure what multiplier and stuff the 3200 uses.

For the 3000, the stock CPU multiplier is 9. The FSB (might be named something else... I forget) freq should be stock 200mhz. Increasing this to 267mhz will yield: 9x267 = 2403ghz.

Now, your HTT freq stock is 5x200mhz = 1000mhz. When you raise the FSB to 267, it becomes 5x267 = 1335mhz. This should be kept around 1000mhz, so change the HTT multiplier down to 4. 4x267=1068.

Now, your RAM. In your BIOS, your RAM divider will be stock 1:1. Meaning, your ram will run at the same frequency as your FSB freq (stock of 200mhz). Since we upped the FSB freq to 267mhz, we need to bring the RAM back down. This is done with the memory dividers. You will see the dividers listed as 1/1, 5/6, 3/4, etc...

These are used like this: Take your CPU multiplier and divide by the memory divider, round this number up to the next whole number.. then take that final answer and divide it INTO your CPU speed.

Example. We want our RAM to run at 200mhz:

9 / (3/4) = 12. We have a whole number, so we don't have to round up. 2403 / 12 = 200.25 mhz. That .25 won't hurt anything.

That's about it! All we did was change the FSB freq to 267mhz, the HTT freq to 4, the RAM divider to 3/4, and we're done. 2.4ghz and rockin!

Hope that helps.
 
excellent... *see sig* 😀
drop zalman and just go w/ XP90...
lower latency is good but not that crucial on our cpus since we have the memory controller integreted on the cpu...
but if u r going to do some heavy gaming, i'd recommand gettting 2 x 1gb sticks of ram..
 
You'll eventually want 2GB, so a single 1GB stick would be better. For a nice PSU, unless you're getting a full tower (short ATX cable), the S12-600 (review) is truly an awesome choice. It's quiet and efficient, so its really great if your 'cave' houses your bed and your pc in the same room.
 
Thanks for the replies! That's great info. And thanks for the quick tutorial, forumpass. It sounds like it's fairly easy to OC these components.

Now I'm leaning toward getting everything I need to build a new system since all I have to do is add a case and hard drive and I'm there.

I'm sticking with the DFI Ultra-D. Sounds like a good board at a good price. I still haven't decided between the 3000+ and the 3200+. I'll look through the CPU forums and try to figure that out later tonight. And I'm sticking with the XFX 7800 GT unless someone knows of a reason not to. I think I'll switch to the Thermalright XP-90.

Memory is still confusing to me. I didn't realize that I'd be slowing down the memory. Am I reading that right? If so, can I ignore the Cas latency and timing ratings on the memory? I could save a few bucks by going with some Crucial memory.

I think I'm settled on the FSP 500W PS too, but I'm still looking at different power supplies.

I'm also looking at a Seagate 160GB SATA hard drive.

All that's left is the case, which I haven't narrowed down yet.

If anyone has any more suggstions/opinions, I'd love to hear 'em.
 
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