Suggesstions/Comments on my proposed new system?

[Bagheera786]

Hey all, I was wondering if I could get some suggestions on the system that I'm thinking about building:

MSI KT4 Ultra mobo
Athlon XP 1600+???
SLK800 ($48) or AX-7 (~$22) /w 80mm fan
256 PC2700 DDR RAM (Is Samsung RAM a good brand, on par with Crucial/Mushkin/Kingston/Corsair?)
Albatron GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB

Specifically, I was wondering if I could get the 1600+ to run @ 166 FSB, and secondly if I would/could get even greater performance by placing the FSB@166Mhz, and then unlocking the 1600+ and increasing the multiplier. Is this feasible? Lastly, given current 1700+ and even 1800+ prices, I'd have to overclock the 1600+ to at least 1900+ to justify the additional price of the SLK800 (in order to be saving money); any ideas on how likely this is?

Thanks all

 

[Hobbes28]

Invest in a good power supply (+3.3v and +5v lines = 200w or better) and a case with good cooling. Cheap power supply and bad cooling = headaches.

Later...

 

[BigJ]

If you really want PC2700 RAM, I would go with the Corsair PC2700 CAS2 Ram from Googlegear.com for 155$ (512MB Stick)
Make sure that the KT4 manually allows for PCI divider adjustments. The SLK800 is a nice heatsink, but make sure you get a fan that has a high CFM rating, or that purty cooler is going to go waste. If you're processor is an AGOIA Y, there is a great chance you should get it to at least 2100+ speeds. I have mine past 2200+ speeds at 1834mhz. Also, running a processor at 166mhz FSB at the same speed as a processor running at 133mhz will show a hefty performance gain.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

I prefer Samsung memory in most cases, but Geil does have 256MB ddr2700 for $78, good brand, with nice latency. You can get the same Cosair that BigJ was talking about at newegg.com for $153 w/free shipping. Nice choice on the video card. what kind of hdd are you planning to run, the 80GB WD Special Editions(8MB cache) are on sale at newegg for $103 w/free shipping. Very FAST drives, most of them are pretty quiet too. If you plan on upgrading your DDR memory keep this in mind, 1 big dimm is ALWAYS faster (10-20%) than 2 or more smaller ones because of the increase in latency, so if you plan on upgrading to 512MB, it would probably be cheaper in the long run to do it now. I sometimes find things cheaper at googlegear, but after the cost of shipping, newegg is usually cheaper. For me anyway, must be because I live in Texas.

 

[Bagheera786]

Right now I'm running a COMP USA 400W power supply (shameful, i know)...hopefully I can pawn it off on my sister (along with the rest of my old parts). I'll probably keep my current 10GB hdd, since there's nothing wrong with it...though it is slow - $$ is limited. I've been debating fans - I don't want to go much above 30dba, but I want as many cfms as possible. Directron is advertising a fan that pushes 39 CFMs at 26 dba - is this possible, or is this probably a misprint or exaggeration?

I'd really like to have 512mb RAM, but I'm not sure I can justify the expense currently.
I guess I'll wait to see what anandtech has to say about the KT4 Ultra - the Ultra ARU received a positive review.

 

[zodder]

I've found there to be absolutely nothing wrong with CompUSA's PSUs. I have a 250W psu powering my ECS K75SA mobo (they are notorious for being picky when it comes to power supplies) with an XP 1800+. I've been able to do some pretty decent overclocking with it, too. A lot of "elite" PSUs can't even claim to do that. Mind you, I do have an Antec PP-403X (400W) PSU powering my main rig, though.

 

[Bagheera786]

Well that's good to hear - I'll just keep this PSU then.

I seem to see around the web (like amd3d.com for example) that the MSI KT4 is only able to overclock to 150MHz FSB. Yet I really want the 5.1 sound to go with my Klipsch5.1 Promedia speakers, and their sound solution seems to be the best (upgraded from the KT3). High quality onboard sound solutions intrigue me (esp. since MSI packages a 5.1 DVD player with their mobo) because the SB Live!5.1 that I have now seems to cause all of my freezing/crashing problems - I can't wait to get rid of it. The integrated USB2.0, Firewire, and potential for AGP 8x upgradability (I won't have the time or money to do this kind of system overhaul for several years, so I'm trying to make sure I've got something that will last and allow for some minor upgrades in the future) is also appealing.

Wondering what y'all thought about the potential tradeoff between the overclockability and the feature set (after all, I can always unlock the processor and overclock with the multiplier).

later,
Bagheera

 

[Athlonstein]

I'm using this fan, on top of an AX-7, to cool my XP1600+ @ 1743Mhz (8K5A2+ FSB@166). Rated @ 39 dba, but it's not bad at all in my SX1035b.

Mechatronics 53CFM 80mm fan

Great feature if you get from Coolerguys, it comes wired with the Molex and separate 3 pin connector for RPM.