Suggestions for a system upgrade: 2.6GHz here I come!

[pkw111]

I have decided that it's retarded to keep running with a fancy vid card and be held back so much by my 2600+ Barton. With BF2, I am terribly cpu-limited, and that is about to change

(I already have an X800xl AGP)
I am getting a new cpu, motherboard, and a bit more ram...

Plan so far:

- AMD64 3500+ (Venice, 939) (Was possibly going to go for 3200+, but decided 50$ is worth it)

- THERMALRIGHT XP-90 Multiple Heatpipes Cpu Heatsink - Retail

- Nforce3 Ultra AGP mobo. I have narrowed it down to two potential picks:

EPoX EP-9NDA3J Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail (72$)

MSI K8N Neo2-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail (85$)

- A thrid stick of 512 RAM, bringing total to 1.5 GB (Kingston ValueRAM)

I want to overclock the CPU moderately (maybe from 2.2 up to 2.5-2.6 GHz?), and this is where things get tricky. I am leaning towards the Epox mobo because of some issues I have read about on ocforums.com. The MSI board slows down when you add more than two sticks of RAM I believe, and it also may have trouble fitting the heatsink. People have done it, but it involves grinding and/or bending *shudder*. The Epox board is not a premium one for extreme overclocking, but since I have cheap RAM, I believe I will be OK. People seemed to do fairly well with it from the OCforums stuff I have read.

Anandtech reccomended the CPU cooler: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2548&p=1 (this is a great article about overclocking by anandtech)

Thoughts? Really the MB is the biggest wildcard here.

Also, if you guys know of a better price for the XP-90 heatsink, that would be awesome. I suspect newegg is jacking that price up. I cant seem to find a good fan for this heat sink too. A panaflo 90mm was reccomended, but I can't seem to locate it.

Thanks to the gurus!

 

[Gamingphreek]

XP-90

As for the CPU, you shouldn't go higher than a 3200+. Any higher and you might as well break for an X2. A 3200+ will achieve, most of the time/on average, the same max OC that any other SC chip will.

I would take the MSI board, however, you are going to have all this equipment and then no PCI-E, no SATA II (etc...). I would seriously consider selling the XL and getting a nice NF4 board and a 7800GT (or a PCI-E version of the XL). If you dont want to do that, then the MSI board will do just fine.

As for the memory. WHile it will probably be unnoticable, and it is probably going to remain from 2-6% with the memory banks loaded, you will be forced to run with a 2T command rate. Might want to simply sell and get 2x 1Gig sticks or just hold out on 1Gig for a while.

Panaflos are really only good for 80mm fans. The 92mm and the 120mm are not even remotely as good as the 80's. I would recommend Yate Loon, or Nexus. Even if you aren't looking for a silent fan, silentpcreview.com always has good recommendations.

-Kevin

 

[peleejosh]

Get an opteron 146 instead of the 3500+, it will overclock better and is a better chip

 

[DrMrLordX]

peleejosh is right.

 

[n7]

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum.

Best AGP s939 OCing mobo out there.

 

[Zap]

Heatsink is a good choice.

Keep your video card unless you want to shell out $300+ for something better.

RAM... don't get the third stick if you've already got two 512MB. Just run the pair in dual channel mode and be happy. If you must upgrade, either get a pair of 1GB and sell your two 512MB, or get two more 512MB. With more than 2 modules you'll be running 2T command rate. If you don't have RAM in pairs, no dual channel. Getting a third stick will lose both.

Motherboard... you're limited by keeping your video card, however it is still a decent card. Though it isn't the perfect board, consider the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2. It has both PCIe and AGP (true slots, not just fake ones off the PCI bus).

 

[GuitarDaddy]

3 sticks of ram is not a good idea, you will lose dual channel and have a 2T command rate, either stick with what you've got or go 2x1024.

I too recommend unloading the AGP card and going nforce4, especially if your planning on overclocking. The NF4 boards have more features and overclock much better.

 

[Matt2]

Motherbaord in sig.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Matt2
Motherbaord in sig

is PCI-E.

 

[pkw111]

Thanks! I will be going for the 3200+ instead of the 3500+

As for a total system upgrade, I am trying to hold off for right now in the interest of being frugal. I already have 300GB of HD space that wouldn't see an improvement when going to SATA II ( they are early generation SATA drives from Seagate).

As for the PCI-E, I was also considering a an Uli ASRock 939 Hybrid board. Its only 68$, and supports AGP AND PCIE.
Thanks for the HS link.

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
As for the memory. WHile it will probably be unnoticable, and it is probably going to remain from 2-6% with the memory banks loaded, you will be forced to run with a 2T command rate. Might want to simply sell and get 2x 1Gig sticks or just hold out on 1Gig for a while.

A little confused here. Are you saying I will see a 2-6% OVERALL performance drop by adding the third stick?


Also, I saw some reviews of the nexus 92mm fan, and it seemed to imply that the weaker flow rate would not be quite sufficient.

 

[Gamingphreek]

A little confused here. Are you saying I will see a 2-6% OVERALL performance drop by adding the third stick?

Yes, probably more since the channels are not balanced. You will have 1gig on one channel and 512mb on the 2nd channel, therefore, you also wont run in dual channel. As for the 2T command rate that is ~2-6% drop in performance (more times than not it is <2%.

Also, I saw some reviews of the nexus 92mm fan, and it seemed to imply that the weaker flow rate would not be quite sufficient.

Nonsense. You could passively cool that processor. Additionally, Nexus are the best quiet fans out there. They are actually Yate Loons with a resistor to slow it down even more. SIlentPCReview swears by them. Especially with one of those HS's i recommended the Nexus will be just fine.

-Kevin