Upgrade A7N8X/Athlon XP 2700+?

[Bacinator]

Heya all... Looking for some opinions/suggestions for potential upgrades for my system. Everything runs pretty well except for EQ2 (ATi driver issue) and Battlefield 2 (maxes out CPU utilization on med/low settings).

My current setup is:
Athlon XP 2700+ (333) running at 2.21ghz
Asus a7n8x deluxe
2gb of PC 3200 (2 x 512, 1 x 1gb) running at 170mhz (x2)
Asus ATi 9800 pro 256 agp8x

On the asus site, it says a7n8x base models after 1.2 can support 400 fsb, and I've verified on the physical board that I have a 1.2, but I've not been able to overclock my memory, and some PC3500 I got wouldn't work over the 170mhz that the other memory was running at, with the old memory removed. May have been a processor limitation though?

So I think the best route to go for a simple upgrade, would be to get a 3200+ barton, but those run stock at 2.2ghz (which I'm running my 2700 at), and I heard a while back that they don't overclock that well. I don't want to build a new system quite yet, and wonder how much 'expansion' capability is left in my setup. Any tips/suggestions/opinions are appreciated.

 

[FearoftheNight]

I think you've basically reached the limit for your platform.

 

[selfbuilt]

Agreed, you have your system pretty well optimized - going to a barton won't help you much. I have the rev2.0 version of that board in my daughter's PC, and even it is fussy with mem (currently at 175mhz with generic PC400). Next step really should be an A64.

 

[Bacinator]

That's what I've been thinking, but I stopped paying attention when A64 came out, because I knew it would involve a new mobo, and thus all new components. Such is life though, eh?

Thanks for the input. And if anyone else has tips/suggestions, I'm still all ears.