Upgrade Quandry.....

[Arcanedeath]

I'm feeling the need to upgrade again and I have a budget of at most $500, although I'd like to keep it under $400, See my Sig for my current system, all I want to replace is the Memory, Cpu, and Motherboard, I'm going to keep the rest of my stuff for the moment, I was thinking go w/ an AMD 2500+, 2x 512mb Buffalo PC3200 (winbond) DDR dimms, and either a Biostar M7NCD PRO or possibly an Epox 8RDA+ if I know the Epox can officaly support 200mhz FSB. Was thinking a 2.4C, same memory, and no idea on the motherboard if I went intel, So give me some suggestions people and your prefrences, the system will be overclocked and I already have a spare Sk6+ w/ 80mm 50.2 CFM fan on the shelf, if I went intel, I'd need a heatsink aswell, I know the amd is gonna be cheaper but if you guys think I could overclock the intel enough to out perform the amd w/ the stuff I've listed I'd consider going that route, so plz advise...

 

[Arcanedeath]

Come on guys no one has any suggestions? How bout a bit of help here

 

[Shakamaka]

I just upgraded my comptuer to Epox 8RDA+, 2500+, and 512 mb 2700 Corsair ram (from a 1600+). Computer is noticeably faster. My friend wanted to put down more, especially since he watned to do video editing. He went with 2.4C, some Asus Springdale Mobo, 1gig of corsair 3500 ram. Personally, i like my system better especially since it can be easily overclocked to 3000+ i got the 2500+ to 2ghz with stock but I'm going to wait until i get new hsf to push it further. I tried overclocking the p4 2.4C but the system hung at 2600mhz (and he has 3 case fans - I have 2).... i had to reset CMOS just for it to work. The temps were also quite high for a P4 (retail hsf) ~49 celcius. My temps for the 2500+ are about the same, also with retail HSF. Unless your going to overclock, i'd save yourself $150 and get the 2500+. But then again, his was the first Pentium system I put together, so I may have done something wrong in regards to overclocking.

EDIT: From what I've read, P4 2.4C are supposed to overlcock to AT LEAST 3ghz with retail HSF. (Most people can get it between 3.3 - 3.5ghz).

 

[PrinceXizor]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
I'm feeling the need to upgrade again and I have a budget of at most $500, although I'd like to keep it under $400, See my Sig for my current system, all I want to replace is the Memory, Cpu, and Motherboard, I'm going to keep the rest of my stuff for the moment, I was thinking go w/ an AMD 2500+, 2x 512mb Buffalo PC3200 (winbond) DDR dimms, and either a Biostar M7NCD PRO or possibly an Epox 8RDA+ if I know the Epox can officaly support 200mhz FSB. Was thinking a 2.4C, same memory, and no idea on the motherboard if I went intel, So give me some suggestions people and your prefrences, the system will be overclocked and I already have a spare Sk6+ w/ 80mm 50.2 CFM fan on the shelf, if I went intel, I'd need a heatsink aswell, I know the amd is gonna be cheaper but if you guys think I could overclock the intel enough to out perform the amd w/ the stuff I've listed I'd consider going that route, so plz advise...

Officially? No. Official FSB is 333Mhz. I do know that EpoX boards overclock well, and the 8RDA+ was no exception. As far as official support, that's on the 8RDA3+.

EpoX 8RDA+ from Newegg ~ $83 shipped ($119 for 8RDA3+)
OEM AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton) from CompuHQ ~ $77 shipped
2 Separate (not packaged together) Kingston HyperX 512MB PC3200 (2-3-2-6) from googlegear ~ $210 shipped

Total: $370 Shipped ($396 with 8RDA3+)

P-X

Edit: The P4-2.4C's are overclocking beasts. If that is your schtick, by all means, get one. Plus the new cheaper Intel chipsets can overclock the FSB to 1000Mhz on a fairly regular basis too. The Intel upgrade will be more pricey, but you'll get more OC for your money and more built-in features in the Intel southbridge.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Thanks for the advise guys, so far I'm kinda leaning to the amd setup just cause it's cheaper and not sure if I could come in under my 500 dollar limit if I went intel, FYI the ram costs 172 from newegg as of 7/16 so that leaves a max of 328 for CPU, HSF, and Motherboard.... keep the comments comming

 

[Ionizer86]

Here's what I know:

A friend got a P4 2.4C setup, and remarked about how fast it was: HT technology, big bus etc. But he couldn't overclock it to 3.0 because whenever he did, he'd get BSOD's a lot, even though he's on XP. He couldn't find out what's wrong and backed down the clock.

Few days later, his dad picked up an XP2400+ at a very nice price. He said both systems are about as fast.

Others have remarked that at daily usage the 2500+ barton feels a bit faster than the 2400+ because the extra cache may alleviate some routine "pauses."

If you consider that the 2400+ is about as fast as the P4 2.4c, then tie into the fact that the 2500+ feels faster than the 2400+, then the 2500+ should be a good setup.

I'd get a 8rda+, 2500+, and then find a hot deal on ram. PC3200 or PC3500 if you plan on overclocking the bus, and PC2700 if cheap and if you're not overclocking.

 

[Macro2]

I think you've got your answer. 2500+ PC3200 ram and an epox.
You could even g with the single channel soltek nforce2 board which i've seen O'clocked to 200 fsb.