Upgrade time again. Suggestions please?

[Dark54555]

time for an upgrade, yessir. thoughts? i've come up with a few possible combos:

Intel P4 3.06 and Asus P4C800
Athalon XP 3000+ and Epox 8RDA3+
Athalon XP 3000+ and Asus A7N8X Deluxe

Thoughts or other suggestions?

(don't care intel vs. amd, price differential is nominal between those processors)

 

[Vette73]

Best bang for your buck IMO is a Abit NF7-S and a Athlon XP 2500+

The 2500+ WILL do 3200+ easy, and the Abit NF7-S supports it through and through. Also the onboard soundstorm soundcard is great.

 

[Boonesmi]

i like your 2nd option

or as Marlin1975 said you can go with an xp2500+ and save some $$

 

[DahDee]

Text

 

[stevennoland]

DO NOT spend one penny on the P4 3.06 . That CPU runs on a 533MHz FSB. Get an 800MHz FSB proc and a new mobo to go along with it. If you have the jimmy, get 2.8 or higher and an 875P mobo with 2 sticks of PC3200 or faster (1 gig).

 

[Sunny129]

what brought you to the 3 possible solutions you suggested? this is not a criticism, i'm just curious.

if you go w/ choice one, do as steven said and get a P4C chip (800mhz fsb). the one you have picked out (the 3.06) is a P4B chip (533mhz fsb), even though it has hyperthreading. and don't worry about HT, as all P4C chips have it. other good 875 boards besides ASUS are the Abit IC7-G and max3. to save a few bucks without sacrificing any noticeable performance, get an 865 board such as the Abit IS7 or the ASUS P4P800.

if you go AMD, i highly suggest you do what marlin says b/c you can get the 2500+ for much cheaper than the 3000+, and it is one of AMD's best OCing chips right now. i built my sister's machine w/ this chip on an Abit NF7. the board is rock solid and quite capable of OCing.

 

[o1die]

I would go for the abit is7 and the 2.6c retail boxed. Many of these cpus will run at 3.0 by changing the cpu/ddram ratio to 5:4. You might also have to bump the cpu voltage to 1.55-1.6, but that won't hurt it or change temps much.

 

[Sunny129]

Originally posted by: o1die
I would go for the abit is7 and the 2.6c retail boxed. Many of these cpus will run at 3.0 by changing the cpu/ddram ratio to 5:4. You might also have to bump the cpu voltage to 1.55-1.6, but that won't hurt it or change temps much.

yeah, this is exactly what's in my box right now, minus good memory. i'm still saving up for that. anyways, i'm not even going to bother OCing my chip until i have new memory in a few weeks. but i'm sure even the most disappointing OC would be at least to 3GHz.

 

[virtuamike]

On 865/875 boards, don't be afraid to bump mem to 2.7V-2.8V. Seems like they're very picky when running in dual channel mode, they don't like running at stock voltage.

If you're going P4, these are optimal setups:

- 2.4C/Asus P4C800/OCZ EL PC4200 (goal is 280FSB 1:1)
- 2.6C/Abit IC7/OCZ EL PC4000 (goal is 260FSB 1:1)
- 2.4C/Abit IC7/OCZ Plat PC3500 (goal is 280FSB 5:4)

P4 setups are very picky on RAM. I see more oc setups being RAM hindered than CPU limited.

If you're going AMD and don't want to pay the premium for OCZ, GeIL is a very good budget pick to go with the NF2 platform. Seems like people are getting very good mem timings with GeIL/NF2. And yes, with AMD you definately want to run 1:1 and good timings.

 

[Sunny129]

also i might add, if you decide to build an AMD system, there is no need to spend extra $ on memory between PC3500 and PC4200. an AMD chip will never use all the bandwidth provided by these memories. all you need is some PC3200, but quality PC3200 nonetheless.