Opinion on parts

I'm looking to upgrade my poor old Duron 800 to an Athlon 2600 and was looking for opinions on what motherboard and DDR ram I should get. I don't know shit about DDR so help here would be great. I have a few ideas on what type of board I want but I'm open to suggestions. Thanks.

go for DDR RAM that matches the FSB of the CPU in question. for memory the 2600+ runs on a 166 Mhz (333 Mhz DDR) so PC2700 would be best there. there is little to no point on having memory that runs on a higher frequency ie. in this case PC3200. the speed increase is barely noticeable on most motherboards and in worst case scenarios, boards based one of VIA's chipset (KT400 i think) ran SLOWER with DDR400 than DDR333!!
as for the motherboard. most ppl seem to favor boards based on nVdia's Nforce2 chipset these days, for it's high performance and good stability. 2 boards based on this are EPox's 8RDA+ and ASUS's A78NX-X. check'em both out at http://www.asus.com.tw and http://www.epox.com

HTH

There's also a couple lower end nForce2 boards, for those on a budget. It all depends on what you want in terms of features.

Another thing to remember with the nForce2 boards is that the RAM is Dual Channel, so 2 sticks of RAM will improve system performance compared to 1.

generally epox' boards are a good choice,

the 8rga+ is nforce 2 with dual vga out (gf4mx440)

or there's the 8K9A (err... i think) which is an nforce board with no video (presuming you already have a decent card)

i personally use an 8K3A (kt333) with my 2600+ and it runs find - in fact for the hardware setup I use I bench higher than I supposedly should (gf3, 2600+, 512mb ram @ 333 == 9100ish 3dm2001); but you wont find one of these boards these days (besides, a bios update is needed b4 the cpu will work at 333, and nforce should be a far better option, especially in terms of upgradability)

Epox are good for sure and I was seriously looking at the 8RDA+. If I got the onboard GeForce I could leave the MX440 I already have with the old board and CPU and almost have a whole second box.
Thanks for the info on the DDR Hamz and Beefy, could save me some cash. Looks like I'll be leaving the upgrade till after the wedding just to be safe money-wise.

ah 8RDA+, not 8K9A lol...

damn lack of sleep.

I recently purchaced a new mobo for $140 GA-7n400-L1 this is an excelent board for those on a tight budget Nforce 2, 400mhz FSB dual chanell DDR yadda yadda

if you are willing to spend an extra $40 or so i recomend the the PRO version of this board which has Raid SATA dual BIOS and a few other extra's this is the board that i would recomend.

also i suggest forgetting the whole idea of buying a XP 2600 and buy a XP 2500 reason being the XP2500 has 512 k of L2 cache in respect to the 2600's 256 k. this allows the 2500 to out perform the 2600 sufficiantly, the 2500 benchmarks about as good as a 2700.

also the 2500 runs on the barton core which is less power hungry than the tbread by about 12 watts i think it is not that this makes much difference when it comes time to chose a PSU but it does allow the processor to run substantially cooler

couple all this with 512 Mb of PC 2700 DDR (2 X 256Mb DIMMS as to dual channel)and a reasonable Video card and you will find that your system to be Quite fast.

I'm getting computer advice from Munch? What is the world comming to? :o Guess something at TAFE is actually sinking in to that ugly head of yours. :)

Anyway, the board sounds alright but the pro wouldn't be worth it unless I shelled out for a SATA drive or at least an adapter. Or does it have normal IDE ports and SATA on the RAID ports? That could be usefull in the future.

The GA-7n400-PRO actually has SATA and IDE i know that it has IDE RAID and i think that it also may have SATA raid as well dont quote me on that but you can check it out on Gigabyte's site if you are really that keen :wink:

i'd actually suggest buying ram rated a little better than what you need... just to allow a little breathing space... and overclockability if you see fit...

that said, if u want to OC don't buy a GA (pronunciation - gay) board ;)

sif GA boards are gay, they are just as good as other major branded boards, not that your precious epox has the best long standing reputation either, they have only pulled their finger out of their butts over the last 2 or 3 years. before then they were defenitly did NOT create boards that were even remotely any good for OC'ing

lol EPoX have been decent since the i440BX days, going back any further than then... does it really matter?

lol EPoX have been decent since the i440BX days, going back any further than then... does it really matter?


back then it did

Enough with the bitching. Who cares about the old Epox boards, i'm not gunna buy one of them am I.
I dread to think what would happen if I asked which OS I should install on the spare rig I plan to build with the leftovers.

NO REPLIES ABOUT OS WANTED!

barahahah.. must restrain from suggesting an os.....

go on, u know u want to 8)

DFI LANPARTY NFII Ultra $295

http://www.gamevision.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=462

Very nice board. also all the parts on it. ie pci agp and that glow under UV lights :D

Abit NF7-S v2.0 $219 i think...
http://www.gamevision.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=21_44&products_id=189

Asus ASN8X Deluxe $220
http://acetechcomputers.com.au/osCommerce/product_info.php?cPath=31_32&products_id=99&osCsid=0b1e31dbb408e565e08c967ac31921ac


My favourite 3 boards! all nice options

I have an Asus A7N8X-X.... generally a nice board. If you want my opinion I'd say go for one of these, or the deluxe version of the board I have.... that way you get your SATA and RAID.

I've always been a fan of asus though generally. So its up to yourself... I recommend checking it out though... I think the price on my board last time I checked was around the $120 mark. Its good for later upgrades too, it can take up to 3200 from what I know, and use 400 fsb properly.

I'm now looking at getting these parts from Scorptec early in the new year.

XP 2500+ BOX (BARTON CORE) 333MHZ FSB $147.00
Gigabyte GA-7N400L FSB400, DDR400, AC97, LAN $120.00
2 x Kingston 256mb DDR PC-2700 333mhz CAS-2.5 $150.00

TOTAL $417.00

All are on special at the moment. I curse/thank god for credit cards, evil tempting things that they are. :evil:

why not just get one stick of 512 kingston memory???? is it cheaper the way your doing it or something???

prolly so he can utilise teh dual-channel-ness

look for reviews on mobos to figure out which one you want..
depends what u wanna do?

u want overclocking ability?
u want features?
u want a stable board?
cheap?

not much difference between a 2500+ and 2600+ besides the fact its what 10mhz faster? and is dearer.

dual channel ram is ur best bet. but then again it depends if ur overclocking or not.

if your overclocking. i suggest corsair twinx wither 2x 256mb sticks. 333mhz or 400mhz would do. or 2x 512. also consider OCZ ram

if your not overclocking still go dual channel but change brand to like kingston or something. they are a good brand but cheaper. these also oc fairly well.

check out some nforce2 mobos here
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1420

the gigabyte one munch mentioned isnt a crash hot overclocker. so if ur overclocking forget that board. the 8RDA+ is great in that area.

theres some info for ya :)

I'm not really looking for help anymore, just keeping people up to date with my plans. I've already figured out what I'm getting, based mainly on price without getting total crap. Don't really care about overclocking so the board isn't really an issue, long as it's decent.
Thanks all for your advice, usefull or otherwise.

So what is everything you have decided on?

I ordered my radeon 9800 XT and mobo the other day :D

i got a new machine 18months ago and it still kicks the shit of of most ppls NOW.

So what is everything you have decided on?

I already told you that in the post before last titled "Update". Baka!
Even though they are closed till the 7th Jan, I'm hoping they'll still give me the "on special for xmas" prices which are still on their site, when they re-open. Appearently I get a free optical mouse. Doesn't say what kind, but free is always good.

erm sorry to let ya know but that was only a limeted offer and they only had like 4 of them from what i herd...... so very limeted

no optical mouse for you hehehe sucker :twisted:

I think I'll live. I should be in Melbourne when they re-open so I'll just pay 'em a visit and save the postage.

OK, after the safe return of my car I have re-ordered the parts I was getting before (except I'm getting PC-3200 DDR instead of PC-2700 for $10 extra) and hopefully should be up and running in time for Morb. :D
Then after Morb i'll be looking at building a second box with the old parts. I think all i need is a mouse, keyboard and video card. and maybe another CD-ROM.

I've got a GF2MX somewhere if you're interested.

I might be, but I'll probably wait till after morb and just put a post in the classifieds when i work out which bits i need.
Thanks all for your help and advice. 8)

i got a 52x Lite-On cdrom drive here which i have only had a few months and because it was sittin in my linux box, it had barely been used, i can also help out with an old atx keyboard. got a couple laying around, gimme a yell in MSN if ur interested in either.

thanks hamz.