Ok

[bigdawgfoxx]

oh and im guessing nForce 2 is the only way to go?

[lynx]

Or try this board from Xfx. Many features are the same as the Asus board, but generally a good bit cheaper. In UK, £52.46 compared to £89.19 for the Asus board, but doesn't have SATA or Firewire.

[bigdawgfoxx]

What is the difference between the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Asus A7N8X? Is it just more onboard stuff, such as RAID? Also is one more overclockable then the other, or are they both an overclockers dream?







500th Post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[clocker]

You are asking for a good combination of chip and board which you claim that you want to OC.
And you want good memory to go with it.

And you want to do it cheap.

I'd like a Ferrari Enzo for no money down and easy monthly payments.

We both have about the same chance.

[bigdawgfoxx]

Ok I want a 2500XP 90 bux. Now I need a mobo...doesnt have to be asus...just something i can overclock. And ram....i would say 300 is my max for those 3 components. just find something cheap and good that u know is good..not U but neone

[clocker]

Is "neone" online right now?

Whatever board you decide on, be sure to check out some BIOS pictures before you buy.
As Kunal just discovered, many boards have limited access to the settings you need to OC.
As you plan on getting an emminently clockable chip, it hardly makes sense to hobble it right out of the box.

[lynx]

As you say, the nForce2 chipset seems the way to go.
The Deluxe board is only worth the money if you want all those extra features. If you've no use for them then don't buy them.

I've tried the Xfx board, I've seen but not tried the standard Asus offering. They've both got almost identical features right down to the look of the bios, so I doubt there will be much to choose between them. One consideration could be the cooling on the nForce2 chipset itself - I believe this can have quite an effect on stability when overclocking.

[Virtualbody1234]

I offered you a low budget choice for a mobo and you told me you weren't interested. The one I suggested was not for the Barton but was very cheap (I think it was $43 US). I supports the Athlon XP 2400+ and both DDR and SDRAM.

In any case if you want the Barton and want to overclock then go with what clocker suggested.

If you guys haven't figured it out yet, I don't like to let "wisdom flow" when people want to overclock. I know most people think that overclocking is a great thing but is the gain really that worth it? I will explain further...

You overclock and push your system to the point it runs at 50 to 60 C and everything works fine. A month later something crashes in Windows. Now is it a software bug or instabillity form overclocking? It's not so obvious now is it. Now I know a lot of you will say: "Well why not put a huge heatsink and fan or watercooling? Then the temps would be lowered". Well to that I say: "Why spend all that money? Just buy a higher speed rated CPU".

When not overclocking you get almost the same performance, it runs cool, if something crashes you know it's software related and your PC is quiet etc etc.

Is it worth putting your system stabillity in question just to gain a difference that can only be seen from benchmarking?

[clocker]

I can appreciate your perspective, VB, but I'm not sure that I totally agree.

A quick price check ( at Sharkey's website) just showed my 2600+ chip at $87 and a 3200+ at $439.

OCed ( and stable, with relatively low temps- you've seen the specs in my other thread) my chip will bench higher than the 3200.

For the extra $350 you can buy a LOT of cooling.

Admittedly, I am interested in this process mainly to see if I can, real world advantages are imperceptable. The fact is, I enjoy the tinkering and am (semi) aware of the risks and (fully) prepared to accept them.

It's certainly been a learning experience.

[Virtualbody1234]

Oh. I can appreciate the fact that you want to learn and tinker. And I have nothing against people experimenting but seems it has become standard that any noob comes along and wants to overclock. He doesn't want to learn all the intricasies (sp) about his PC. He just want more without a clue to the risks.

And about that 2600+ and 3200+ comparison. I just have to point out that you don't end up with the same thing. Maybe both are running at the same speed and settings but is it really intended to do that and are they equally stable?