Author Topic: going to upgrade (Read 718 times)

Modas · « **on:** April 23, 2003, 12:44:09 PM »

Ok, well, gonna bite the bullet and upgrade. Saw Boxboy's post about dropping AMD prices

I built my machine originally, and it it all intel. I don't know much about AMD... But, this is the combo I'm thinking of after reseaching....

ABIT NF7-S motherboard
512 MB PC2700 333 ram

All the other components I'd keep from my existing machine. Although, I'd probably loose the sound card since the abit board supposedly has pretty good sound.

This is where I'm confused. Do I need to use 2 sticks of 256 MB on the Nforce motherboards or can I go with a single 512 stick?

Also, any particular brand of memory?

Thanks all...

Tarmac · « **Reply #1 on:** April 23, 2003, 12:52:27 PM »

You get standard performance with a single stick of memory. A 2nd stick allows you to use the dual memory controller feature on Nforce2 boards, giving a performance boost.

I have 2x 256mb sticks in my board.

San · « **Reply #2 on:** April 23, 2003, 08:38:54 PM »

The kingston hyper x series ram has been getting lots of good reviews lately. 85 bucks for 512mb PC3000 from Googlegear with free 2nd day shipping.

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 24, 2003, 01:34:28 AM »

If you go with that board try to find the revision 2.0 boards. They use a newer version of the nForce 2 chipset which can support the 400 MHz FSB Athlon XPs (3200+ and up) when they are released. This is the first nForce 2 based board where revision 2 series boards have hit the shelves. I took a look at a rev 2.0 one the other day and it looks pretty good. A review I read was very positive, with the REV 2.0 board achieving a 217 MHz FSB clock (433 MHz DDR equiv) on a 2500+ CPU. (That is the highest FSB speed I've ever seen on an Athlon CPU.)

I'm waiting for REV 2.0 Asus A7N8X Deluxes to become available as well.

Modas · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2003, 01:04:01 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by bloom25
If you go with that board try to find the revision 2.0 boards. They use a newer version of the nForce 2 chipset which can support the 400 MHz FSB Athlon XPs (3200+ and up) when they are released. This is the first nForce 2 based board where revision 2 series boards have hit the shelves. I took a look at a rev 2.0 one the other day and it looks pretty good. A review I read was very positive, with the REV 2.0 board achieving a 217 MHz FSB clock (433 MHz DDR equiv) on a 2500+ CPU. (That is the highest FSB speed I've ever seen on an Athlon CPU.)

I'm waiting for REV 2.0 Asus A7N8X Deluxes to become available as well.

Are the Rev 2 boards actually out?? I've been looking around on pricewatch and was unable to find one. Anyone know a shop selling Rev 2 boards??

thanks!!

Pfunk · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2003, 02:20:12 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Modas
Are the Rev 2 boards actually out?? I've been looking around on pricewatch and was unable to find one. Anyone know a shop selling Rev 2 boards??

thanks!!

Here you go

http://www.excaliberpc.com/product_info.php?cPath=156_222&products_id=866

Great company to deal with, check out the processor section as well this company allows you to order specific steppings. The Kingston HYPERX memory works very very well, if not better than the more expensive Corsair XMS. My suggestion is to get the Abit board along with 2x256 MB of at least PC3000 Hyper X, a good heatsink and fan combo preferably a thermaltake slk-800 heatsink with a 80mm fan, then get this xp1700+ processor for $72

http://www.excaliberpc.com/product_info.php?products_id=1926

This processor XP1700+ JIHUB DLT3C 0310 WPMW is an overclocking madman, take it out of the box and it will hit 2.2ghz ghz NO PROBLEM and at 1.6v on air cooling, it is very simple with the ABIT board and the TBred B core all your chip multipliers are unlocked, I have this chip running at 12x200FSB in my Epox board solid as a rock. Hell some guys have gotten this chip up to 3.4GHZ with water cooling. Just a suggestion you are guaranteed at least 2.2GHZ with this chip which is faster than any other AMD processor out there even the new Bartons.

Pfunk · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2003, 02:24:11 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by bloom25
A review I read was very positive, with the REV 2.0 board achieving a 217 MHz FSB clock (433 MHz DDR equiv) on a 2500+ CPU. (That is the highest FSB speed I've ever seen on an Athlon CPU.)

Actually that is pretty low for a FSB with the new rev 2.0 board, lots of guys are hitting 220-230 and higher, head over to http://www.amdforums.com and look in the Abit section plenty of guys hitting that range.

Modas · « **Reply #7 on:** April 24, 2003, 03:33:13 PM »

I just saw a rather distrubing piece of information on the ABIT nforce2 boards (rev 2.0). Apparently the BIOS has a tendency to get corrupt or loose information when saving changes to it.

Has anyone else seen or heard this? There were no mentions of this issue in any reviews. YIKES!!!

Might have to rethink the abit board and got with something else....

Pfunk · « **Reply #8 on:** April 24, 2003, 04:08:12 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Modas
I just saw a rather distrubing piece of information on the ABIT nforce2 boards (rev 2.0). Apparently the BIOS has a tendency to get corrupt or loose information when saving changes to it.

Has anyone else seen or heard this? There were no mentions of this issue in any reviews. YIKES!!!

Might have to rethink the abit board and got with something else....

It isnt just ABIT, that is a problem native to all nforce2 chipsets, no biggie really it happens if you change the bios ALOT meaning like 4-5 times a day which you wont do once you get the system doing what you want it to.

Pfunk · « **Reply #9 on:** April 24, 2003, 04:46:22 PM »

Oh and if you dont plan on overclocking then the Bios issue wont mean jack, Nvidia recognized the problem occurs past 180 mhz ( less or more)

bloom25 · « **Reply #10 on:** April 24, 2003, 06:27:19 PM »

That bios corruption bug was supposed to be fixed on rev 2.0 boards and bios updates are supposed to fix the problem on all other boards. You probably won't run into this if you just pick "save" before "save and exit" in the bios anyway. I've messed with a lot of nForce 2 boards and haven't had this happen to me yet.

I found the rev 2.0 board at a local computer shop near where I live.

Modas · « **Reply #11 on:** April 25, 2003, 07:37:51 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Pfunk
Oh and if you dont plan on overclocking then the Bios issue wont mean jack, Nvidia recognized the problem occurs past 180 mhz ( less or more)

Quote

Originally posted by Pfunk
This processor XP1700+ JIHUB DLT3C 0310 WPMW is an overclocking madman, take it out of the box and it will hit 2.2ghz ghz NO PROBLEM and at 1.6v on air cooling, it is very simple with the ABIT board and the TBred B core all your chip multipliers are unlocked, /
Quote

Pfunk -

Acutally, after reading you post regarding the xp1700 cpu, I was considering trying overclocking, although I have to admit I know very little about it.

What type of Epox board are your running?
Do you think overlocking the xp1700 on the abit board will be a problem to the 2.2 ghz

The big thing is I don't want a MB that gonna be flakey. It sounds like you are having good luck with your board which might be the better route for me.

I appreciate the help Pfunk

Pfunk · « **Reply #12 on:** April 25, 2003, 08:48:26 AM »

Well I have an EPOX 8rda+ board which you can get from newegg at around $90 shipped. This was my first overclocking experience and with a little help it was very simple. I went with the EPOX board simply for the fact that I didnt want to pay for features that I would not use, things like serial ATA etc. Both the EPOX and Abit boards are the two best Nforce2 boards out there for overclocking. The EPOX had a small problem with voltage adjustments for some users trying to get to a 200FSB this of course was with earlier revisions which are no longer on the market.
However some users still cant hit 200FSB or higher with out physically modding the board. Abit had the same problems with their earlier revisions as well but the 2.0 took care of that. Overclocking on my EPOX was extremely easy with the XP1700 chip, I put some Artic Silver on it dropped in. I locked my AGP bus at 66mhz which on the EPOX board in turn locks all the PCI cards there to-----for stability-----. Turned off AGP fast writes put the mem timings at 100% of FSB and then started to move the FSB up in increments of 10 testing with the Prime95 software for stability. I hit a wall at 12.5X175 FSB but I let it run for a few days to burn the chip in. Then I lowered the chip multiplier to 11, uped the core voltage to 1.65 and the memory voltage to 2.99 and started to crank the FSB. It would boot into windows at 11x210 or 2310mhz but it wasnt stable.
The Prime95 software torture test will let you know if you have a stable overclock, if you get errors at all then it isnt. With mine at 2.2ghz Prime95 ran for 24hours and no errors, I plan on playing with it some more after I use it for a month or so but right now its 100% stable and with my GF4Ti4200 I get 13,500ish 3dmarks.

Modas · « **Reply #13 on:** April 25, 2003, 10:23:20 AM »

Pfunk -

Are you using the onboard sound with your board or something else?

Also the prime95 software that you mentioned, I did a search and found something by that name but is for a prime number search thingy. Is this the same software? I downloaded the file, but don't want to install without knowing for sure what this is.

I've having a tough time finding an ABIT v2 board (excalibur is fresh out of them today)

So it sounds like the Epox board might be a good alternative. Its gotten good reviews also.

Again, I appreciate the assistance

Pfunk · « **Reply #14 on:** April 25, 2003, 11:09:03 AM »

I am using the soundstream audio that comes on the 8rda+ motherboard. It sounds really nice and has zero issues. Oh yeah http://www.newegg.com has the EPOX 8rda+ for $96 shipped, damn good deal I paid $120 when I got mine a month ago

Prime95 is here, use to "torture test" to check stability

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

You need to install motherboard monitor as well, the way you can see what your temps are on the CPU, anything below 50C under load is very good, 50ish is acceptable