Hi again

[Ace]

Hey guys<BR><BR>Right, there's a chance i may be getting some money soon, so I plan to buy a new case & mobo. <BR><BR>Now i know i've asked this before, but i want to check that nothing has changed. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.<BR><BR>I need a case that has plenty of drive bays, tonnes of spaces for fans, must be aluminium, would be nice if it had a sliding rack thing for easy upgrading. Max price to pay around £125<BR><BR>I also need a mobo that is AMD based, basically the best mobo you can get for around £125 but could go higher. And what's this i hear about an Athlon 64 processor? Should I be waiting to get a mobo compatible with this? <BR><BR>Thanks for any help guys <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR>Regards<BR><BR>Ace

[TranceJunkieXL]

Hey there Ace.<BR>Do you need a PSU with that case? The conversion rate puts your price around $200USD, which can get you a heck of a case. I recommend Chieftec for their "modability." For roughly $180USD you can get a Dragon tower with an AntecTrue 430W PSU.<BR>CoolerMaster has some nice cases out, and you can probably get a LianLi without a PSU for that price as well.<BR><BR>Feature packed AMD based motherboards will run you even less than that (unless tariffs add a whole lot over there). The EPoX 8RDA3+ and the NF7-S are probably your best bets ($90-$125USD) in that arena. An ASUS A7N8X will run you a bit more ($140USD or so), but they are also reliable boards with a ton of features. What do you want to do with the new system? Overclock? Or are features more important than overclock stability to you?

[Ace]

Hi rithemking.<BR><BR>thanks for your reply.<BR><BR>as for your query about Taxes, yes our UK taxes are much higher than yours on tech. to put it into perspective, if i buy something (techy) off of a US website by the timei've finished adding on delivery and customs duty and UK tax etc the original price has pretty much doubled :S lol so it's pretty much UK sites only for me<BR><BR>anyway for my mobo i am definitely considering overclocking some stuff in the future so overclocking stability is *relatively* important, however i consider features to be more important. i will have a good look at your suggestions. thanks <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>Ace <BR><BR>*forgot to mention, i have a PSU i could transfer over now, but i have no idea what it is, may as well get a new one while i'm at it, eh? lol

[TranceJunkieXL]

Well, you're still paying import taxes buying stuff from UK sites (what they pass on).<BR>Anyhow, those 3 boards are all good overclockers and have a ton of features as well. Keep in mind though, you may see that they tend to perform a bit lower in benchmarks than others on the market, but keep in mind, those reviews (what I've seen) were done at stock speeds (no OC). I've actually gotten my NF7-S to run my 1700+ at 2.505 and pass PCMark and 3DMark (though not Prime95) with just air cooling.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif" border="0"> For some reason it was able to run a higher clock with a lower FSB.

[Ace]

Well hi guys, congrats for getting the forums back up <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>OK I am planning to buy the following:<BR><BR>Asus A7N8X Deluxe<BR><BR>Thermaltake Xaser III V2000A<BR>(<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Thermaltake_Cases.html">there's one here</a> last on list)<BR><BR>Thermaltake 480W silent dual fan PSU<BR><BR>btw can u mix memory modules e.g. one PC2100 and one PC2700 etc?<BR>d'ya reckon this lot is ok?

[Colin]

Hey Ace. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>That looks like a nice system you're going to be getting. Make sure you get the revision 2.0 of the A7N8X as that's using the new C1 stepping of the nForce2 which should mean better overclocking. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>You can mix PC2100 and PC2700 DDR memory (as long as they're not totally generic) but if you plan to overclock you're going to be held back by the PC2100 DIMM.

[Ace]

Hi Colin<BR><BR>Yeah thanks, the one I'm getting says VER 2, thankfully, so that's OK.<BR><BR>I won't be overclocking my system until I get a new CPU in there and hopefully by then I'll have found enough spare cash to get a 256 of PC3200 and maybe a little 128/256 of PC2700 or something. <BR><BR>As for the system, well to be honest everything in it is showing it's age now, and everything needs to be upgraded <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-mad.gif" border="0"> the case, mobo and psu are my starting point - i figured i'd start with the basics and work back up. I didn't want to be trying to upgrade my CPU yet being restricted by my mobo. <BR><BR>Anyway thanks for all your help guys <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> (rithemking, Howard BAM!, Colin, and everybody else - I can always count on you guys to help sort my PC out when I go and blow it up <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"> hehe)

[TranceJunkieXL]

Dude! If you are going to get memory, buy it all at once, or just get the PC2700. You are just wasting your PC3200 if you buy PC2700 to sit in the same motherboard, not to mention wasting the Dual Channel capability. Besides, most of the PC2700 on the market today can OC over and beyond PC3200 FSB.<BR>The fastest memory will always(almost) clock down to match the slower memory, so there really isn't any point in spending extra on PC3200 if you are going to sit it with PC2700.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> Just save your money a little bit longer and get it all at once.<BR>I say go with PC2700 for now, and sell that PC2100 to a friend.

[Ace]

Thanks rithemking, evidently motherboards these days don't work magic the way I thought they'd do <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0">. <BR><BR>I am slightly unsure about this: the cheaper sticks of PC3200 are CL3 and I know a lower clock latency is good, yet the CL2's are much, much more expensive. Is it *really* worth going for CL2 when it's about 3x the price?! I mean, will I really see a large enough difference?<BR><BR>btw bought the stuff as above. hopefully i'll get around to spraying those awful red/pink bits => black on the case... <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[TranceJunkieXL]

LOL. Magic, yeah. Like my HP that won't even post with the 512MB PC100 SDRAM HP insists it will.<BR>I'm still not able to explain the difference in speed between latencies and bandwidth, or how they are related.<BR>Probably the best way to figure it out is to run the PC2100 you have now at CL3.0 and then try to run it at a more aggressive (2.5 or 2.0 if it will post), and run some games/game benchmarks that show fps rates and see how much it improves. I know my 3DMark2001SE scores jumped 300+ points when I lowered my GEIL timings from 2-6-3-3 to 2-6-2-2. That is a significant increase in the number of FPS.

[Colin]

Ace rithemking is one of the resident AMD experts, I'm glad he has so much time to help you! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>Performance difference between CL2 and CL3 is about 5-10% depending on what you're doing. Most cases you'll probably not notice it however if you're a gamer or overclocker every bit of performance counts. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"> Also if you plan to overclock CL2 memory should be able to go farther then CL3 DRAM. Whether it's worth it or not is a decision only you can make. If you can afford to spend the extra $$$ then do it as you'll be happier.

[Ace]

Thanks you two, ill bear those points in mind. I should be getting my parts soonish so lets see how long it'll take me to blow my PC in two hehe <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>Well Colin rithemking has helped me more on MSN too and so has Howard BAM!, I have a lot to thank them for. You look on the news and you see all these atrocities being committed which make you think that the human race has turned into a monster, waiting to self destruct. But you've only got to come to places like this and it makes you proud to be human <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> <BR><BR>Thanks guys, cya all later