2500 XP to 3000 XP, worth it ?

[Ben_UK]

Hello

I am in the process of pricing up a system for my borther.

This is the system so far,

Shuttle SN45G v2 250W SilentX PSU
Corsair Value Select 2x512MB PC3200
NVIDIA 5900XT 128Mb

I am unsure what CPU to go with, he wants the PC to last for a while but is on a small budget.

I am trying to decide between theses 2,

AMD AthlonXP 2500 [1.83GHZ 333] OEM @ £54.05 inc.

AMD AthlonXP 3000 [2.10GHZ 400]OEM @ £90.48 inc.

Its £35 more for the 3000 XP, is that worth it ?


What would you have ?

Cheers

(I must tell you the system is NOT going to be overclocked !)

[Agent]

Whats it being used for ?

[Ben_UK]

Whats it being used for ?

Gaming and internet

Games only going to be played in 1024x768, only got a 17" monitor.

Thanks

[Rave]

Well, since you've a very good chance of running the 2500 at 200fsb at stock voltage (equivalent of a 3200), you might as well get that. Yes, it's technically overclocking, but since you'd likely have to go in and manually set the 3000 to 200FSB in the bios anyway, I can't really see much difference personally.

Rich :¬)

[Mulda]

The third option is of course an XP-M 2400 or 2500 from CPU City that will almost certainly do XP3200 speeds at the same or lower voltage.

[Zak33]

lets pretend he isnt gonna overclock it....

2500 will be fine mate. Then, later on, we'll convince you to up it a fraction

The memory is up to the job.

[mike_w]

If you stick in a 2500+ and then overclock it to 3200+ speeds, you are saving quite a bit of money, with relatively low risk so long as you do it sensibly. Of course, if you are going to overclock then Mulda's suggestion of a Mobile Barton 2400+/2500+ would be best - low voltages and an unlocked multiplier mean that you should be able to overclock far further.

Even if you don't overclock, I don't think that the extra £35 is worth it.

[ed^chigliak]

Normally your CPU would run on 1.65volts. If you buy the 2400+ or 2500+ XP-M mobile chips £60ish they are like golden samples picked by AMD because they run perfectly with lower voltages of 1.45/1.55volts. Setting the voltage back to 1.65 volts is like no risk at all and they'll run 11x200 2.2Ghz 3200+ speeds with any suitably rated cooler. Corsair value select PC3200 is perfectly suited to the job just set it to CAS3.0 and it will be great. At CAS2.5 I got some errors testing the memory but I didn't try raising the voltage so perhaps it will be OK at CAS2.5 with a little bit of tweaking. The CAS setting doesn't make a great deal of difference anyway just run memtest and make sure it doesn't throw up any errors.