Upgrading

[bindo]

I just wanted to know what would be best for me to upgrade, at the moment my system is:

Athlon 2600XP+ O'c to 2.17Ghz
512 Generic RAM
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Creative Audidgy zs
MSI k7n2-L mobo
350W PSU

I have ~£500 - £600 to spend

I was thinking of getting:
2x512 Mb OCZ pc3700 EL platinum RAM for £229.07
AMD Athlon64 3200+ 90nm £146.82
Abit AX8 £78.72
XFX GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 £146.82

I've heard that you can overclock the 3200 a long way with the pc3700 memory, up to 280 FSB, is that true, is it worth spending so much on the memory? What would be the best alternative, but a cheaper one?

[schrickvr6]

If it was me i'd get the ocz pc4000 gold instead of the pc3700, good choice with the winny and the abit although the asus is probably more bug free but not so overclockable, leave the gfx for now and get a thermalright xp-90 to cool the cpu and a nice ocz powerstream 510w psu to power everything.

[bindo]

ocz pc4000, ocz powerstream 510w psu,nice i'll look into that.

I want to leave the graphics card, but if i'm getting a pci-e mobo i need to have a pci-e graphics card to go with it. You think I should wait a bit and get a 6800gt pci-e?
And what about getting a 3500+ 90nm instead of the 3200? Would there be muc point?

[schrickvr6]

but if i'm getting a pci-e mobo i need to have a pci-e graphics card to go with it

Very true i was thinking of the AV8, i'd just be a bit concerned your psu may struggle with all this gear, is your psu anything any good or just el'cheapo?

If ya going to oc probably not too much point going for the 3500 imho...unless a batch is getting particularly good results.

[bindo]

My current PSU is some cheap one, I was guessing I might have to get a new one.
I've looked at the ocz 4000, the latencies are a bit looser than the 3700, is that going to afffect their performance much, or will the higher FSB make up for it?

[StormPC]

Go with the lower latency stuff.

BTW: Abit's A64 boards (all of them) suck pretty bad. If you're using a 3200+ Winnie there is only one motherboard. MSI K8N Neo2.

With a decent HSF and memory a 3200+ Winnie/Neo2 combo will run 2580+MHz 24/7 stock. Also, get a 6800GT at least, otherwise you're wasting your Winnie.

[alexander]

I say wait a few months because that PC can still run today's games. When PCI-E Is fully out upgrade then.

[Thorsson]

No need to wait that long. NF4 boards will be out very shortly - Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are rushing to get them out.

[speedy_s]

don't need to get 4000/3700 mem, get cheap 3200 run at a divider of 5:4 with HTT250. Gives you 3800 speeds

[BenW]

i think AMD systems like good low latency RAM....right? If so you want to get 3200 or something like that, not the high speed stuff

[skuzgib]

don't need to get 4000/3700 mem, get cheap 3200 run at a divider of 5:4 with HTT250. Gives you 3800 speeds

Is there much of a performance hit running it with a divider instead of 1:1?

[speedy_s]

if running 939 won't be more than 3%. not a lot really. price/performance is very good by doing that.

[bindo]

don't need to get 4000/3700 mem, get cheap 3200 run at a divider of 5:4 with HTT250. Gives you 3800 speeds

I've looked at some ocz 3200 platinum stuff, the latencies look good, 2-2-5.
How and what does the divider do? 5:4 is that like the RAM going at 4x and the CPU going at 5x?
cheers for the help

[Byron]

if you go for the ocz get the rev2.0 platinum ones or wait a bit longer for the new stuff Voltage Extreme series from ocz .

[speedy_s]

I've looked at some ocz 3200 platinum stuff, the latencies look good, 2-2-5.
How and what does the divider do? 5:4 is that like the RAM going at 4x and the CPU going at 5x?
cheers for the help

this is how it works :::::::

If u have a a64 3200 ur multiplier is 10x of the HTT
Overclock your HTT by 50Mhz which gives you 250HTT, 2.5ghz cpu(3800speed)
To find ur mem speed that would be required you would do

250/5 * 4=200mhz so even cheap ram will do (remmeber you divide by the first times by the second )

[mahoodlum]

The latencies have a relatively small effect - it's the bandwidth that counts.
Match the processor bandwidth to the memory for best effect. You're wasting money buying above 3200 for that athlon. There isn't much difference in performance terms between the brands of RAM; there are big price differences tho and plenty of hype. Latencies are a damned good marketing method - don't be fooled and balance the cost against the perfomance..... remember - more expensive RAM doesn't = that great a performance hike - like a couple of percent or maybe a frame in Doom 3 - but probably not, because the bottleneck won't be the system RAM....

If you've got money to burn on the RAM, save it and get a better gfx card