Hello =)
First post, hurrah! So here's a little introduction:
I'm currently sat on a XP 2500+ Barton (stock freq),
1gb TwinMOS/Winbond
ATI 9600XT (ugh!)
Asus (?)600-X mobo (VIA K600)
After doing a bit of reading here, I'm looking at this upgrade:
Opteron 146 oc'ed as high as I can go without adding too much voltage (not fussed about 3ghz)
BFG 7800GT
new mobo (with oc options)
But I'm absolutely no good at choosing motherboards
One thing I keep hearing is that "you can't go wrong" with the DFI Ultra-D. So that's an option, at £100 from OcUK (getting the BFG there, mobo price seems similar elsewhere).
I'm basically looking for some more "you can't go wrong" suggestions. The Abit AN8 Ultra looks to be one of these, but Scan are sold out and OcUK are more expensive (by £14!). The Abit KN8 Ultra doesn't have the u-Guru thing, which I understand is all the voltage and oc settings. So that would rule the KN8 out right?
Then there's Asus offerings, but I hear both good and bad things about them (unlike DFI, noone ever seems to complain about them). Asus cheating at benchmarks (hidden overclocking of memory and stuff) kinda puts me off them.
Sorry, I did search the forums already, but didn't find a clear-cut answer. Lots of choices, and I'm not well informed enough to make a decision without some help
All I know is that I need the FSB to go to 280 or 300 right? Or is that the HTT? I have no idea - still using a 32 bit chip here! And some overvolting options so I can push it just a bit.
I don't need SLI, since the 7800 will prolly last me until the new socket M2 chips come out and I switch to dual core (in the future).
Sooo many questions; I hope I haven't put anyone to sleep! Posting at 2 in the morning, so I have a tendancy to ramble on and on....
Cheers!
-Hybrid