AMD Mobo- for a mate

[steve threlfall]

Evening all

A mate of mine is upgrading and wants to get a new athlon motherboard. Hes not sure what hes got now but its a factory built system. He want dual channel memory BUT hes not overclocking... i know i know i think he collects empty spam cans in his spare time

Hes gona be using 333mem and an xp2600

I would reccomend my favourite little minx the nf7 coupled with a batron 2500 but hes adamnt he wont be overclocking. What should he get?

cheers

Steve

[Rod911]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that 2600+ is running at 2.13Ghz with 133FSB and 16x multiplier?

Get him the NF7 but keep the CPU and RAM. "Overclock" it for him by dropping the multiplier to 13 and up the FSB to 166. This'll get you 2.158Ghz. Close to the stock speeds and also he can fully utilise his PC2700 RAM.

Tell him dual channel is wasted on AMD systems. Compared to a P4, an Athlon does not utilise the dual channel attributes as well as a P4.

[Austin]

There are 3 key versions of XP2600+ ...

TbredB 2.13ghz 266FSB.
TbredB 2.08ghz 333FSB.
Barton 1.92ghz 333FSB.

The middle one is the fastest but the other two are close, the Barton stands to gain the most from o/c'ing.

Anyway it makes no sense to not o/c if you choose your parts carefully and o/c with precautions. Basically both TbredB and Barton are based on a 9 layer design with 0.13mu meaning they can all run around 2.2ghz (XP3000+ to XP3200+) on average but AMD clock them lower to cater for the full scale of consumer/OEM demand. If he really doesn't care for o/c'ing then he can look to the 333FSB offerings like some thing based on the following mobo chipsets ... KT400/400A, SiS746FX, nForce2 (original) or nForce2 IGP (those nF2 do stand a chance of hitting 400FSB). Just stick PC2700 with it although PC3200 costs £1 more and will run as fast PC2700. If he wants the added peace of mind of having 400FSB in reserve he should get PC3200 and a 400FSB mobo like KT600, SiS748 or nForce2 400/Ultra400. The nForce2 are tops because they offer plenty of o/c'ing options, have the best onboard gfx (still poor BTW), best sound (when using MCP-T/Soundstorm) and are the most solid. The fastest mobos are the nForce2 Ultra400 which use Dual Channel DDR for a 5% boost over a Single Channel nF2 or KT400/600 or SiS746FX/748. See how prices are.

So I'd tell him to get the cheapest 333FSB AthlonXP he can, TbredB is actually better if you aren't o/c'ing as the Barton have a slightly inflated XP rating. For the RAM I'd definitely suggest PC3200 preferably a decent brand like Crucial, TwinMOS or Adata. If you want Dual Channel you need 2 sticks and 2x256MB is the best combination, very few consumers need more RAM and the cost is hard to justify. For the mobo it matters little so long as it does 333FSB but only nForce2 can offer Dual Channel on SktA. This is all assuming he stands his ground on "no o/c'ing".

If he's in to gaming remind him the gfx card is all important.

[gamezfreak]

MSI KT6 Delta FISR.

[steve threlfall]

Cheers guys

Thanks for the info austin

Hes getting himself a 333fsb 2600 for £50 off a mate. Im steering him in the nf7 direction now, im gone get him overclocking thanks again

Steve