Any advice anyone?

Kavs

I'm considering upgrading my machine to the latrest specs,however i'm I can't seem to decide on the best preformance/value for money components.I recently purchased ABIT's NF7- S 2.0 motherboard which is great for overclocking.
These are the components i'm considering buying

MEMORY:Corsair XMS3200LL DDR 512MB PC3200cas 400mhz
:€185.89
OR
:Corsair XMS2700LL DDR 512MB PC2700 333MHz
:€152.27

CPU:AMD Athlon XP2800+ 2.083 GHz 333 MHz (Barton512kb)
:€215.66
OR
:AMD Athlon XP2600+ 2.083 GHz 333 MHz (Thoroughbred)
:€120.63

Graphics:Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis 128MB
:€264.14
OR
:Sapphire Radeon 9500 Atlantis PRO 128MB
:€186.87

I read an article about FSB:RAM ratio which said that buying top end ram is not necessarily going to improve preformance unless the fsb can match it.
(http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20030508/index.html#front_side_bus_and_memory_clock)
anybody have any advice or any experience with the cpu + ram combinations above ,I dont want to buy 3200 ddr if its not going to give a preformance boost over 2700 ddr!Also what about Dual
DDR400??
Anybody got any advice?
cheers.:D

whosurpaddy

Originally posted by Kavs

CPU:AMD Athlon XP2800+ 2.083 GHz 333 MHz (Barton512kb)
:€215.66
OR
:AMD Athlon XP2600+ 2.083 GHz 333 MHz (Thoroughbred)
:€120.63

QUOTE]

is this even a choice, y would u pay an extra €100 for the same speed? i no u will get better performance from a barton chip blah blah but not €100's worth

Kavs

Yeah true enough! I wonder how the the Barton overclocks though(newer technology and all that),I'm gonna do a bit of research on them both today to give me a better picture.If the barton can gain significant ground on the thoroughbred by overclocking then could turn out to be worth the extra cash??
The thouroughbred has also been around for a long time at this stage kinda want to futureproof the machine for at least 6 months.Could be wrong though??
cheers for the reply!

BigEejit

Originally posted by Kavs
I read an article about FSB:RAM ratio which said that buying top end ram is not necessarily going to improve preformance unless the fsb can match it.
(http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20030508/index.html#front_side_bus_and_memory_clock)

Interesting article, I had no idea that there would be a performance hit (without overclocking) .... some of those graphs are a bit of an eyeopener ...

Not meaning to hijack your thread here but ... does anyone know which is better .. mushkin or corsair?

Kavs

Yeah pretty cool i thought, just wonderin that if i could overclock a Barton FSB to 400mhz and mate it with two 3200 512mb crosair (DUAL DDR400 )Should get a massive boost to memory bandwidth.Kinda pricey but the preformance gain might warrant it!(and no beer or buckfast for 2 weeks):eek:
Anybody ever tried this??

deckie27

Kavs

I had the loan of a Barton 2500+ last nite (To Test)
I couldn't resist a bit of overclocking
I easily got it to 2172mhz 12.5 * 346mhz stable
Which is equal to a barton 3000+ and only costs €111
Go with the 2500 and save the €100 euro

Dec

Kavs

Dec
Thats a ver good increase(339mhz),feicin price is a steal!
Did u try to get the system clock up to the 200mhz *10.5(sweet spot)??I'm lookin for a chip that can run stable wit the clock set at 200mhz.
How was the temp of the chip at that speed u got?
Cheers.

deckie27

I didn't try for 200fsb as I only had a couple of hours playing time
I wouldn't think it would be a problem as my 1800b humms along at 10 * 200
The only prob I have is getting my xms3500 256mb *2 to run at 100% FSB speed also. But anyway
The temp on full load was about 46-47 ( But I didn't have a great cooler on it)

BabyEater

I would also like to recommend the 2100 as most people are getting 2.3GHz on average more if you pump the voltage up. I get 2.4GHz with 2Volts .Also TwinMoss 3200 is good as mine will do 215MHz at 2, 2, 2, 6

BigEejit

Unfortunately komplett is out of twinmoss pc3200 cl2! (I was going to buy some and lo and behold it was out of stock for 3 days)