Is it worth it........

[anxdiety]

Would it be worth purchasing an Nforce2 mobo right now and using my current cpu with it? My current cpu is an anthlon 1.333. The reason i would want to do this is so i can wait for some of those xp2400's to come down in price early next year. The price of the mobo and some ram to match it is about all i can afford right now if that. My other question is has it been confirmed anywhereabout the barton support on nforce 2 boards? I don't want to get nixxed again on the future cpu's like i did on the revision 1 of the kt7a i have from abit, without the anthlon XP support.

[Gator]

Originally posted by anxdiety
Would it be worth purchasing an Nforce2 mobo right now and using my current cpu with it? My current cpu is an anthlon 1.333. The reason i would want to do this is so i can wait for some of those xp2400's to come down in price early next year. The price of the mobo and some ram to match it is about all i can afford right now if that. My other question is has it been confirmed anywhereabout the barton support on nforce 2 boards? I don't want to get nixxed again on the future cpu's like i did on the revision 1 of the kt7a i have from abit, without the anthlon XP support.

I guess if I were on a limited budget but want the Nforce2, I would get the Epox or LEadtek ones at $117us. Now you say you have "generic ram" but does that mean SDRAM or DDR. If you have DDR, stick with what you got for now, but I assume you have SDRAM which means you need memory. For that, the most afforadable without sacrificing speed or quality is Samsung 256meg DDR400 for $80us. As for your CPU, I'd recommend replacing it for now with an AthlonXP1700 at only $52us. Ideally you would wait for 2400, but I'm not even sure your current Athlon1.3 would work in an Nforce2, and you'd be taking a big performance hit. The AthlonXP1700 would be a BIG improvement over your current CPU, and if your fortunate enough to get a TBred 1700 they overclock like mad. You could always sell the 1700 later on ebay when your ready to buy 2400, but I wouldnt wait on this you really should get the CPU and mobo together.

[ragejg]

Going from ghz rated 1.33 to PR rated 1700 IMO is not a jump that's worth it... unless there's temperature/OC reasons for the switch...

On my kt266a, I went from t-bird 1.33 @ 1.4 to XP1600+ at 1.4 and sometimes 1.5... not a big diff. at all. My 3dmarks are the same, dvd playback's not any better (never was bad), so on and so forth.

I really think a t-bird 1.33 would thrive in an nforce2. These mobo's state compatibility with all durons thru xp's... and I'd just love to see cache/mem perf. figures on a t-bird set up w/dual channel DDR...

A good analogy for Thunderbirds right now is this:
They're like chevy 305 motors. Crap if they can't breathe, but surprising if set up efficiently.

However in terms of OC'ing they're like a chevy 400 small block... Hard to cool. If you want lower temps, get a t-bred 1700... mods to that cpu (with the right week of mfg) will allow for some serious clock speed increases. Only extreme cooling can get a 1.33 or 1.4 t-bird to run at 1700 or 1800.

Dang, this would be a hard decision for me too...

[StealthHawk]

nforce 2 won't really help you unless you have DDR333 RAM with an AthlonXP that uses a 333FSB, either stock or overclocked.

so the answer is "yes" if you plan on getting a a CPU that supports a 333FSB and then pairing it with DDR333 to operate in dual channel mode.

the answer is "no" if you don't plan on getting a 333FSB CPU or if you do get one but keep your old non DDR333 memory.

[anxdiety]

Well the memory i am currently using is pc133. I think i have one stick in there that is only pc100 but its running fine at pc 133. I'm not really concerned with the overclocking of it all right now. I was thinking of making this temp move so that it is more upgradeable in the future to things like the barton chip. Plus the added benefit of going up to a ddr solution would be enough of a performance increase for a little while. If it wasn't for needing a newer bios for my curent mobo to support the geforce 4's I would be running 10 degree's lower in temp. Right now it sits about 60 degree. But that is thnx to the via chipset. The current t-bred 1.333 i have is unlocked from factory. and i have had it post at almost 1500 without problems other than the heating. So moving to the nforce would probably alllow me to get a little bit of an overclock out of the cpu in the meantime.

Oh how i wish i were american with the prices you folx get on comp parts. Being in canaduh means the prices are almost double to what they are american. And ordering online is out of the question because the banks are smart enough not to give me a credit card.

[anxdiety]

Stealth, i would either get 333 ram or 400 ram since eventually i would intend to upgrade to a better cpu with at least a 333 fsb. Kind of hoping on the bartons to have a 400 fsb and some added features. Just hope that they are supported

[ragejg]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
nforce 2 won't really help you unless you have DDR333 RAM with an AthlonXP that uses a 333FSB, either stock or overclocked.


StealthHawk, do you think a 1.33 @ 1.5 sitting on an nforce2 running ddr333 @ 150 or so (or even PC2100 for that matter if need be) would be quite the jump over a cpu like that sitting on a KT133a, tho? I could be wrong, but I think the revisions in the last 1 1/2 yrs of north/southbridges has made for some serious optimization increases for ALL athlon/Duron cpu's...

Remember, that 1.33 is 99.9% of a XP1500...:)

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by ragejg
StealthHawk, do you think a 1.33 @ 1.5 sitting on an nforce2 running ddr333 @ 150 or so (or even PC2100 for that matter if need be) would be quite the jump over a cpu like that sitting on a KT133a, tho? I could be wrong, but I think the revisions in the last 1 1/2 yrs of north/southbridges has made for some serious optimization increases for ALL athlon/Duron cpu's...

Remember, that 1.33 is 99.9% of a XP1500...:)

if definitely would :)

[StealthHawk]

anxdiety,

you may have some problems then. i'm pretty sure nforce 2 doesn't support SDRAM, only DDRRAM. so you would need to upgrade ram to use the motherboard.

get two sticks to use dual channel BTW.

[anxdiety]

Oh fully intended to get some new ram with that set up. If i didn't have to get ram then i would get a new proc as well.

[gokickrocks]

if you are going to wait for xp2400 prices to drop...then i would suggest that you wait for the via kt400a boards which is supposedly due out next month...the "a" revision is going to have the agp/pci lock with dual channel ddr as well...and looking at the past, the "a" boards always perform a lot better and have a lot less bugs than the non-"a"...also motherboard manufacturers will be throwing in more features in the kt400a boards than the nforce2, i believe abit and epox said they took out parallel raid on the nforce2 and was saving it for the kt400a's

[Nephilim]

Well, the Chaintech nForce 2 board has parallel raid, and it's getting good reviews.

I just ordered the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. You can check the specs out here (http://www.asus.com.tw/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X%20Deluxe). It has Serial ATA and Parallel ATA on board, not to mention the 2 LAN ports, 6 USB 2.0, Firewire.....

Sweet.

[gokickrocks]

i dont believe the chaintechs will allow you to go over 200fsb

[Nephilim]

As seen on Chaintech's site:
System clock supports 200/266/333MHz

[gokickrocks]

again, those are marketing terms (they double the # cause of the "double data rate")...

if you look in bios it will say 100/133/166

when i say 200FSB, it equates to 400 in marketing terms

if you dont believe me, take the board you have now, go into bios, and crank it up to 266FSB...you will notice that it wont go that high, and anywhere near it will probably crash your comp

another example would be intel...they have a "quad-pumped data rate", so 533mhz is actually 133FSB, 400mhz is 100FSB, and so on...

[StealthHawk]

so? "200" is the maximum official FSB anyway, why would you expect to be able to go higher, especially since DDR400 still hasn't been standardized, to my knowledge.

[gokickrocks]

for overclockers like myself that like to push the limits...200fsb aint gonna cut it...

just cause ddr has to be standardized, does not mean that the rated speed is the max it could run

[Nephilim]

Tom's Hardware:
All of today's chipsets support both DDR266 and DDR333. DDR400 is no longer supported by the chipset manufacturers due to the lack of performance: DDR333 at CL2 is at least equally fast or even faster. nVIDIA still supports DDR400, as there are some (few!) applications that still benefit from the higher clock speed - in defiance of overhead.

Tom's Hardware:
Last but not least, there is the "main feature" of nForce2, its dual-channel memory interface. In contrast to VIA and SiS, nVIDIA is able to bundle two DIMMs in order to double the bandwidth.

[anxdiety]

When i first saw the chaintech board i loved the bundle that came with it. But the idea that it doesn't have a real nforce sound on it just ruins the whole package. The reason i am looking at the nforce is to replace this sblive i currently have. I figure buying new ram and motherboard and getting an better sound card in the end for free basically is completely worth it.

[Nephilim]

That's why I got the Asus A7N8X deluxe instead. :)

[Nephilim]

Originally posted by gokickrocks
for overclockers like myself that like to push the limits...200fsb aint gonna cut it...

just cause ddr has to be standardized, does not mean that the rated speed is the max it could run

Just found out that the Asus A7N8X will go over 200mhz FSB.

[gokickrocks]

it goes up to 211, which is still not enough for me...plus once you hit 200fsb, they do not have 1mhz increments

[Nephilim]

Again, to which, I say:

Tom's Hardware:
All of today's chipsets support both DDR266 and DDR333. DDR400 is no longer supported by the chipset manufacturers due to the lack of performance: DDR333 at CL2 is at least equally fast or even faster. nVIDIA still supports DDR400, as there are some (few!) applications that still benefit from the higher clock speed - in defiance of overhead.

[stncttr908]

If you're going to do it, I'd get the Asus A7N8X Deluxe, 512MB (2x256) of Corsair XMS PC2700 (or 3200 for future considerations), and an Athlon XP 1600+. Then you can unlock that **** and turn down the multiplier and up the FSB, wham, performance up the arse.

Or you could even go with a cheaper board like they said, and cheaper mem.

The Asus setup would run you about $400, but if you went with an epox board and say kingmax RAM, you could cut that down to around $320.

[gokickrocks]

im an overclocker, that does not mean everyone else has to go by my standards...

and btw... asus' 211fsb max < epox 250fsb max

i had previously used a abit kd7...max fsb i hit was 214, so the asus isnt much of an improvement