Going with P4 Rambus system, need opinions

[jjwa]

Hello Xtreme people,

I first wanna say that I followed a link from JCviggen on gathering.tweakers.net to this board, and I really like this board! :D
on that forum, there is an active group of overclockers too, but on this forum, it goes much further, more Xtreme :D so I like it here.

Now to the point:
Rigth now I've got this system:
http://got.duck.ath.cx/system/index.php?usr=1499
It is too old, it's even that old, that I don't even want to spend lots of effort on it to tweak it anymore, because it is slow anyway.

I am gonna do a big upgrade, and my system will become something like this:
http://got.duck.ath.cx/system/index.php?usr=1500
sorry for the Dutch tekst, but I think you will understand what I'm saying there...

Here is a more OC-minded and maybe more important, english, description of the main-parts:

Cooling:
I already have watercooling stuff:
waterblock, radiator (from a car), Eheim 1048 pump and nice silicon tubes.
If I will be able to buy another block cheap, I will buy one for my graphics card too!

Hardware:

Case: Chieftec Dragon Full Tower (DA-01BD), nice, goodlooking big black tower :D. I will make the radiator in the upper case-plate, and maybe I'm gonna make a window in it, because I already ordered some 1337 stuff that fluorisces in UV-ligth to pour in my water, and I have ordered a blacklight-CCFL.
Pictures of someone's watercooling with this stuff in it:
http://www.aqua-computer.de/forumpix/gmcuplex1.jpg
http://www.aqua-computer.de/forumpix/GMSYSTEM.JPG
http://www.aqua-computer.de/forumpix/glowmotionflasche.jpg
Picture of the case:
http://www.chieftec.com/images/Da-01bd.jpg

Processor: P4 northwood and I was concidering a 2,26 Ghz, because I wanna use the Intel I850 chipset and Pc1066 memory.

Memory: Samsung or Kingston, I will try to find doublesided (2x) 256mb memory with 32 ns (or is it 3,2?) chips on it.

Grahpics card: MSI Geforce4 Ti4200 128 mb (MAYBE a Ti4400, NO Ti4600, because I'm just a 16-years-old boy, so I don't have enough money for that, since I'm already upgrading BIG).
MSI, because I have seen about 3 or 4 reviews with MSI cards and I found and they OC very well.

Motherboard: Don't know yet!
I like the Asus P4T533-C, but the Gigabyte GA-8IXHP is a bit faster and has more onboard toys (RAID, sound, LAN, USB2.0 etc.)
Both with the Intel I850E chipsets.
I just love the idea of buying the Gigabyte, except one thing:
in the manual of the mobo, that I downloaded from their site, it says that the max FSB is 156 or something like that!

That means that, even if I will buy a 2,53 ghz (I won't, same reason as for the Ti4200, a 2,26ghz will be fine), I will NOT be able to hit the 3 Ghz!

So, how to solve this?
1: buy DDR, but I don't want to :D

2: don't buy a p4 with a fsb of 533, and dont buy a mobo with the I850E chip, but I wanna buy them both, they are nicely fast.

3: maybe there is gonna be a (hacked) bios that will be able to set a higher fsb? maybe this is not gonna happen, maybe it's hardware-limited, but I don't think (/hope) so!

4: wait for another A-brand motherboard manufacturer to bring out a motherboard with the chip, but with higher possible FSB.
But: I don't wanna wait long, and I don't believe there is one of the nice OC-brands is gonna release one in the next few months.

Of course, I wanna tweak and OC this baby, I am really hoping to break through the 3 gigaherz barrier with this one.
I think I will post-order it in the beginning of august.


Now for the opinions?
what do you think? Option 1, 2, 3 or 4? Another solution?

[JCviggen]

most I850(E) boards have a PLL that only goes up to 156 MHz. No BIOS update in the world will change that. There is the ABIT TH7-II, which is the best board to have RDRAM at high FSB, but only because it is the only one. It really holds back the CPU overclock and the DRCG's (direct rambus clock gens) are not great.

The xtreme way is to fit a turbo PLL to a board limited to 156, but that is easier said than done. I would go for a 533 FSB P4, and the best mobo for it would be the ASUS P4T533 (not the -C version) which uses 32 bit rdram. This one goes to 200 FSB. Downside : its not commonly available yet, so you'd have to wait a while

for the rest : welcome :)

[Jupiler]

I agree with JC on this.
If you're planning to oc at high FSB, then get the TH7 II. Or wait a bit for that new ASUS board (P4T533) with some Samsung PC4200 ram. Price should be around 370 Euro for that combo.
If you're interessted :
I ordered 2 sticks of 256MB Samsung RDRAM from http://www.pcdigital.nl on wednesday. They shipped thursday and got them on friday. Friendly guy over there and good service.
They were double sided sticks, so 16 device ones, and they perform pretty well. Can run it at 179 FSB but my 1.6a craps out at that speed.

[jjwa]

Jupiler:
how much did you pay for that memory?

JCviggen:
hmmz, that motherboard (+ram) will be quite expensive, and is irritating to upgrade to 512mb ram, because I would have to do that by filling up the second slot.
:(
but maybe it's just the best choice... :(

[Jupiler]

I payed 240 Euro for 2 sticks + 12 Euro shipping (rembours)
Prices went up now, 129 a stick.

[bmg]

Since you don't already have a motherboard or rdram you might consider waiting for the P4T533. It supports fsb above 156 (to 200mhz I believe) and comes with 256mb of PC1066 speed 32 bit rdram. It should hopefully be available within a couple of weeks. http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socket478/p4t533/overview.htm

[jjwa]

I really liked the Gigabyte board, and it is tested to be fastest bij Toms Hardware Guide.

But the -C less version of the Asus mobo has an irritating thing: because the 32bit ram is very hard to get, it comes with the motherboard... 256 mb, but I want 512mb.
so, to get 512mb I have to buy another 256mb as soon as its available, but then both the memory-slots will be full, so: no more memory upgrading!
Or I take the "old" 256mb stick out of it, and put a 512mb one in it, but then I would not be able to return it to the store or something, and 768mb is just overkill, and would be a REAL waste of money :(

so, it would have been easier to have the possibility of buying it with a stick of 512mb instead of 256mb, or buying it whithout memory, but in that case it has to be available in the stores :(.

So, that is a negative point...

Very nice points:
- fsb up to 200mhz which means a max of almost 3,4Ghz for a 2,26Ghz p2, so that will be enough
- AGP/PCI lock! wohoo!

BMG:
check the first 2 replies of the thread:
they come up with the P4T533 too :P
never mind, ur trying to help, that's always good...