$550 to spend

[LightningCrash]

Theoretical situation: You have $550 to spend on a CPU, MOBO, RAM, and HSF.

What would you buy?

I was thinking an XP 2400+, A7N8X Deluxe, 512mb XMS3200C2, SLK800+Tornado.

Questions/Comments/Donations?

[felix88]

yeah, thats about right. although i wouldn't get the tornado unless you are gonna 7v it or something.

[LightningCrash]

Yeah I might sub in a Panaflo H1A

[#ball3r]

i'd get the 2100+ tbred B instead. it will save you some money to get 2 sticks of ram, and it seems to be clocking as high.

[PimpJack]

no asus!!!!!!!!!!!! the a7n8x died on me because of a faulty BIOS and it was §§§§s for an overclocker. Get a cheaper epox 8rda+ and be a happy man. with asus i got a semi stable oc of 196mhz with epox and same exact components i got 211mhz 4-2-2-2 on pc3200

EDIT: do get 2 sticks of ram to take advantage of nf2 dual channel ddr. Its a LOT better. For the heatsink i would get a slk-800 and panaflo. Google SVC cooling and u can get the slk-800 for reallly cheap.

[felix88]

i still say you should stay with a single 512MB stick of memory. DCDDR may show up in benchmarks, but i doubt it'll give you more FPS in games.

heres my plan:

buy an nforce2 and a single 512MB stick of memory.
4-6 months later, i'll buy another 512MB stick.

this way i'll be able to run DCDDR, and i'll have a GIG of memory, which should make WinXP happy. it'll make the upgrade easier since i'm sure these boards don't overclock well with all 3 slots loaded down.

you get more of a performance gain from 1 gig of memory that you do from DCDDR, IMO.

[Doctor]

Originally posted by felix88
yeah, thats about right. although i wouldn't get the tornado unless you are gonna 7v it or something.

What do you mean by 7v the tornado?


Thanks

[felix88]

they explain it here, although they make it a bit overly complicated.

http://www.overclockershideout.com/7voltmod.shtml

[TheDude]

Why not just get a variable speed fan?

[felix88]

true, but running it at 7v is just so easy. ;)

[DriveEuro]

Well, for 400 I got this: Abit NF7 (non S) $99, 1 stick of Corsair 512 MB PC3200 ram $170, and Athlon XP 2000 89$.... Actually that's less than 400$.....but still.

[LightningCrash]

I already bought the components, really I was just shopping for a friend.

He loves his new machine and that's about all that counts ;)