what new motherboard did you get? I am getting the chaintech nf3 250 mobo. I have heard things about the corsair XL ram, they say itll do about 220fsb at 2-2-2-5 or 240-250fsb at 2.5-3-3-7 but dont you have ram that did 235fsb at 2-2-2-5 on a 3200+ clawhammer using a via kt800 mobo? Is it true the via mobos are a little faster than the nf3 150s? I will tell my dad to order an a64 tomorrow and when I get back from the vacation to Alaska in a week, my mobo and cpu should be here along with a copy of farcry(free!) nearly all a64s now are newcastles so your 1mb cache clawhammer is gonna be worth 100-150MHz on top of my newcastle. Then my ram is corsair value that does about 225fsb at 2-2-3-7 timijngs. the ras-cas of 3 will eat a few hundred marks, no idea how much, maybe 400? I can buy a 256mb stick for below $100 just for 3dmark then resell it for a small loss when im done. I will have much to learn about HT, fsb, T1 and T2 command rates and ram divisors. I have done a mild vmod to the core but it only gained 10MHz. how good is the TT copper cooler? what coolers will fit a ti4200? I also havent vmodded the ram but its my experience that the core matters much more anyway. I hope to get like 360/730 clocks. However I doubt I can match you on the cpu side. Id say 18.5k would be realistic with the 2800+ newcastle im getting, but then I am cheap and do not wish to spend another $100 on a 3200+ which is probably just a higher clocked newcastle anyway. any tips for me before I get the a64? I got some tips: disabling fast writes gained me 100 marks. setting the agp speed to 85MHz got me another 50. I also run 3dmark many times till I get a good run. Did you do any windows tweaks and how much did that help?