P1 Enthusiast

If i was to build the following i want to check i am understanding exactly what i am paying for here;

Epox 8RDA+ Nforce 2 Board
Athlon XP2100 (can air cool this to be same as 2700 or thereabouts?)
Vantec Aeroflow fan with SLK800 or similar heat sink
PAbst 120mm fan
WD HD maybe 10,000 rpm one or 2 x 80 gig WD SE ones
Radeon 9700 pro / 9900
Two Iiyama pro 17 inch CRTs
1 gig of Corsair XMS3200 memory
Antec Truepower 420W or thereabout PSU

Now if i understand it correctly the memory wants to run at 400 MHZ and is dual channel, thus supporting a 200 MhZ FSB on the MB - which as we know doesnt work capped at about 180 MhZ FSB. Thus crucial 3500 is a waste of cash, as is LL and XX as its for n00bs who cannot adjust the memory step speeds.

Secondly, i require the DVI output on Radeon for 2nd monitor and normal cable on 1st monitor. Does anyone know if the new iiyama's have this input since my current monitor is Iiyama pro 410.

Would it be better to buy the Asus A7N8X though to get the onboard raid controller? I like the idea of 2nd HD in case of failure or data problems, raid 1 is dual writing and reading to the drive correct? so data is duplicated on both drives?
This is to run two game windows very cpu intensively and memory intensive also, about 900 megs of memory and 700 meg HD swap file. Anyone got any comments? No i dont want TWO pcs :P

Looking at Clawhammer upgrade later in the year to handle the cpu intensity. With that in mind should i buy the XMS3500 memory or?

ChrisB

RAID 1 is indeed mirroring. The contents of both HDs are indentical so failure of a single drive shouldn't be terminal.

I've not seen an analogue CRT monitor with a DVI input. However, some cards come with DVI > Analogue convertors to provide 'dual head' on CRTs. If not, you can get them off the web.

Chris.

DominicA

i'd be suprised if you can do this "Athlon XP2100 (can air cool this to be same as 2700 or thereabouts?)", 1.7 to 2.2 with air...

DominicA

i've seen a review of the Asus where the RAM WAS stable at 400mhz... but FSB was only 185

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&p=10


[Edited by DominicA - 2/11/2003 3:52:47 PM]

DominicA

I agree, price/performance points to xp2400 at the mo..

ChrisB

I'm just spec'ing up a Shuttle XPC and though the XP2100 TB looked best value at £65.

If it's a resource heavy game though, those extra Mhz will probably count.

P1 Enthusiast

Am i right about 3200 over 3500 memory though or not? Bearing in mind i want a clawhammer when it comes out!

DominicA

not sure, last I heard was hammer running with Dual DDR333.... but Barton runs like this already....

P1 Enthusiast

Building the machine 1st week in April

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Unless you really want to, you don't have to go corsair XMS 3x00 at all

You can get TwinMOS PC3200 rated ram with Winbond -5ns chips fitted for a lot less. I mention this particular stick because it is well known to perform very well for the price. You should be able to get 200mhz from this stuff with pretty aggressive timings.

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...7&GrpID=9&s=pl should give you an idea

Cheers,

Nick

P1 Enthusiast

Care to comment now on the MB choice and whether its worth having that raid controller or raid at all? Stick with one HD or dual HD? It would be one 10,000 rpm IDE or two WD SE 7,200s.

super_si

Arrgh well im building within the month lol.

Si

super_si

In regards to your hard drive. I lost 100Gb data thanks to raid collapse now im quite happy to just run the 2 hard drives as single ide

Si

P1 Enthusiast

Well will overclock whatever chip i get mildly, something like 2400+ or maybe 2700+ then maybe.

Any idea where i can get Vantec Aeroflow fans from in UK? Also Antec PSUs?

[Edited by P1 Enthusiast - 2/11/2003 3:45:14 PM]

super_si

i went 1.8 - 2.2 air cooled. But mine was a northwoods core.

Let me know how you get on as im building the same kinda spec for the girlfriend in a week or so

Just to add im running XMS3200 mate, am in running 170fsb @3600Mhz

No need for XMS3500 i dont think.
Si

[Edited by super_si - 2/11/2003 5:02:05 PM]

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

P1, read following link regarding the Winbond -5ns chips.

It does seem to depend heavily on how well the actual pcb is made too:

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...mName=Computer

Cheers,

Nick.

Edited to say that I too use 2x512MB sticks of XMS3200 RAM, so don't blame me if you go for the TwinMOS and don't like it!

[Edited by Mr Footlong - 2/12/2003 12:08:08 AM]

AlexM

Nforce boards are pretty picky regarding the brand of RAM you can use with them... I would recommend that you choose memory that has been specifically tested for compatibility by Nvidia / Asus.

Crucial XMS3200/3500 has, and is recommended by Nvidia (used in all of their Nforce2 review kits).

The a7n8x will definately do over 200mhz fsb+. There is a trick that allows massive fsb overclocks with tbred-b cpus and nforce2...

You cut one of the L12 bridges to get the board to identify it as a 133mhz FSB, rather than 166mhz. You can then get up to 211mhz FSB, or even 220mhz on the abit NF7-S!.

It appears to be a chipset or bios bug - see http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...5&pagenumber=1 for more info.


[Edited by AlexM - 2/12/2003 12:31:51 PM]