Ok I'm about to rebuild my computer from the ground up and my current plans are as such: Athlon 2800 XP (333 FSB), motherboard with nForce2 chipset (I could use some advice on picking which board would be best for this), 2 sticks of 512 MB ram (still debating upon the FSB for the RAM) and that's the important stuff I need help upon. I want to know what would be recommended by you more experienced people for my motherboard and RAM type? I'm currently concidering getting the Asus A7N8X motherboard and then some PC3200 ram Any recommendations or ideas? I'd be mostly using the System for gaming and if possible I would like to overclock the processor at least a bit so that I can get the best gaming system I can using a Athlon 2800 chip So I would appretiate any information or advice that you guys would have on the motherboard and ram

"still debating upon the FSB for the RAM"

What do you mean w/ this? If you mean the right clock speed for the RAM: w/ nForce 2 Mainboards the RAM should always run in sync mode. All benchmarks proof that the system performance is better in sync mode than if you run your it async w/ 200MHz (=400MHz DDR).

"I'm currently concidering getting the Asus A7N8X motherboard and then some PC3200 ram Any recommendations or ideas? I'd be mostly using the System for gaming and if possible I would like to overclock the processor at least a bit so that I can get the best gaming system I can using a Athlon 2800 chip So I would appretiate any information or advice that you guys would have on the motherboard and ram"

If you just want to ocerclock your system a little bit you can save money by buying infineon PC2700 cl2 modules. I have read in a forum that you can easily run them w/ 200MHz and agressive timings (2/2/2/5), but they cost only about half of the PC3200 modules.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

Well the best overclockers boards are the Abit NF7-S and the Epox 8RDA(3)+.

As for the RAM, if you only plan to do some little OC'ing PC3200 is your choice (try to find memory with low latencies fro best performance)... if you want to do some serious FSB overclocking (above the 200 MHz FSB (400 in DDR)) then PC3500 might be a better choice.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

I mean I didn't know if I should get PC3200 or PC3500 or what I should get. thanks for responding and helping though. One last question, in the articles section (of tom's hardware) there was a report on the nForce motherboards and they said that to get all the features of nForce you should get the Asus A7N8X. Refer to this page to see what I'm talking about: http://www6.tomshardware.com/mothe [...] e2-13.html
I'm curious what it's talking about by 'all the features of the nForce2'

The Asus maybe has the most features, but who needs all this features. I have a Epox 8RDA+ and I dont even use all features (2xFireWire, 6xUSB 2.0, LAN, 5.1 Sound,...). From these features I only use LAN. I will soon buy a speaker set for 5.1 sound and I also will use one USB 2.0 port for a mp3 player, but I think ill never use FireWire. I think the best boards for overclocking are the Epox 8RDA3+ and the Abit nForce 2 Ultra 400 Board (if such a board exists).

About the memory: You can easily overclock PC3200 memory to 233MHz (if you use Infineon or Corsair memory). I have read a lot of Athlon overclocking and I only read once that someone made more thab 233MHz w/ normal water cooling. He made 240 MHz. The highest FSB w/ air cooling I know is 233MHz. For more you need compressor or N2 cooling.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

not sure how high I would overclock it, but I'd perfer to get cheaper ram than the corsair are there any companys that have good ram that I don't have to start selling my organs to afford?

Oh one other thing, perhaps I misunderstood when they said all the nForce features; does the lan, firewire, etc count as nForce features? Because I was thinking that it was talking about features in the nForce chipset that would effect gameplaying like through the communication of the CPU motherboard, harddrive sound and video cards? or on the webpage I listed above were they talking about the firewire etc when they said all the features of the nForce?

"not sure how high I would overclock it, but I'd perfer to get cheaper ram than the corsair are there any companys that have good ram that I don't have to start selling my organs to afford?"

I would buy Infineon 3rd cl2 modules. They are the same than the "original" Infineon and also have 10 years warrantee (the warrantee voids when you overclock). In the area where In life 256MB Infineon 3rd modules (PC2700, I dont know the price for PC3200) only cost about 10$ more than no name modules. There is no price difference between cl2 and cl2.5 modules.

"Oh one other thing, perhaps I misunderstood when they said all the nForce features; does the lan, firewire, etc count as nForce features? Because I was thinking that it was talking about features in the nForce chipset that would effect gameplaying like through the communication of the CPU motherboard, harddrive sound and video cards? or on the webpage I listed above were they talking about the firewire etc when they said all the features of the nForce?"

The only features you can mean are BIOS settings. I dont know the BIOS settings of the Asus board, but I know the settings of the Epox board: This board is one of the few boards where you can freely choose the multiplyer w/o doing anything to the CPU (you need a Thoroughbred B CPU, I dont know if it also works w/ Barton). w/ most mobos you can only choose a maximum multiplyer of 12.5 (If your default multiplyer is not higher than 12.5) or above 12.5 (if your default multiplyer is higher than 12.5). I think the you can also do this w/ the Abit mobo. w/ other mobos you eighter have to connect two pins on the bottom of the CPU or do something else to get higher/lower multiplyers. About other BIOS settings: You can adjust everything you want w/ the Epox 8RDA+ except VDD voltage. You can set a higher VDD voltage, but it doesnt have any effect because the mobo is missing the circuit for that. You will have to make a mod to change this. You can set the FSB from 100 to 240 in 1MHz increases or to Auto, the Vcore from 1,4V to 2.2V in 0.025V increases or to Auto, the VDIMM can be set to 2.53V, 2.63V, 2.77V or 2.9V or to Auto and the VAGP can be set to 1.5V-1.8V in 0.1V increases. You can also set all possible memory timings in the BIOS. You can also set the Multiplier from 3 to 24. The incresemants are 0.5 between 5 and 14 and 1 between 3 and 5 and between 14 and 24.

I dont know if this webpage also meant FireWire, LAN,... , but I think so because it was an overall summary and not only an overclocking summary.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

Well LAN comes on about every nForce2 mobo... but the main diffrence between the Epox 8RDA+ and the A7VN8X Deluxe are that the Epox doesn't use the nVidia sound chip and instead use an AC'97 codec, they don't have SATA... but the Epox does have a lot more overclocking functions and a nice port 80 error display. Between the normal A7VN8X and the 8RDA+ there is as good as no difference beside the extra OC functions of the 8RDA+.

So if you want to use SATA and the onboard sound and want very good sound quality search for a nForce2 board that uses the nVidia APU sound fuction instead of some Realtek AC'97 codec go for the A7VN8X Deluxe or Abit NF7-S (the Abit one is a awsome OC board).

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

Well since I'm planning on not using the onboard sound anyway then I should just get like the Abit or Epox board for overclocking with an nForce chipset? Also instead of Infineon would you say that Kingston would be a good substitute to corsair?

why wouldnt you want to use the onboard sound?anyway i'm using 2 sticks of kingston hyper X 256mb pc3000. i dont remember where i saw it but there was a benchmark where kingston hyper x took 2nd place, 1st was corsair, and it beat geil and..... damm i forgot. so anyways ya kingston is a good substitute for corsair if u dont want to spend that much.

Epox 8RDA+ uses the nVidia sound chip which is great for a board that cost around $90-$95. It's difficult to keep track of which nforce2 motherboard has what feature with so many nforce2 motherboards out there. But, I don't want to interrupt the conversation too much as I am also learning from <b>svol</b>. Please continue...

Well the Epox website clearly states it doesn't use the nVidia APU but uses the Realtek ALC650E codec.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

Yes the Kingston HyperX memory also seems to be good memory for overclocking.

And yes if you don't want to use the onboard sound search a board without onboard sound (which are very rare) or one that uses the much cheaper Realtek codec to get the lowest costs and as said the Abit and Epox boards are the best overclockers.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

Rest assured, Epox 8RDA+ uses the nVidia APU. 100 percent positive. The sound is fed through Realtek physical layers but the nVidia APU does the processing.

Hmmm... I did a check with the Deluxe board of Asus which uses the APU 100% sure and you're right.

But then I checked Anandtech's round-up and I saw this:
'Like most of the other nForce2 boards, EPoX uses the ALC650 AC'97 codec to take advantage of the nForce APU. Remember that the nForce2 APU only acts as a DSP, final sound quality is still greatly determined by the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) in the ALC650 AC'97 codec.'

Then that combination must be a pretty good one according to the soundcard comparising Tom did.

Man was I confused... but it is indeed pretty impressive that the 8RDA+ still features the nVidia APU for such a low price.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

This issue greatly puzzled me until some nforce gurus at nForcersHQ cleared it up. Yeah, you wouldn't be the first to be thrown off by that.

oh by the way, for the guy who was asking why I wouldn't use the on-board sound it would be because I'm planning on getting an Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platnium, and even if you think it's a waste of money or whatever I don't care I'm still getting it I like Creative Labs and have always had great luck with their sound cards ever since my dinosaurs of pcs the 486 SX 33 which is still someplace in my parent's basement. And you have helped me decide that I think I will now get the Abit Mboard Kingston ram of PC3500 with 2 sticks of 512MB and a Athlon XP 2800 processor

now all I need to decide is which heatsink I'm going to get (and I'm not going for some expensive N2 or water cooled system even though they would be extensivly cool [which is not meant as a pun but makes a pretty good one non the less]) and then how high to over clock it. Any thoughts?

oh and if you are wondering what video card I've decided I'll get the ATI 9700 128mb Pro card.

Oh and I'd like to thank all of you for your input so far because you've been most helpful

one more thought, with all of what I'm getting as sound card/video card ram etc do you think the Abit board would be best? Just wondering because I've heard some good things about MSI's board with a slightly higher FSB than Abit or Asus's board or would MSI make it difficult to overclock and since I'd be wanting to overclock it a bit make it stupid to get the msi over the Abit board?