Need advice with upgrades

Hey guys this is my rig:

Barton 2800+
Vantec Aeroflow
Asus A7V8X-X (Upgrading)
Kingston DDR333 512 (Upgrading)
Sapphire 9500 Pro (oc 364.50 core 310 mem)
Antec True Blue 480
Antec soho tower w/ 8 fans

I realize that my memory and motherboard are bottlenecks when overclocking so that's why I'm chucking them and picking up new ones tomorrow. Question is WHAT motherboard and RAM? Do I get the Epox 8rda+ with a stick of 512 Corsair PC3500 or Abit NF7-S with the Corsair? Considering I bought my current mobo and ram last week I don't want to upgrade for a while. Luckily I have sold them at almost what I paid.

Whadaya guys think and what kind of 3DMark2001 and 2003 scores can I pull off with a new setup?

Currently ----> 2001 13656 and 2003 4350

Thanks for the insight

Upgrade? I guess you have money to burn...

I'd go for the NF7-S because of the cool soundstorm certified onboard chip.

As for RAM, get 2x256MB PC3200 Corsair sticks or something

I've had good luck with my A7N8X and GeIL PC3500, so you might want to look into those.

To note about your 3D Marks:
I've benchmarked my system with a Radeon 9500 and got 11219 in 2001 and about 2900 in 2003. For some reason, my 2003 score seems a bit weak and I can't figure out why--perhaps you can help?

Now back to your topic. The Corsair RAM is really good, but the GeIL seems to perform just about the same and costs typically 10-20% less. You can pick up a gigabyte of PC3500 dual-channel ready GeIL for about $210 now. The Corsair might have dropped, but I'm not sure.

Mobo: nForce2, Best Abit, most cost effective Epox (excellent for the $ but no serial hard drive and North Bridge V adjustment)

Best is twinmos/ch-5 winbond pc3200
http://www.memoryx.net/gn256pc3200.html

two 256 is better than one 512...

Particle said:

I've had good luck with my A7N8X and GeIL PC3500, so you might want to look into those.

To note about your 3D Marks:
I've benchmarked my system with a Radeon 9500 and got 11219 in 2001 and about 2900 in 2003. For some reason, my 2003 score seems a bit weak and I can't figure out why--perhaps you can help?

Now back to your topic. The Corsair RAM is really good, but the GeIL seems to perform just about the same and costs typically 10-20% less. You can pick up a gigabyte of PC3500 dual-channel ready GeIL for about $210 now. The Corsair might have dropped, but I'm not sure.

Click to expand...

Is you 9500 overclocked? I went from 3550 3dmark 2003 to 4350 just by overclocking my video card. Hope it helps. Look at my first post to see my clock speeds.

No, I haven't overclocked it. In another machine (a Dual-board of all things) the score was around 1500 marks more with the same card. That board didn't have 8x AGP or near as fast of RAM.

It's puzzling--I'll see what I can do about it. The GF3 Ti500 that was replaced got almost 10,000 marks in 2001. There was only a difference of 1341 marks in 2001. That seems insanely low to me. Both ran with default core and memory speeds, fastwrites enabled, 4x AGP on the GF and 8x AGP on the Radeon.

Both of your scores seem rather weak. You may need Detonator Destroyer, and make sure that you reinstall the nForce2 drivers.

I thought Detonator Destroyer is for Win 9x/Me only...

Reinstall the nForce drivers? Why? (Not that I question you--just wondering about the reason)