Need some help deciding on Athlon 64

I have someone who wants me to build an Athlon 64 3200+ PC. I am reading a bunch of online stuff right now but wanted to get you guys/gals opinions on what parts I should use.

I need suggestions on the following items;

1. AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU Fan-- Or should I go with something lower or another series, it must be 64bit though.

2. AMD certified Motherboard that will allow for adjusting the FSB, voltage, etc. this is going to be OCed after the original taking and burn-in.

3. Optional Water Cooling System

4. Ceramic or Thermal grease? Going to use Artic Silver but I am not sure which may be best in this situation.

5. In the old days it seemed NVIDIA ran better with AMD and ATI with INTEL, does this still hold true to form, I am either going to get a ATI 9800 or the NVIDIA 5900 Ultra. Not sure which.

6. Most AMD boards say to use PC2700, but I was wondering with a good FSB OC and other tweaks would it not be better to run PC 3700 or higher? I would think the limitation would be the MB but because of the way the 64bit CPU hashes its code I am un certain.

Keep in mind I have only seen 3 CPU fans for this processor specifically. I am not really sure just how many amenities are available for such a new CPU.

Once again I thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Knowles Tech

Also if anyone has already OCed one of these beasts please log it into overclockers.com CPU Database, Skip has updated that information but it waits to be filled by you guys.

I have not worked with one of these yet, but I have been researching extensively and here are my opinions:

1. The Athlon64 3200+ is the lowest cpu in the line so far and the lowest cost choice for AMD64 compatability. From most reports, the Athlon64 runs cool and the retail fan / heatsink is effective and quiet.

2. Most motherboard bioses still seem to be evloving and the overclocking potential of the boards may change suddenly. Watch for overclocking oriented reviews online. Memory bus speed increases seem to be the only way to overclock the 754 pin Athlon64's as the moment. VIA chipset boards are getting better reviews than the nForce3 boards in these early days.

3. Keep watercooling in mind as an option, but I don't think that it will do as much good on an Athlon64 as it does on a P4 or XP. The SOI process Athlon64 does not react the same to increased voltage as the old cpu's did.

4. I beleive that AMD has finally allowed the use of thermal compounds with these cpu's. The heat spreader helps avoid problems with user error in compound application. Again, the cpu seems to run cool even with the stock cooling.

5. Graphics card compatability... I don't know.

Thanks for the reply and information Graphic67.
Out of the 39 people who have viewed this thread I was kind of hoping for more enthusiasm on this subject.

as to answer 1 question,,,Ceramic is better than thermal grease, make sure its a thin layer though

KnowlesTech said:

Thanks for the reply and information Graphic67.
Out of the 39 people who have viewed this thread I was kind of hoping for more enthusiasm on this subject.

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not many of us have experience with A64 yet....

wait a couple of months and ask again j/k

as of yet there are not too many boards out. ya, i would waight till after x-mas and let some mobo manufactures get some good boards coming off the line. in the mean time i would keep checking reviews.

unless you whant to be on the forfront and see what the FX can do for you.

i plan on getting one myself. there just isn't a lot of options for the AMD FX yet! notice i said yet. i would say in a month or so we will be seeing some good results, with a wider variaty of mobos and BIOS capabilities!