retail cpu

im gonna buy an AMD Athlon 3200+, and wuz wondering is it better to buy a retail cpu that comes with a fan or buy just the cpu itself and buy a separte fan?? =)

Good thing you posted before buying.

9/10 people buy a 3200+ then skimp on other components.

Get a 2500+, it's 3 or 4 times cheaper, and it overclocks similar.
Get OEM, then spend the money you save on cooling (Thermalright heatsink), most importnatly name brand Power Supply:

Many PSU manufacturers list specs that do not reflect true capabilities of their products so all info on the PSU label doesn't mean much except for the brand, just look for the brand: All Antecs (Channel Well) are good (Antec True Power is better), Fortron (Sparkle), Sirtec (Enlight, Vantec, Thermaltake), or more expensive Herolchi (Heroichi), PC Power and Cooling, or not as good but not dangerous HEC, TTGI, Zalman (Aopen).

Quality RAM.

You will overclok the 2500+ with these components further than you would 3200+.

It's the other components that count for overclocking. 2500+ and 3200+ are similar chips unless you have extreme cooling already.

Make sure you get an nForce2 board. (Abit is the best overclocker).

i dont plan on overclocking tho ^^ i havnt built a computer b4 and dont wanna mess wit it and risk breakin sumthing lol~

Read this http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207088
and your motherboard manual.

The only thing you need is a will to spend a few minutes reading it.

Then if you make the right choices in purchasing your equipment, you can overclock a 1700+ Thoroughbred B that costs $49 all the way to:
3200+ speeds, easy.

If you buy a Thermalright or equivalent copper heatsink for $20 and a name brand Power Supply, this is very doable.

Come on, you know you want to...

BLOB said:

im gonna buy an AMD Athlon 3200+, and wuz wondering is it better to buy a retail cpu that comes with a fan or buy just the cpu itself and buy a separte fan?? =)

Click to expand...

You get a 3 year warranty with retail CPU.
Depending on where you buy it, OEM CPUs have about 30-day warranties.

Retail CPUs come with retail heatsinks that are good for stock speeds but not for major overclocking.

thanks but i *really* dont want to overclock, im lazy xD

its not much overclocking tho u only have to set the fsb to 200 on a 2500+ and there u have it a 3200+

c627627 said:

Come on, you know you want to...

Click to expand...

lol......

He's right. You may not want to right now, but if this is your first, once you get it up and running that little overclocker bug is gonna bite you. You're gonna say, "Well maybe just a little fsb tweak, that's all," then the next thing you know your water cooling a 2.6 gig monster and squeezing every mhz you can out of it while building another one!
I started out thinking the same way you did, trust me this stuff is addictive! Besides, even if you don't ever overclock, it's still a good idea to use quality parts. The few extra bucks you spend now could save you a trip through the forums to find out why your machine crashes after you installed that second hd

ok but im still wondering if i shud buy a separate cpu fan or use the one that comes wit it =3

Personally, I would buy the retail version for the warranty, and buy the better heat sink and a TT Smartfan II. It's a small price to pay compared the overall cost of the entire system, plus the extra peace of mind in knowing that the cpu is getting excellent cooling.
Also, don't forget to lap the heatsink, and use a good thermal compound like Artic Silver 3, no matter which heatsink you go with.

i think the warrenty for retail cpus is only if you use the fan that comes with... so if yoo use a different heat sink the warrenty wont apply

I suppose you're right. I don't worry much about warranties on cpu's or mobos, as they are void as soon as I turn up the juice anyway and I won't RMA something I cooked.

One advantage of overclocking is it can save you money. Spending the extra money for a 3200+ is not wise IMO. It is almost a certainty that a 2500+ will overclock easily to 3200+ levels. The real question is how much OVER 3200+ levels they can be overclocked. The quality of the whole line of Barton-core XP processors is so good, they could probably label them all XP3200s, but there is a bigger demand for lower rated and lower priced processors. So, they mark some of the chips with XP2500, XP2800, etc. even though they can pass the factory tests for an XP3200.

The XP processors have been optimized and improved over the last few years. The XP2500 through XP3200 series with 512K cache (Barton cores) is the end of the product line, these are very high quality processors no matter what label they stamp on them.

Some people overclock just to see how far they can push their system. Others overclock for value; I'm a value overclocker and you could be also. I want high performance for a reasonable amount of money and risk. The XP2500+ is an incredible value IMO; many others agree.

Buy quality parts, but understand what you are buying and why.

Good Luck

ok... so lets say i was gonna buy a 2500+ and overclock it, wud i have to buy a better heatsink/fan than the one that wud come wit in a retail box? lyke one that wud support a 3200+?

OEM (non retail, without heasink & fan) CPU 2500+ can overclock 2.3 or 2.4 GHz which is like PR Rating of 3400+ provided you have a quality all copper Heatsink like Thermalright and quality name brand Power Supply.

nForce2 mobo of course.