Abit NF7-S *wondering*

Ok heres the deal. (1st post and big time newbie)
Ive been lookin at this motherboard (nf7-s)

I have an AMD XP1800+ Palomino
2x 256 PC2700
350w Enermax PSU
thermaltake volcano 11+ xaser edition & as3
cpu - 44c
case - 30c


I want to find out a few things...

#1 will I need to unlock my cpu to overclock with this board?
#2 How high of an overclock should I expect with and without unlocking?

those are the main 2 questions i can think of right now

please advise asap (I would like to pickup the board tomorrow )

thanks!!!

First and foremost:

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!

Ok as for your questions yes you will need to unlock your processor, because it is a palomino, which is factory locked.

The main reason you would want to unlock the processor is to lower your multiplier. There is not alot of overclocking headroom in a palomino chip so in order to take full advantage of the FSB that your NF7-S will be able to put out you would want to lower the multiplier some. I am trying to remember back to when I had an 1800+ palamino. I don't seem to recall getting it past 1.8ghz, even that might have been stretching it.

Ok now assuming that you could get your chip up to 1.8ghz, that puts you around 156fsb (the 1800+ has a mult of 11.5). Not exactly pushing your motherboard even close to what it can do. The other thing limiting you is going to be your heatsink fan. The volcano 11+ is probably better than the stock HSF (although I have seen others post their experiences saying it may not have been). In any case its not top notch cooling, so your OC will probably suffer a little bit due to that.

Anyways your best bet is probably just to buy a new cpu. If thats not in the budget then you should definatly unlock your cpu. Btw you never listed what kind of memory you have? You want to get as high fsb as you can, but your memory needs to be able to handle it ofc.

Your PSU is decent, but not great. IMHO there are alot better brands of PSU than enermax. Its not a "bad" psu, but its overpriced for its performance. You will be able to do some mild overclocking on it though. Your cpu isn't capable of the OCs that would really warrant a better PSU I don't think.

Thank you for the welcoming!

I thought I did post 2x samsung 256mb pc2700 ddr
is that not my memory?

anyways. right now I have my 1.53 1800+ palomino @ 1.66 (locked)
my budget right now only allows me to get this motherboard.
so I dont even think unlocking this cpu would be worth it if I can only hit 1.8 if i'm lucky.

without unlocking anything Ive got it at 11.5 x 144 fsb

with the pci lock on the nf7-s I would assume I could push the fsb a bit higher without unlocking the multiplyer, correct ?

I also want to take advantage of the 8x agp because i'm only getting 4xagp on my a7v333 & geforce fx 5200 ( i know its a **** card but I couldn't afford anything else at the time )

sw0nald said:

I thought I did post 2x samsung 256mb pc2700 ddr
is that not my memory?

Click to expand...

Oops sorry bout that. Brain fart!

As for getting further well that depends on what was holding back your oc attempts. I am not sure if the motherboard you currently have has a 1/4 or 1/5 divider on it. If it only has a 1/4 divider well then you may be able to get more fsb out of the nf7-s. If your current board has a 1/5 divider well then it should be good up to the mid 180s without issues.

As much as I like the NF7-S it pains me to say you may want to consider a cpu upgrade and wait on the new motherboard AGP 8x hardly makes any difference at all in performance over agp4x so I would not upgrade for just that reason. If you had a cpu and memory capable of taking advantage of the nf7-s then I would definatly recommend it, it is in my opinion the best AMD board out there.

hmmm...interesting.
well I would rather get the motherboard 1st and work my way up. Start with a good foundation and build up. Just like building...a building!

I dont know much about ocing yet so I cant really say whats holding me back right now :-\

Well its not a bad plan to start from the ground up. I gotta say the NF7-S is the easiest board to oc with that I have used. The AGP/PCI lock makes things so much easier. High FSB levels are not hard to hit either and it has very nice voltage options.

Once you get it and you start your ocing be sure to post your results and we can try and help you squeeze that last bit of performance out of your rig

I will indeed
Thanks for the quick help!!