Help Me Before I Purchase All This Stuff

[lostshoe420]

This is what I'm going to be ordering for my new computer...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishHistoryReview.asp?position=HISTORY&submit=VIEW&ID=476407

I'm open to any suggestions/comments....I'm still debating if I want the SATA hard drives since I have no idea how to do the whole Raid 0 thing.
Also, is the memory too much for my needs?

I want the machine to play the latest games, but it doesnt necessarily have to be the best of the best. And I want it to last me a couple years (generations in computer time).

Any help is appreciated, and thank you in advance.

P.S. I've had this wishlist for almost 2 months now, and I really want to start ordering everything.

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

Looks like a great setup to me. Everything looks good and will last you for awhile. You should be able to get taht barton to 2200mhz atleast. The raid 0 thing wont be that hard either and if you search the forums there is all kinds of things about setting up.:cool:

[simpleman]

i would get either eopx or an abit mobo
in place of that asus

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

My experience with abit has been awful. My NF7-S, when overclocking FSB, would shut off my system and do a siren beep for no apparent reason. Abit said it was temps or out of spec voltages. Definitley wasnt the temps and "OUT OF SPEC VOLTAGES?!?!?!" Isn't that part of overclocking?!?

Epox and Asus are the only boards I buy. The A7N8X has been a great board for me, as well as other people I know. I bought mine awhile I go, so I didnt get the 2.0rev, but its still a great board for overclocking and you wont get a siren beep that cuts off your computer if u raise ur fsb.:rolleyes:

[lostshoe420]

What about the memory...too much?

[snvpa]

personally i'd get a gig of ram but I know that can be expensive. i just like to run windows without a paging file.

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

512 is required for xp (Maximum Performance) but getting more can't hurt. You won't run into any problems running 512.:cool:

[DeathAngelLST]

Originally posted by Bon3thugz43v3r
My experience with abit has been awful. My NF7-S, when overclocking FSB, would shut off my system and do a siren beep for no apparent reason. Abit said it was temps or out of spec voltages. Definitley wasnt the temps and "OUT OF SPEC VOLTAGES?!?!?!" Isn't that part of overclocking?!?

Epox and Asus are the only boards I buy. The A7N8X has been a great board for me, as well as other people I know. I bought mine awhile I go, so I didnt get the 2.0rev, but its still a great board for overclocking and you wont get a siren beep that cuts off your computer if u raise ur fsb.:rolleyes:

My rig is crap as well. My barton can't handle it. At 9x200 it's prime stable, at 10/11x200 and 1.7/1.725V unstable, that's complete B***S***!!! At 210 2-3-3-11 and 2.8V prime runs for just a few minutes. I definitly ****HATE**** Abit. Like i said a couple of weeks ago, money wasted for nothing :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

Ya I feel your pain...I refuse to ever purchase anything buy abit again because not only are their boards crap, so is there tech support. You'll be lucky if you can get anyone without a strong foreign accent on the phone.:(

[Hookj5]

I run the A7N8x Del. and I love it. No problems at all. The A7N8X-X is on sale for 69.95 http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=13%2D131%2D468&searchdepa=1 I hear good things about that one too. Barton 2500+ is the best way to go IMHO. Even locked, you should be able to get close or exceed 3200+ stock speeds, but to get there you will need better than stock heatsink and fan. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=&sumit=Go&description=35%2D109%2D011&searchdepa=0 is really good.

[Shade00]

Since the Abit NF7s have become weaker and the AN7 is a poor substitute, the only boards I can recommend for overclocking are the DFI NFII Ultra Infinity and the LAN Party NFII Ultra B. They're basically the same board, but the LAN Party board comes with a ton of extras. Anyway, the DFI boards have tons of voltage options in the BIOS; vdd up to 1.9v and vdimm to 3.3v are some of the most notable. Most of the boards are capable of 240+ with an unlocked chip and 3v+ through some BH-5.

Edit:
Originally posted by Hookj5
IThe A7N8X-X is on sale for 69.95 http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=13%2D131%2D468&searchdepa=1

The A7N8X-X unfortunately doesn't support dual channel DDR.

[lostshoe420]

I went with the delux just because of its sheer popularity (on newegg at least) and the fact it has the only onboard audio worth listening to on a mobo...I'm not going to overclock very seriously. Heck, i've never even tried it before. Do you think this board will help me achieve semi-notable speed increases?

Also, is the fact it doesnt support dual channel ddr a big drawback? If not, I'll just purchase one stick of black level 2 at 512, then i can add another later.

[Shade00]

Only the A7N8X-X doesn't support dual channel DDR. The A7N8X Deluxe does.

[cobray]

You will not go wrong with the Abit NF7-S. Just make sure you get the 2.0 revision of the board.

[DeathAngelLST]

Originally posted by cobray
You will not go wrong with the Abit NF7-S. Just make sure you get the 2.0 revision of the board.

Really... read my sig... i can barely overclock this thing without getting error in prime95. And i'm not alone on this...

[Shade00]

The NF7 series has really gone down in quality. That's why I recommended the DFI board earlier for overclocking.

[Gautam]

Ditto to what Shade00 said. Its disheartening to see Abit's quality decline so drastically...they weren't always this way...look at my sig ;) . The Asus should serve you well, but the DFI's look amazing; 240mHz+ right out of the box. :drool: Getting memory to match is another story...

It really would be worth your while to have a RAID 0 array. The load times for just about everything are literally cut in half, so while it may not improve benchies, it'll make your system feel a lot faster.

[DeathAngelLST]

Bad thing is... i can't find a DFI mobo anywhere.

[Steven4563]

looks nice to me :)

[lostshoe420]

Can anyone find me a link on how to set up a Raid 0 array (in depth setup)...I read a lot of tutorials that talk about it, but I really need to know exactly how to do it.

[lostshoe420]

OK, I listened to suggestions for the past couple days, and have updated my wishlist accordingly...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishHistoryReview.asp?position=HISTORY&submit=VIEW&ID=476407

Let me know what you guys think yet again (at least i value your opinions :) )

[cobray]

Originally posted by DeathAngelLST


Really... read my sig... i can barely overclock this thing without getting error in prime95. And i'm not alone on this...

I think there are alot more people on this board who have had success with the NF7-S as opposed to people who have had problems. Im sorry your having problems with yours (Perhaps it could be that crap Geil memory you have)

I do not hesitate to recommend the NF7-S 2.0 as it is the BEST motherboard for the AMD Socket A platform IMHO.

If you don't want to believe me (and why should you since Im just another dork out here) look at the top 3DMark2001 and 3dMark03 scores on Futuremark, almost all of them run the NF7-S.

[DeathAngelLST]

I'm not the only one having problems. I know A LOT more people who can't get their system stable with POS NF7(-S) and better quality ram.

My ram is the problem? NOT. Unless you call memtest stable for hours with fsb210 2-2-2-11 2.83V a problem. Plus 3 USB ports are dead. Nice eh?

[cobray]

Originally posted by DeathAngelLST
I'm not the only one having problems. I know A LOT more people who can't get their system stable with POS NF7(-S) and better quality ram.

My ram is the problem? NOT. Unless you call memtest stable for hours with fsb210 2-2-2-11 2.83V a problem. Plus 3 USB ports are dead. Nice eh?

Ok. First off im sorry for hijacking this thread. But I must respond to this: I just saw in this thread posted by you
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=257145
about your abnormally high CPU temperature. Well, that is probably whats holding back your overclock. If you got the temps down to about 35-40 degrees I have a feeling you would get "better" results than you are getting also. If I were you I would try to bring it down to 200x11 at 1.65 Vcore and go up from there. From your other thread you say you have crappy cooling and dont want to invest any more money into getting your system stable. So please do not blame this on the Abit NF7. Sure there may be "alot" of people who are having problems with the Abit board, but there are "alot more" people who have had success with it.

So lostshoe420, you can go with a known winner, or you can solicit a few peoples opinions on what you should get. Apparently some of them want to recommend boards that they dont even have. Which is fine. So if you want to take thier recommendations go ahead.

If I were you I would just go ahead and get your stuff. If you dont like the motherboard or it fails your expectations you can always put it up for sale and get another one.

[CrashOveride]

Why 2 SATA Power converters?
First off you have 1 HDD, then your PSU already has at least 1 SATA connector... (maybe 2 but I think just 1).

Unless you have other SATA HDDs...

Besides that I would get the NF7-S (I just like it better, Asus isn't that bad) but everything else looks great:D

[lostshoe420]

woah i couldnt really follow some off that, it got a little off track


i meant to have 2 hard drives (forgot to put it in), but its there now


what about the memory i picked? is it too much?

[Gautam]

512 is a good amount of memory; definitely not too much. But buy 2 256mb sticks so that you can run them in a dual channel array. Other than that, bite the bullet already! :D

[DeathAngelLST]

Originally posted by cobray


Ok. First off im sorry for hijacking this thread. But I must respond to this: I just saw in this thread posted by you
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=257145
about your abnormally high CPU temperature. Well, that is probably whats holding back your overclock. If you got the temps down to about 35-40 degrees I have a feeling you would get "better" results than you are getting also. If I were you I would try to bring it down to 200x11 at 1.65 Vcore and go up from there. From your other thread you say you have crappy cooling and dont want to invest any more money into getting your system stable. So please do not blame this on the Abit NF7. Sure there may be "alot" of people who are having problems with the Abit board, but there are "alot more" people who have had success with it.

Crappy cooling? 5 80mm fans and a copper+silver HSF... but that's crappy... okay. I turned on my room's a/c and it tops at 51°C. Interesting that a friend of mine has about the same rig as me, except the hd and video card and 2 fans only, reaching 58°C and still got 2.3GHz stable in prime95.
Abit has gone down to crap. S*** mobo, S*** technical support. E-mailed them twice 1 month ago and got no reply. How nice of them (F*****S).

EDIT: BTW my friend's rig is 6 months old, so i suppose Abit's quality dropped in 6 months...
Oh ya, 1.75V didn't help keeping this stable, you can figure how 1.65V would be.

[CrashOveride]

Originally posted by DeathAngelLST


Crappy cooling? 5 80mm fans and a copper+silver HSF... but that's crappy... okay. I turned on my room's a/c and it tops at 51°C. Interesting that a friend of mine has about the same rig as me, except the hd and video card and 2 fans only, reaching 58°C and still got 2.3GHz stable in prime95.
Abit has gone down to crap. S*** mobo, S*** technical support. E-mailed them twice 1 month ago and got no reply. How nice of them (F*****S).

EDIT: BTW my friend's rig is 6 months old, so i suppose Abit's quality dropped in 6 months...
Oh ya, 1.75V didn't help keeping this stable, you can figure how 1.65V would be.

anything that resusltsin over 50C is crappy in my book... unless maybe you are at 2v or somthing...

[cobray]

Originally posted by DeathAngelLST

it tops at 51°C

This is not an insult against you. All im saying is that 51 degrees is probably too hot. Maybe you should reseat your heatsink or try something else to get your CPU temperatures down. Im sure that would help you in your overclock.