need 2nd opinion

[bdayberr]

I am planning on upgrading my PC. I have a Dell 2350, with a 1.8 GHz northwood A, which I plan to use in my upgraded model. I also plan to use my current 2 sticks of PC2100 DDR Ram totaling 512 MB. I have a list of my new parts, and am simply asking for a 2nd opinion on the parts I'm going to buy, such as any warnings, or better suggestions within a decent price range. I want to OC my CPU to at least 2.6 GHz, which is why I chose water cooling and a 480 W PS. Thank you, here is the list.

mobo: ASUS MB P4B533 P4 INTEL 845E SOCKET478 FSB533MHz 3DDR AGP4X 6PCI

case: THERMALTAKE XASERII A5000A PLUS WINDOWED ATX CASE NO PS (BLACK)

ps: THERMALTAKE PUREPOWER 480W POWER SUPPLY W/BUTTERFLY DESIGN P/N: W0021

:cooling: THERMALTAKE A1604 AQUARIUS II LIQUID COOLING

[tbones1337]

i cant really offer opinion. but why use water cooling? When you can get the same results from Fans and its cheaper..

[iD10t]

i agree with tbones especially since that thermaltake kit performs about as well as decent air cooling.

pretty much anything made by thermalright will perform better. just be sure to check for motherboard compatability if you do go the thermalright route.

[Mico]

I am not sure about Dell, but I know some of the older Compaqs came with proprietary CD-drives, with rearranged pins and keys. You might want to check your drives against a friends or an extra around the house just to make sure they will work with non-Dell mobos.

In case you didn't know, this will void your warantee for any parts of the PC that came with the Dell: Mouse, keyboard, speakers, CPU, any soundcards, HDD's, or CD-Drives.

[bdayberr]

my dell warranty runs out in a week or so anyways. also, since you all know now that i plan to overclock the cpu to its limits, what cooling do you recomend? i am using atacom.com since they have the mobo i want, and they dont have any thermalright for p4s

[Smirabi]

dont buy that case. try to get an antec super lanboy from newegg. aluminum, window, 2x 120mm fans, one of which has blue leds... "schweet!" and it's only 67@newegg

see here (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-129-145&depa=0)


i know some people might think the case you like has "stlye" but that lanboy is just awesome. i'm about to get one for a comp i'm putting together for someone else

whatever you choose, good luck

[Mr.Radar]

Hmm.... I'm not up to speed on Intel OC'ing, but if you're going to be FSB overclocking you may need some faster RAM. Skip the Thermaltake stuff and go with a heatsink by Thermalright and the 530 watt Fortron PSU.

[hrhrhrFOOT]

Wait a minute... Northwood A? You wont get much of an OC out of that...
Willys arent good.

[bdayberr]

why wouldnt i get much of an OC out of that, cpudatabase shows much different, i pulled up the p4 northwood 1.8A, and the highest one was 3.7 GHz, and 3 with stock heatsink, and 2.6 average, not to mention that it was mentioned in maximum pcs cpu overclocking guide as one of the most overclockable cpus out there, at least at the time. i looked at that case on new egg, i might get that, i just want to make sure the cooling i get is good enough, and about my ram, do you mean that if i got PC2700 333 MHz that i could OC more?

http://www.cpudatabase.com/CPUdb/

[iD10t]

the oc you get depends on the core revision of your chip. when you pull it check the 5 digit S number on the heatspreader. if it turns out to be an older core revision you may not be able to get very high speeds.

if you got fater ram you would be able to run higher speeds on your ram and increase your systems performance.

[bdayberr]

well ill cross my fingers about the core revision. does anyone think i should think about another mobo? if i go for 2700 ram ill have to think about a different mobo as well. and as far as cooling, there isnt anything better than some decently priced liquid cooling, and if its a fan, will it cool it just as well?

[iD10t]

depending on how much the p4b533 will cost you you may be better off getting an is7 or p4p800 from newegg. granted they will probably be in the 100 dollar range, but at least they won't be technology thats almost a year old.

[bdayberr]

will my p4 northwood work on a newer model mobo though?

[iD10t]

it should work. it's got the same socket (socket 478).
i think as long as the bios has it's range go down to 100 fsb it should work.

[bdayberr]

well the p4p800 mobo series looks good, except one thing. only the vm model comes with compatability for non-ecc ddr 266 ram, the rest dont say non ecc, and the ram i have now is non ecc, so i would have to buy the vm, unless it would work with the ones that dont say non ecc just 266, someone help me clarify this.

[iD10t]

on newegg it says the p4p800 supports non-ecc 266 ram. so the ram should be good to go.

[bdayberr]

i think i've found what i want, except for cooling, this is the only decent heatsink i found by thermalright on newegg, which is the new site for my parts. Thermalright Copper Heatsink for both Intel and AMD, Model "SLK948U". if anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know, i want very good cooling.

[bdayberr]

well i got the parts, the new specs are:

1.8 GHz @2.7 Pentium 4
768 MB DDR PC2100 Ram
320 GB HDD
128 MB GeForce4 FX 5600
Vantec AeroFlow VP4-C7040
Sony DRU510AK DVD-RW

temps:
31C idle, 46C load

thanks for all your help!!!