AMD 2400-M, what next???

I need some help!!!

I just bought an AMD XP 2400-Mobile processor, however I don't know what is the best of everything else.

What mobo and ram should I get???

MOBO wise....I have been looking at the DFI NFII Ultra Infinity because it has vCore capability upto 2.0 Volts and multipliers from 5 to 22.

On the other hand, I see everyone has the Abit NF7-S r2, but the vCore only goes up to 1.85. Will I need that extra .15 volts for stability?????

Then my second big question is RAM. I want to buy Dual Channel 512MB PC3500 RAM but what brand. Any recommendations?

I have been eyeballing this PMI Turbo memory, but I have never heard of it but its cheaper than everone else. Then there is Geil Ultra, OCZ, Geil Golden Dragon, Muskin Level One, and OCZ Platinum. Have I missed any, what do you suggest?

Lastly.....Hard drives. How much performance boost am I going to see if I go to the Raptor???? And Raid setup???? Right now all I have is a single 60 Gig WD harddrive 7200 RPM. Should I just get dual 60's with a Raid array????

I am a cheap, so money is an object. I have around $350 for this project.


By the way here is what I already have:

AMD XP 2400-M, Swiftech 370 HSF
ATI 9700 Pro, with Vantec HSF
RAM ?????
HD = 60 Gig Western Digital 7200 RPM
Philips 5.1 Sound Card
True Power 330 Watt Power Source
DVD-RW/CD-RW

Thanks in advance!!!!

Sax

The NF7-S has a max Vcore of 2.3v ... 1.85? your getting confused with the Asus board!

DFI UI has a max memory voltage of 3.3v and 2.0 volts on the Vcore.

I own both boards and can highly recomend both....
However, the DFI wins hands down for high FSB... and 2.3 vcore is way too much for air cooling... the most I would recomend for air OCs is 1.95v

As for your ram, if you wait a couple of weeks Buffalo are bringing out 512MB Single bank sticks which will be great for OCing in Dual Channel!

I like the asus boards with the NVidia chipset. They are reliable, come with really good onboard 6 channel surround sound, and tons of other stuff.

I have had a lot of MB's in my time, and the one thing I have learned is pay the extra money and get one from a time-tested company like asus, msi, or supermicro.

Just my 2 cents...

meganoob

I got those specs from Toms Hardware Guide, overview table. I guess I could have copied the Asus down by accident.

What is this Buffalo memory??? Got a link???

Thanks

Sax

Nothing official, but I got the tipoff from the memoryman (Buffalo Lab Tech that offers support on the amdmb forums)

LINK 1

LINK 2

Buffalo is a manufacturer of ram. I have 2 sticks of buffalo ram in my pc now, 2x512mb of cas2.5 P3200 running in dual channel, and I can hit almost 250fsb with just 2.9v in the ram. I got it from www.newegg.com which isnt suprising, because it is probably the most used online retailer for this forum. Good prices, great customer support/return.

Also, I can vouch for the A7N8X-e deluxe, its the board I hit 245fsb with. I love it, but I wouldnt mind having a dfi board either. I never realy liked the nf-7 too much, but thats just personal opinion.

1 last thing. In your first post, it sounded as though you thought you had to buy dual channel ram to run in dual channel mode. To clear things up, dual channel is just running 2 sticks of ram of equal size, and in some instances, a large chip in slot one(IE 512mb) and 2 smaller chips that are equivelant in size but half the size of the chip in slot one(IE 2x256). Of course, most people dont use that, they just get 2x512mb chips. Of course, you may already have known that.