A gen. hardware debate if anyones interested...

OK, heres an email from someone i know. i want to get a good board to OC until i upgrade to an ic-7 2.4c.

im looking at epox 8rda+ and some twinmos 2x256winbond.

or asus p4p800. heres what my buddy suggested.

Alright here is my side......As far as overclocking I would stay away from
amd just because they just changed the production process yet are still
using old technology and just upping speed. Intel has kept the same
production from 1.6-2.8 with the 400mhz fsb....I say 400mhz fsb because you
want as much room as possible when overclocking the fsb which is all you can
do on an intel chip. So the best intel chip for ocing is the 1.6a and they
go down from there, luckily you are close with a 2.0a so you should be able
with the right ram and board run at 2.4 or 2.5 assuming the chip is good,
what will limit you is harddrives, pci cards, etc. because they have to
share the same bus and often can't keep up. If you get a board that
seperates the chip fsb from the rest of the system it is ok but your 2.5
overclock will really only feel like a 2.2 because the bus of the system is
still slower. So finally I suggest you look at this board and memory I show
at the bottom of this page and Ill tell you why 1. The motherboard has 4 ram
slots always key when overclocking because you want to use small memory
modules. 2. This board has a power card that slides in to maintain stability
under ocing 3. It has a dual bios so if you crash with the bios you
overclocked with you can boot with a normal one. 4. I recommend 2 256mb
chips instead of 1 512mb chip because 512mb chips have to cram more ram on
the same space as 256mb so there are more errors which only get worse when
you overclock. The ram that I chose isnt the fastest but it will remain
stable if you oc it to faster settings. Here are the parts and the numbers
so you can look them up on newegg.com 1. Gigabyte GA-SINXP1394
#N82E16813128170 2.MUSHKIN DDR 256MB PC-2700 #N82E16820146279

Hmmm interesting? I've always used AMD...not that Intel isn't anygood, but with my 2400 running at 2.2GHz at the moment I'm not about to complain about the performance...plus the mult is unlocked so I can change it in the bios and I don't have to worry about running my ram up or my pci bus....I'm still at stock voltage too...I dunno a good nforce2 board with dual channel ddr and a 1700+ isn't a bad route to go...plus it's cheap

Yea, I know. Thats why I was confused.

A lot of people give the Epox board some good reviews, and love it.

Im just going to want something that will out perform my current rig, Aopen 4bmax p42.0a (northy) and a gig of ram.

why not just save the money and you'll get the other upgrade faster?

Your friend's email is further evidence that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

His remarks on AMD make no sense at all. They haven't changed a manufacturing process that I'm aware of. Unless he is talking about the 64 bit Opteron chips, which would have no effect on the Athlon range. The Barton's have a larger L2 cache and faster default FSB speeds, but I believe they are built on the same die as the TBred XP's. An Athlon (TBred or Barton) on a nForce2 board is a very solid overclocking set up that rivals Intel for reliability and outright performance.

His Intel advise is no better. Nine months ago the 1.6A or 1.8A was one of the best choices a savvy overclocker could make. But the emerging 800MHz boards and CPU's have left them behind. Getting a P4-A chip to run at the default speed for these new boards, like the P4P800 you are considering, would take a 100% overclock. Even for the money you'd be much better off shopping for a 2.4B/533 chip and stretching that to 3.2-3.4GHz.

His comments about memory are half-right. You typically do get better overclocks with smaller, single-sided memory modules. And in the days before Dual Channel DDR, you also got a better overclock running one stick of RAM. But D-DDR complicates the matter. You get better memory and application performance running two sticks at default speed in dual channel than one overclocked stick in single channel. How multiple sticks overclock vary greatly between memory and motherboard brands, and even between memory sticks. You pays your money and takes your chances.

The remarks about performance slowdowns when running the PCI and AGP bus at their default speeds is simply wrong. Locking the AGP and PCI speeds allows much greater overclocking and system performance because those peripheral devises are very picky about bus speeds. In ye olde days the limit on an overclock was very often a fussy sound or video card. Anyone who was there will only give up locked dividers when you pry them from their cold, dead hands.




Okay, that said I did notice something in your post that should give you thought. You write that this 865PE or nForce2 rig is going to "hold you over" until you can get an IC7 and 2.4C. Frankly, a XP 2500+ on the Epox board, or a 2.4B on the P4P800, would be very comparable in performance to the IC7/2.4C setup. If you go this route you're going to be buying the same performance twice.

Unless you have money to burn, I'd advise picking one or the other, but not both.




BHD

I have a barton 2500+ processor.. and was able to get it to 2.2ghz, tho VERY unstable. i had to back it down to 2.1 to run 3dmark, and it was workin fine.. still that is not a bad 300 mhz increase for a biostar m7vit pro.. dont you think?

A lot of his advice was good - 8 months ago.

The P4P800 is an awesome board though. It's compatible with the new 800mhz fsb P4's, as well as older P4's. It has dual channel memory, allowing for more bandwidth than P4's could use before, though it's not canterwood so it's not the absolute top bandwidth available. It does have gigabit ethernet, if you are inclined to use a network that incredibly fast. It has SATA raid, and it overclocks very well... to at least 250fsb (if your stuff can handle that.) With the new 2.4C P4, an awesome overclocker that reaches about 3ghz or better and costing about $175, this is a worthy platform.

Thanks BHD.

What you said makes sense. Thats the kind of responses I like to get.


I havent decided what Im going to do yet. I might get the EPox board with some Corsiar memory.

I will have two rigs in my room, so it wont be a waste.

BaldHeadedDork said:

The remarks about performance slowdowns when running the PCI and AGP bus at their default speeds is simply wrong. Locking the AGP and PCI speeds allows much greater overclocking and system performance because those peripheral devises are very picky about bus speeds. In ye olde days the limit on an overclock was very often a fussy sound or video card. Anyone who was there will only give up locked dividers when you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

BHD

Click to expand...

Here's the technical explination of locking down the busses/running memory asynchronusly.... In case anybody is interested


PCI/AGP cards can limit the overclock that you get from your chip. They may refuse to let the system boot at some uber-OC, or just make it unstable enough to annoy. However, with boards that support locking and asynchonus memory, overclocking has become much eaiser.

You can lock down the PCI/AGP bus so that your cards don't have fits at higher bus speeds. This will generally let you reach your chips maximum overclock, as it would be totaly independant of any other parts. However, this does not mean that this is a magical cure all....

The main reason that we overclock the FSB is so everything in our system is speeded up. PCI, AGP, and memory access will all be sped up with the addition of more FSB speed. When you lock them down though, you loose the performance enhancements from overclocking those devices.

HOWEVER!!! The effects of locking down the busses and running the memory asynchronusly are very often negated with the additional overclock that can be reached.
For example: If you were to run a system at 140x15 on two systems, with one of them having a locked bus, the unlocked system would perform only slightly better. But while the unlocked system may max out at 143x15, you may be able to push the locked system to 150x15, causing any negative effects of locking to be negated. In fact, I would guess that only a few MHz increase on the FSB would negate the effects.

In short, two systems (one with a locked PCI/AGP bus, the other without) will perform differently, with a very slight advantage to the computer with the unlocked bus. A slight increase in FSB though, will more than likely negate any of these effects. So generally, it's better to run with the busses locked since you will be able to probably get a higher FSB speed, and thus surpass the performance difference quite easily.

JigPu