Will this be enough cooling?

Hey there, i'm a complete newbie to this area. I have been doing some background research and such, and now i have a question.

I am planning on buying a new gaming rig. In order to cut costs, I want to keep my old case, p/s, and memory. The case is generic atx, p/s is 450w, and memory is pc3200 ddr400 bought 2 years ago. The parts i have chosen to buy (after much research) are the 64x2 3800+ manchester, a8n-sli (not deluxe), Ge-Force 7800gt 256mb, dvd burner, sata2 hd.

I do not have watercooling or anything like that, but i do have a 18" high powered fan blowing directly into the open side of my computer and a small 80mm case fan right next to the cpu (which i might take out if considering it's really not doing anything)

Now, i actually have several questions:

1) should i spend the extra $100 on the a8n32-sli deluxe? For overclocking purposes more than the sli bonuses. The extra heat dissipation from the deluxe, is it worth it? The x16/x16 sli is nice too.

2) Can i safely up the fsb to 250MHz (not going to play with multiplier), given my ram is 2 years old? Going to be using stock cpu fan. I don't want to overdo the o/c, i just want to get more bang for my buck.

3) Is there anything i'm forgetting?

Thanks a lot.

Hello

the deluxe really doesn't offer that much over the regular unless you are dead-set on using SLI, Or you are dead-set on overclocking the begeezez out of it. the a8n-sli will handle overclocking just fine, but if overclocking is the reason you are buying the pc, i'd get the deluxe due to it's higher quality power circuitry, and the passive cooling thing keeps it pretty chilly, especially if you have alot of airflow, (which it siunds like you do) 18" fan? where'd you get one of those? I want one! on to the memory issue---
No, you can not up the fsb to 250 safely under stock settings unless it is high performance overclockers memory. What you can do, is lower the DDR/CPU ratio(Going to the DDR menu and lowering the speed from 400 to 333, 266, 200, whatever, It depends on how far you want to overclock. Of course you know when you raise the fsb, you DDR speed goes up also, what lowering the ratio does is start off there, but by the time you get up there, (to your oc goal) your ram will be running at 3200 speeds. The higher the overclock, the lower the ram setting needs to be. There isa program that does all the ratio math for you called A64memfreq 1.1, which can be found here --> http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7536

I hope I helped you out, message me if you have any more questions or if you already know all this and you wanna b***h at me.

grabka1984 said:

The parts i have chosen to buy (after much research) are ... Ge-Force 7800gt 256mb

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Don't buy that one, buy the newer, faster, cooler, quieter, better 7900GT. It is better in all respects - don't know about price difference, though. 7900GT is almost as fast as the older 7800GTX (not the newer 512MB version) and produces less heat.

The a8n32-sli deluxe does not cool better, it cools worse. It is a very hot running board.

If you have value ram now, there is no way you will hi 250 without using a divider. It takes pretty decent memory to run the memory at the same clock speed as the CPU (1:1). If you have decent memory, you may be able to do 1:1.

If you want to overclock, DFI is the way to go, but, DFI's are VERY picky about the hardware you have. You would need a new PSU, which you really should get anyway because I'm guessing your PSU is 20 pin and all of the motherboards now are 24.

Posted twice: stupid zone alarm.

thanks for the info wellnessoc5.

Yeah i decided to get the 7900gt after someone told me it just came out, and reading up on it it's basically a 7800gtx with better power consumption. I wanna build a computer that'll last me some time, so why not spend the extra 100 or so bucks on a much better card.

edit: Daddyjax, yeah i plan on getting the amd 3800+ dual core, or depending on how money i can save up i'd get the 4200+ x2. What's the advantage of using a DFI board as opposed to the Asus?

What brand of power supply is it?

Generic is bad news for gaming systems.

Maviryk, i plan on buying a new power supply, you're right my generic one won't cut it. If i've read correctly anything with dual 12v rails should work right? Or anything that says SLI certified.

I'll second the 7900GT. It's a bit faster than a 256 7800GTX (at standard clock frequencies), but it's about the same price as the older 7800GT.

You may be able to stay with your old PSU. eVGA recommends a minimum of 20A on the +12V line for a single 7900GT. (28A for SLI.) If your 450 W supply provides that, it'll probably be OK.

I went with an A8N-SLI over the A8N32-SLI Deluxe because I didn't plan to add a second graphics card, and I didn't want the extra SATA controller. (And I didn't feel like spending another $100 on the board.) Reviews I've read suggest that the A8N32 does not give better performance than the A8N-SLI, even with two cards in SLI. I don't know about overclocking potential, though; I'm just cruising with a 220 MHz bus frequency (and PC4000 RAM).

I have since made one modification to my A8N-SLI: I replaced the stock chipset fan with the heatpipe cooler from an A8N-SLI Premium. It cost $15 plus $5 shipping from http://estore.asus.com/shop/. It's silent, and I expect that it will last longer than the chipset fan. The net price was still lower than an A8N-SLI deluxe, and much lower than an A8N-SLI Premium.

If your system can handle a 250 MHz bus, but your RAM can't, you can always use a RAM divider. I have read that the Athlon memory controller gives good performance in asynchronous operation.

If the stock cooler on the 3800+ is one with the heatpipes, you may do well to stay with that for the time being. Its performance is supposed to be about the same as a Thermalright XP90c, so you'd have to spend a fair amount of money to do better. (I'm using a Thermaltake Big Typhoon with a 4400+. It works well, but it cost about $50, and it weighs over 800g.)

Daddyjaxx said:

The a8n32-sli deluxe does not cool better, it cools worse. It is a very hot running board.

If you have value ram now, there is no way you will hi 250 without using a divider. It takes pretty decent memory to run the memory at the same clock speed as the CPU (1:1). If you have decent memory, you may be able to do 1:1.

If you want to overclock, DFI is the way to go, but, DFI's are VERY picky about the hardware you have. You would need a new PSU, which you really should get anyway because I'm guessing your PSU is 20 pin and all of the motherboards now are 24.

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You can still use 20pin PSUs on 24pin motherboards. I haven't had any problems either. I've used both the surprisingly good 500W Rosewill 24pin PSUs and a 20pin X-Connect PSU. I moved the Rosewill to my Mac which is why I'm on the X-Connect (and the XConnect was free so why not?). Modular PSUs are nice but they seem more like a gimmick than anything. Placing my extra power cables for the Rosewill behind the motherboard tray looked better than the X-Connect's cables which are fairly thick and lack the cool mesh sleeving of the Rosewill PSUs and the Fortron Source PSUs.

In any case, don't worry about the 20/24pin deal. The extra 4 pins are supposed to help supply the board with more voltage but if theres a huge difference between the same quality 20pin PSU and a 24Pin PSU, I personally would go for whichever is cheaper. If the 24Pin unit is a few bucks more, you might as well go for it.

I use a 24 pin adapter since I have a 20 pin PSU and an NF4 board... BUT, I have a high quality PSU. I don't mean any offense by this, but Rosewill PSU's are pure crap. The PSU is THE most important part of the system. If you have a bad one and it blows, it will take everything plugged in with it. Buy cheap RAM, a cheap video card...never a cheap PSU.

Daddyjaxx said:

I use a 24 pin adapter since I have a 20 pin PSU and an NF4 board... BUT, I have a high quality PSU. I don't mean any offense by this, but Rosewill PSU's are pure crap. .

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The Rosewill PSU's built by ATNG are pretty good IMO. Their rebadged Deer and Powmax ones however... . I agree with Moto7451 about the 500watt model. I've been more than satisfied with my RP500. Granted it's not a PC P&C, but I wouldn't go with 'pure crap'.