How much is too much?

Well first of all, it's great to be here.

Anyways, I'm planning on building an Athlon XP rig overclocked to at least 2 Ghz, so I'll be hitting fsb speeds of about 150-166. It will be something along these lines:

Basic case, ~300w PS
Athlon XP 1800+ @ 2.0 Ghz
Epox ____ mobo (the one everyone talks about)
1024 megs Kingmax PC-2700
Radeon 8500 AGP card
IBM Deskstar 60gig HDD
16x DVD,24x CDRW
SB Audigy (OEM), Monsoon MM2000 spkrs
Windows XP
Bong-powered cooling system

Maybe that's more info than u guys need, but whatever. My question is, how does the Radeon 8500 (or AGP cards in general) hold up to high FSB speeds? What about hard drives, sound cards and other such PCI devices? Do u think this will work out?
btw, is there any advantage to getting a PCI NIC (Network Interface Card) as opposed to the onboard LAN thingy?

Thanks in advance

sounds good to me...agp cards hardly ever cause problems at high fsbs...its normally th hard drives or NICS that crap out...the IBM is a good choice as is the Sound Blaster....but the best NIC out there is Intel....you gotta pay for it though...havent seen any problems with my Kingston one at 41PCI bus...

Radeon 8500 will be fine at the fsb , I have run my 7500 at 150 fsb in my rig, you can see my gear in my sig. I experienced no probs with harddrive or any other peripherals or pci cards.

I would only go with a nic card after trying onboard lan first and if it did not do what you expect. I have read good things so if the board supports it give it a go, nic cards are cheap anyways if ya need to buy one.

If you can afford it I would go with a scsi drive, thats what I plan to do in time , and run a pair of em in raid 0.

Hope this feedback helps. BTW nice system you are putting together. Also I had a link on crucial pc2100 ddr ram that was good all the way to 165fsb, crucial is the best imho. Dunno if they make pc2400 or 2700 yet.......

Cisco Kid

wow - You muse have a nice amount of dosh to fork out for al lthat - one thing PLEASE make sure you at least get a 7,200RPM hard drive - from experience - i have worked on many computers - it makes a huuuuge difference form a 5,400 RPM drive - also you may probably want to get some fans for your hard drive if you go for a 7,200 - you can get fans that clip onto the hard drive itself - although i find these a bit underpowered and tend to go for the 120mm approach

But anyway m8 - enjoy your rig! (But if you give it to me - i promise i will enjoy it more)

and Welcome to the forums!

If you plan to go that high I would highly recommend a 400+ watt power supply. If you skimp on that then you are just asking for problems.

I agree about the power supply. It seems that your not skimping anywhere else..Look into the Enermax 550 watt one like mine. It's fairly quite and could power my house.. LOL.. also ocz makes some fast ddr.. pc 3000 if u wanna get your fsb up this should do the trick.. also i am very happy with my mushkin hi po.. it's stable to 150.. good luck and let me know how u unlock your xp..

OCZ 3000 is simply overclocked 2100....i would go with the 5ns Kingmax 2700....

If you plan on overclocking that high don't go onboard anything. If they crap out at high FSB you might have to replace the whole mobo. At least PCI add-ons you can take out and replace.

My 8500 has been at 200FSB with the Beta BIOS.

You definately need to upgrade the power supply. Also the IBM 60GXP's hard drives do not overclock very well on a high fsb.

Yeah, I should look into a more powerful PS. I hear that the XP's still take a bunch of juice to power (especially when overclocked). I can see what u mean by not going on-board anything too. I was just wondering if a PCI NIC would be better somehow (lower ping?) Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Thanks for the feedback

btw, what kind of hard drive would u suggest?

DiamondMax Maxtor 7200rpm are relatively cheap and bulletproof up to about 170-175MHz. NIC can be picky, you will have to find someone that is successfully using one at high fsb and try. You will have to make sure all your components can handle the high AGP and PCI speeds, as well as your RAM and memory timings. Over 160MHz gets picky, it might take some work, but the overall performance gets a big boost.

Maxtor are the fastest and most reliable (proven) however Seagate have been fine with me, till my 20gig failed....

Okay m8 - a BIG tip - before you buy ANY component at all - please oh please oh pelase research it. Search some forums, read some revews - i mean you may find its a) Not what you want or b) Crap.

From experience (oh i have so many low-quality components...) - I have a LOT of experience in buying crap components - i already have to return my Ti that wasnt a Ti, or my hardware modem that isnt a hardware modem, or my motherboard that has a unusable floppy controller, or my mustek 8x4x32 cd rewriter that keeps droppign speed down to 2x, or, or, or.

So again have lots of fun with your project - building a PC is ALWAYS fun - and overclockign it - twice the fun.