new oc'er looking for mobo advice

[cricket]

I'm building a new system, which will be my first venture into overclocking. I don't need the fastest system ever, just want to have fun tinkering. Right now I'm looking at getting the XP1700 from newegg for $43.

2 questions:

Is that a good chip choice or should I go with the 2100?

Between Epox/Abit/Asus, what board is going to be best for a newbie?

Thanks

 

[the hammer]

I'm building a new system, which will be my first venture into overclocking. I don't need the fastest system ever, just want to have fun tinkering. Right now I'm looking at getting the XP1700 from newegg for $43.

2 questions:

Is that a good chip choice or should I go with the 2100?

Between Epox/Abit/Asus, what board is going to be best for a newbie?

Thanks

Noob or no Noob...get the ABIT NF7 v2.0 or NF7-S v2.0. Overclocks great and is easy too.

Hammer

 

[altec]

I would suggest ordering your chip from www.excaliberpc.com. They are a little more expensive but they guarantee that they will ship you an exact stepping date/code. I would look for the DLT3C JIUHB0310XPMW if I were you. You can also pick up the Abit NF7-S from excaliberpc, with a BIOS recovery kit for $120, which is a steal considering it is the best board out there IMHO. Good luck, and tell us what you decide to get.

 

[Abra_Volta]

Cricket, you sound like you're in the same boat I am.

I am also getting ready to build my first oc'ing rig. Here's what I chose to start with (just ordered last Saturday).

Abit NF7 Rev 2.0 Motherboard
I chose this over the much heralded NF7-S because of a couple reasons. 1) I don't care about sound quality, and 2) SATA doesn't seem to be up to par yet, so i'll stick with the old stuff. NF7 is also about $20 cheaper than it's -S cousin.

AMD XP1700 DLT3C 0310 XPMW
For a modest premium to KNOW what you're getting is a good choice in my book and for the most part overclockers to around a 2.2Ghz average

SLK-900u Heatsink
It's big, it cools, nuff said.

Corsair XMS PC3500 512MB
I splurged here and went for big. I'm hoping this RAM will last me a while...and the wife said I can pick up a 2nd stick next paycheck. It will be the first time ever that i've had more than 512 in one of my machines.

Now I just can't wait for it to get here.

 

[cricket]

Thanks for the input, still a little more time before I'm buying. Definitely willing to pay extra at excaliber, thay have a $10 discount on cpu/mobo so that knocks of shipping. I'm going to go with Abra_Volta on the sound issue and save some bucks getting a rev2 NF-7.