Hello everyone, I am new to the board and I like the diversity of opinions on here. There are some very informative people here. I just purchased an ASUS A8N-SLI NForce4 board, Athlon 64 X2 4400, Zalman CNPS 7000B ALCU Heatsink, 2 GB of Corsair TwinX2048-3200C2PT, EVGA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB, 2 WD Caviar SE 16 320 GB SATA 3G & a Cooler Master RP RS-550-ACLY Power Supply. I already have a sexy plexy 716-A Burner and Audigy Sound card. What I want is for you to critique my setup and give me advice on overclocking slightly. I do a lot of multi-tasking and play games. I have never overclocked or built a computer from scatch. This is my first time. I appreciate all the help I can get. Oh..Just a small increase in the overclocking department. I want a reliable stable system. I knew about Opteron CPU but decided to go with unregistered ram. Thanks All!

You got a pretty sweet system there.

Well first of all dude, the 4400+ Thermals!

What Case are you using? Do U have Round Cables? and Artic Silver 5 is a MUST!. I'd ditch the stock fan on the processor for the CoolerMaster Dual Storm. It's cheap, and works Really well.

If your ram timings don't fail, just start messing the the Cpu Settings on FSB. start from 205 to 210 and on. if it dies onm you, ease the timing on the ram, for example CL2.5 Instead of 2, or even 3 @ higher OC. I got a 3800+ OC from 2.0Ghz to 2.6Ghz.

So my advice is just start Messing with it. but always check your thermal monitor. for a good system temp. "in my opinion" you shouldn't have over 40*c in IDLE.

Thanks for responding ElGoku. I am putting everything in a CoolerMaster WaveMaster TAC-T01 case. I will have round cables. I did get the Shin-Etsu G675 termanl paste for the proc and I have the Zalman CNPS 7000 heatsink. The ASUS board I got was the one that supports SATA 3G but it is not the high end board. It costs about $159.68 on Monarch's website. I have not seen any comparisions to my probable set up to overclock or use different parts. I am pretty much a newbie in this venture, but everything I hear from this board just makes me want to dive in and learn. ;-) Thanks again for helping out.

By the way the monitor I will use is a flat panel lcd 21 in from Sharp with 16 ms. I got this two years ago and I am not sure how well it will do with playing games. And yes I have not used this monitor yet, I was saving it for this moment. ;-) Man it took me awhile to save and build my dream machine. ;-) Thanks again and I appreciate all input.

You got a good set up there.

Here's a good guide to overclocking AMD's. Although I'm not sure how much if it holds true for dual cores.
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=g [...] howtoID=58

Here's a cheap air cooling solution. It cost me about 3 dollars and it dropped my temps 6+ degrees C.
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1187/

Thanks a1ien for the suggestion. I was wondering, if you are not going to overclock then heat should not be a problem for the CPU, is that right? Also has anyone played any games on a 16 ms Sharp LCD? Two years ago this was the top monitor to buy according to Maximum PC. I am not sure if I will have to upgrade my monitor. I am more into role playing games than FPS, but I occasionally love to play Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

Has anyone had a problem overclocking the Athlon 64 X2 4400 just 200 mhz? I think this should be good for me since I am new to this. Thanks for all the help I have gotten so far. I appreciate you guys!

When you do build your PC, make sure there is good airflow around the cpu and heatsink/fan. Don't let a lot of wires dangle over the fan as it will obstruct the airflow. If you aren't going to OC then you probably shouldn't worry about heat too much, but still keep an eye on it occasionally. I personally have a Samsung SyncMaster 915n monitor. I'm happy with that one, but take a look around and see reviews of monitors before you make a decision.

Ok a1ien. Thanks again for the input.