the best 200 bucks i ever spent...

i had these parts

2x512 corsair value ddr 400
x850 agp
2700+ thoroughbred
Crappy Chaintech mobo
250gig WD sata
cdrom
thermaltake purepower 500
antec ninehundred

i spent 200 on

asrock 4core dual vsta
e4400

i didn't have to reformat....everything was running 5 minutes after i had it in my case...

Azureus was destroying my mutlitasking (mostly multi tab browsing) not anymore

counterstrike source from 35fps to 110 at 1650x1080 and everything on high...

i can't believe how much bottle neck a socket a athlon is...i want x1950's to get dirt cheap (like 100 bucks)

i bet it invloved a stanley steamer 8O

Wow.That's a heck of an upgrade for 200 bucks.Have fun playing with it.Frankly though,I think I'll stay with my Athlon processors.Just for the heck of it,and I believe in AMD.

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.6 TOLEDO
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X EVGA 7950GT KO IN SLI
4X 512MB CRUCIAL BALLISTIX DDR500
WD300GIG HD/SAMSUNG 250GIG HD
ACER 22IN WIDESCREEN LCD 1600X1200
THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER 850WATT PSU
COOLERMASTER MINI R120
3DMARK05 13,471

does anyone know of a motherboard monitor that is compatible with the chipset?

I love the smell of a fresh cpu in the morning

"counterstrike source from 35fps to 110 at 1650x1080" .. not bad ,imagine if u had a 2900xt/xtx zoom

The CPU helped, that's for sure. Add the fact that the CG probably got a boost from finally using AGP 8X instead of 4X (crappy mobos can't handle 8X), the much better memory controller, RAM working now in dual channel (no dual channel on the old mobo, if I'm not mistaken), well, that definitely helps in high-def.

Welcome to the asrock club
Good choice of board, had mine nearly 9 months now. I won't feel guilty upgrading it because it didnt cost much anyway

Best $200 I ever spent on a computer was adding three 250 GB HDDs in a 15 GB/disk RAID 0 and the rest in RAID 5. Massive performance increase from putting the OS's scratch/build workspace on the RAID 0 and my files live nicely on the RAID 5. Never underestimate how much a poor HDD setup will hold you back- it literally felt like I'd doubled the speed of the system after moving the build/scratch stuff off of my main 74 GB Raptor onto the RAID 0 partition.

sunny27: The Opty 175 is a good chip and many people have been able to OC it to 2.8 GHz or so. Even at stock, it's 400 MHz faster than your 3000+ (I assume you're running a 1.8 Venice 3000+). A socket 939 Opteron will work in just about any 939 board. Give ASUS an e-mail if you want to hear it directly from the horse's mouth. It will benchmark equivalently to the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo.

both mobos have via chipsets...that might have helped...the old mobo had 8xagp and could run in dual channel...but nothing like this one,

i can't imagine quadcore computing...even as much as i don't really like intels quads at the moment....it is a upgrade path when they get under 200 bucks...

when bearlake is here...thats when my rig is really gonna shine, i do want to use a raid 5 setup with 250gig WD's, just need to buy 2 more....

I think i'm gonna nab two gigs of corsair xms 675 ram(110 on newegg!!!) ...having done my homework on C2D and now having first hand experience...lemme tell you 1 gig of ddr400 is no bottle neck to them!!! just don't get the wimpy'ier cpu's like the e43 or e63...the benchmarks show the e4400 and e64x0 to be on par...within a few points of eachother

i know there are tons of overclockers here but i like running my system at stock speed for my normal stuff....downloading/surfing...just no point in overclock...but for games 8)

From what I know about RAM:

Yes, you can use the RAM and yes, it will be underclocked. I think that you can tighten the timings at the slower speed as well.

Can anyone verify this?
I would like to know that too !
And I'm buying a E4400 and upgrading my mobo to a P5DL2-SE, wich is DRR2 667.

IF DDR2 800 work as DDR2 667, I will buy DDR2 800 !

So, anyone can help us ????

buy 2 and send me one - - be the best $120 (plus shipping!) I ever spent!

Google is your friend. Try *OC Opty Asus A8n-e*

In the States ccbbe 165's with a 9x multiplier seem be the best price/performance. The last opty I bought was a lcb9e 170 which seems to be the final stepping (???)

With your mobo, 175 opty and decent cooling & ram a 25% OC should be a breeze if you get a decent stepping. Set the mem divider 5/6, drop the multiplier to 10.5 and slowly raise the bus speed.

Keep a spreadsheet of your settings, chart a course of where you would like to go and move upward slowly! You could even drop the ram divider a little more - you can tweak the memory later . . . if you hit the wall drop the multiplier and start bumping the bus some more (I think that mobo maxes out around 290 to 300 - don't think you'll get there with the 175!). Keep your eye on the temps !!! Don't over volt !!! Write everything down !!! GO SLOW !!!

If you keep the ram around 200mhz and cpu multiplier at 10.5 you may well work the cpu bus to 260-270mhz. Quick math in mah head (that's skeery!) would put the ram divider at the setting closest to 70% at 2800mhz.

Now that I've confused you - check around THG, ocforum, amdzone, etc. for more hints.

And mail that Opty 175 to:

WiseCracker
Blowing Rock, NC

The check's in the mail!!

@wisecracker:--i do know how to overclock!!! but thanks anyways!

btw u sure u want one of these amd 175 opterons?? bcoz i got enough to buy 2 of them now.was thinking of picking up an ati x2600/2700 when it shows up in the market.
its actually 160$ --i get 40$(tht's why its 120$ for the opteron) for my existing amd 3000+,still its a good deal.i overclocked my amd 3000+ and am looking forward to spend some quality time with the opteron.
@120$,the opteron is dirt cheap for something so good.

There are many paths . . . to 3+ghz!

Good luck, hope you get a great stepping and let us know how it goes . . .

AMD IS DEAD IT DIED WHEN I BOUGHT A C2D!