Looking for best price/performance ratio (OCing)

Hey everybody, I've been lurking around here for a while and I'm almost ready to build a budget gaming system. Just have a few important questions about Price/Performance ratio and Overclocking.

My budget is around $450 tops - for CPU, Mobo, Hdd, Case, and memory - I already have the rest. I'm basically trying to get the best configuration for my money. What I'm here for right now is to get a good idea of what CPU/Mobo/RAM combo to go with, and whether or not I should OC.

I've read on here that the absolute best CPU for my situation would be the AMD mobile 2500+ because of its great OCing abilities and $75.00 price. This sounds great to me, but I have *NO* experience OCing at all. Is it a safe thing to try? I don't have the money to seriousely risk messing anything up. And I don't have much experience with BIOS manipulation other than for changing the location from where the OS is read on my old crappy eMachines.

Also, is the 2.4Ghz P4 a good choice for price/performance? It costs a tad more than I can afford honestly, but I'd be open to suggestions about that from you all. I'm looking for a CPU that costs around 100 bucks or less.

Futureproofing is not a real consern for me, though it would be nice to be able to upgrade some. That's another reason why I'm wanting to go with a budget processor for a socket, that way I can put a higher one in later that matches that socket. Or, of course, I can just OC if that would be safe.

I really appreciate all of your help. This is a somewhat confusing thing for me, and since I'm on such a tight budget, I can't really "play it safe" and just buy a 3200+ or 3.0 P4 or anything like that.

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Emachine T1090 - 900Mhz Celeron - R9200 SE PCI - 20 Gig Hdd - 384 slow RAM - yeah, I think it's time for a hardcore upgrade.

Looking for best price/performance ratio (OCing)

Hey everybody, I've been lurking around here for a while and I'm almost ready to build a budget gaming system. Just have a few important questions about Price/Performance ratio and Overclocking.

My budget is around $450 tops - for CPU, Mobo, Hdd, Case, and memory - I already have the rest. I'm basically trying to get the best configuration for my money. What I'm here for right now is to get a good idea of what CPU/Mobo/RAM combo to go with, and whether or not I should OC.

I've read on here that the absolute best CPU for my situation would be the AMD mobile 2500+ because of its great OCing abilities and $75.00 price.
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You've answered your own question. Get the ABIT NF7-S, some Mushkin Basic Green (or Corsair), and you're there!
A great combo that will hit your target price! You will easily hit XP-3200 speeds!




Abit IS7 - 2.8C @ 3.30 - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - EAT ME MSI!

I bought the athlon xp 2600 mobile because it was only $7 more than the xp 2500 moblile.

<font color=black>yippie ki ya, m..........<font color=black>

So long as you are carefull, dont try for any records, and check temps and stability often, while doing the OC, it is safe, and rather a lot of fun.

Best overclocking combo:

CPU: AXP 2500+ (mobile)
<pre>Alternate CPU: AXP 2500+</pre><p>
Mobo: ABIT NF7-S v2.0
<pre>Alternate mobo: ABIT NF7 v2.0</pre><p>------------
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