PC upgrade questions

[Nathan Phoenix]

After the conclusion of my nuptuals last weekend, I was pleasantly surprised as I received a number of lovely hats made of money. Several of these hats are going to cover various obligations and interests, but one of these hats has landed on the PC upgrade arena.

It's time to modernize my poor little gaming box. My current PC specs are:

Asus CUSL2 mobo
P3-933
512 megs PC133 SDRAM
Geforce 4 4200 - 128 meg
SB Live value

I'm looking to upgrade to the following:
Asus A7N8X mobo (http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x/overview.htm)
Athlon XP 2700 (333 FSB)
1 gig PC2700 DDR RAM (2 x 512 as the mobo supports dual channel)
New 400w power supply to support the different connections required by an Athlon setup.

I've been having issues lately with the SB Live not always working right in games, so I plan on taking advantage of the built in 6-channel sound hardware on the motherboard. That board is based off the Nforce II Ultra 400 hardware - so in theory, down the road, I could just plunk a 400 FSB chip and PC3200 ram in there to boost it. I will of course keep the Geforce 4 in there.

As far as memory goes - is it worth going with a special name brand? Is it worth getting CAS 2 ram instead of the CAS 2.5 that I generally see? I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to memory.

I'd also like any other feedback about this setup - does anyone else have experience with this board or chip? Is it decent for overclocking? Are there better ways to spend the money? (These upgrades are just over $400 in total)

[TimElhajj]

What exactly is a money hat, I wonder?

You've got pretty much the same computer as me if you do this upgrade (I have a weaker CPU--2400). I have the deluxe A7N8X and love it. Sound is great for me. I don't miss my SBLive Value at all. I would go with a more expensive brand name whether you get the fast stuff or not. XP is really picky about memory timings, I have noticed.

[Stroker Ace]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2000/20001023l.jpg

[Nathan Phoenix]

I don't have any serial ATA drives, and don't plan on getting any soon, and that was the only difference I could see between the standard and the deluxe versions. Are there any other differences to justify the $50 price increase?

[Tyrion Lannister]

I just installed the Deluxe motherboard. Its wonderful. Really fast, great sound and network adapters, and it stays surprisingly cool. Plus no fan on the Northbridge to go wrong!

Don't forget to plug in your speakers when you boot up so you can hear the errors :-). That one thing alone has been the cause of multiple unnecessary RMAs for NewEgg I'm sure.

If you are not using the serial ATA (which I read still has some issues, so you probably don't want to until the next BIOS revision anyway) make sure to disable it with the jumpers.

Make sure you use quality unbuffered cas2 memory. I'm using Corsair - Fry's had an ad typo and were selling 512Mb for $80 a stick last saturday (half price). Munchkin would probably be just as good, and its cheaper. This board is picky about memory.

The BIOS won't report your CPU correctly, so make sure you set it at 200% if you have a 3200 or 160% if you have a 2500 barton.

[Machfive]

Is the 2700+ a Barton? I know the 2500+ is, but I can't recall if the 2700+ was that revision.

[TheWombat]

I have the Deluxe as well. Built in sound is great, no problems (I can't say that about any of the Creative Labs sound cards I've owned). I am running a 2800+ XP Barton now with 1GB of Corsair PC3200 RAM. The BIOS reports the processor fine for me (I originally had a 2700+ and just recently plopped in the 2800).

EDIT: Oh, and don't forget to get good cooling for your AMD CPU. Not the crappy stock heatsink/fan that comes with it if you buy a retail CPU. Get an aftermarket job, from a cooling company (I'm using a Thermalright SLK 800 but there are many to choose from), and get one that cools better than the stock. These Athlons run HOT.

[Machfive]

I'll put in a second "Hells yeah" for the SLK800.

I'm using in combination with a 92mm 56 CFM fan. :D

Purdy, ain't she? ;)

http://www.themach5archive.com/behemoth/heatsinkfan.jpg

[Nathan Phoenix]

I was told that all of the Althon XP's that have 333 FSB or higher were Bartons - I could have been mislead though.

[Machfive]

I was told that all of the Althon XP's that have 333 FSB or higher were Bartons - I could have been mislead though.

You are correct. I must've glossed over the part where you said that above.[/quote]

[TheWombat]

I didn't think the 2700+ XP was a Barton; it wasn't reported as one when I had it installed, though the 2800 is reported as one. Dunno. I do know that the 2800 Barton has a lower nominal clock speed than the 2700 which leads me to believe that it is a different architecture at some level.

[nife2o4]

I don't have any serial ATA drives, and don't plan on getting any soon, and that was the only difference I could see between the standard and the deluxe versions. Are there any other differences to justify the $50 price increase?

The main difference between the Deluxe and Standard is in the South Bridge. The Standard uses the MCP southbridge and the Deluxe uses the MCP-T. That's about the extent of my hardware knowledge but here's a link to a description of the difference on Tom's Hardware (http://www17.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20020716/nforce2-06.html)

Basically the -T gets you a second network connection, Firewire, and the fancy nForce2 audio. So, if I understand this correctly, you're actually only getting Realtek onboard audio with the Standard A7N8X.

[Nathan Phoenix]

ok... now my questions are - why do I need a 2nd NIC? why do I need firewire? Is the realtek audio chip sub par, particularly when compared with a 5 year old sb live value?

[Stroker Ace]

second NIC - because no one, and i mean NO ONE, has a $50 router at home. honest. :roll:

firewire - digital video. i -think- that's all anyone uses it for. that and maybe iPods. creative tried to make a big deal about it with the audigy series, but i don't know that anyone cared.

[Midnight Son]

I'm waiting just a little bit longer for the Athlon 64. Either that or a new car.

[Nathan Phoenix]

once upon a time i was an early adopter. then i moved out from my parents' house and actually had stuff that i needed to spend my money on. Now I have to strike that balance between fast and cheap.

[Aleck]

second NIC - because no one, and i mean NO ONE, has a $50 router at home. honest. :roll:

firewire - digital video. i -think- that's all anyone uses it for. that and maybe iPods. creative tried to make a big deal about it with the audigy series, but i don't know that anyone cared.

Firewire is also really nice for external hard drives and the like. I much prefer firewire to USB 2.0 -- it seems faster and more reliable. But that's just my perception, and it could just be that I have a crappy USB 2.0 card. :(

Aleck

[TheWombat]

I find the audio on the deluxe to be very good, and while I have no experience with the Realtek on the non-deluxe version my experience with the nForce2 audio has been so good I'd really recommend it. The firewire port I don't use, and the extra NIC I don't use either but I guess it's nice to have them.

[TimElhajj]

It has been a while since I did the comparison, but I think what decided it for me was the better quality sound and second NIC. I don't really use the Serial ATA RAID or the Firewire, although the firewire port is nice to have if you ever get a digital camera or any of the new disks. You can even do IP networking with them, although I have not tried it.

Just a word on the sound. I am not sure how big a difference between the vanilla and deluxe models. I know it was my first try at ditching my PCI sound card and going with onboard sound, so I wasn't taking any chances. The last VIA board I had just hated my SBLive card so I didn't have much to lose.

[TimElhajj]

[snip]

heh, goddamn crazy kids. :)

[Nathan Phoenix]

Okay, you've got me sold on the deluxe version of the board. Now I have to figure out how to sell the missus on spending the extra $50 on it. :P

[Rywill]

I'm waiting just a little bit longer for the Athlon 64. Either that or a new car.
Can someone remind me when these come out? September?

[Case]

I don't have any serial ATA drives, and don't plan on getting any soon, and that was the only difference I could see between the standard and the deluxe versions. Are there any other differences to justify the $50 price increase?

The Deluxe has better audio, but if you've got a PCI audio card, it's probably not an issue.

[Case]

I was told that all of the Althon XP's that have 333 FSB or higher were Bartons - I could have been mislead though.

Actually, not correct. The 2700 still only has 256KB of L2 cache. But the 2500, 2800 and 3000's are Bartons.

[TheWombat]

Actually, not correct. The 2700 still only has 256KB of L2 cache. But the 2500, 2800 and 3000's are Bartons.

Thanks! I thought that was the case; as I noted above, when I had my 2700 in the box it was not listed as a Barton, but the 2800 is. Should I see any noticeable speed difference between the two? The only real reason I replaced the heat-fried 2700 with a 2800 was that, well, as long as I was getting a new CPU, why not spend a few extra bucks and get a newer one? I have not seen any real difference yet. QT3 forums still about the same :D

[Case]

Actually, not correct. The 2700 still only has 256KB of L2 cache. But the 2500, 2800 and 3000's are Bartons.

Thanks! I thought that was the case; as I noted above, when I had my 2700 in the box it was not listed as a Barton, but the 2800 is. Should I see any noticeable speed difference between the two? The only real reason I replaced the heat-fried 2700 with a 2800 was that, well, as long as I was getting a new CPU, why not spend a few extra bucks and get a newer one? I have not seen any real difference yet. QT3 forums still about the same :D

The bigger cache makes a difference in some games and other benchmarks where moving data in and out of memory makes a difference. However, in some purely CPU dependent tests (eg, software 3D rendering, as in 3D Studio), it doesn't make much difference.

[TheWombat]

The bigger cache makes a difference in some games and other benchmarks where moving data in and out of memory makes a difference. However, in some purely CPU dependent tests (eg, software 3D rendering, as in 3D Studio), it doesn't make much difference.

Thankee much for the info.

[Nathan Phoenix]

Is it worth it then to try to spring for the 2800 or, even to drop down to the 2500 barton?

[Case]

Is it worth it then to try to spring for the 2800 or, even to drop down to the 2500 barton?

As always, it depends on your budget and your inclination.

The 2500+ clocks in at 1.83GHZ, while the 2800+ runs at 2.083GHz, or 200MHz faster. Since the L2 cache is embedded, then the cache itself is also running 200MHz faster. So you're paying essentially double for about 10% more CPU performance. Does it make a difference? Sure, in some games and apps, but not much in others. The 2500+ is really the budget gamer's CPU of choice right now.

[Jason McCullough]

A 10% gain in CPU speed doesn't translate into "10% faster", either; the memory and (sometimes) the video card latency cut down on that.

[Case]

A 10% gain in CPU speed doesn't translate into "10% faster", either; the memory and (sometimes) the video card latency cut down on that.

Absolutely.

Thought that equation will shift a bit when Athlon 64 ships. The integrated memory controller is wicked fast.

I wrote a piece using an Opteron in an Nforce3 motherboard, and ran it like a desktop PC. Despite clocking at "only" 1.8GHz, it held its own in a lot of tests, and did very well in the games we use for benchmarking.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1217441,00.asp

If the high end version of Athlon64 clocks higher, it should do very well, and the scaling slope should be a bit steeper.

[John Reynolds]

When's the 64-bit version of XP supposed to be available?

[Sam Jones]

I am building a new PC soon, and this thread has been great. I'm happy to go for the AMD Athlon 2500 (Barton) but what about the heatsink/fan? I'm on a budget, so wouldn't the fan supplied with the retail CPU be sufficient? If not, why not?

[Nathan Phoenix]

I think what I'll end up doing then is going for the 2500 cpu, to offset me opting for the deluxe version of the motherboard and getting better ram.

You guys have all been a great help!

[Case]

When's the 64-bit version of XP supposed to be available?

Real soon now.

:D

Actually, to be more specific, not long after summer's end.

[edit] Whoops, reread your message, and am somewhat unclear. If you're talking Windows XP, the release date looks to be late this year or early 2004. It's not nailed down yet, but it's also not far off. I was refering to Athlon 64 above.

[2nd edit] Athlon 64 should be a killer 32-bit part, too, if the Opteron benchmarks are any gauge.

[Case]

I am building a new PC soon, and this thread has been great. I'm happy to go for the AMD Athlon 2500 (Barton) but what about the heatsink/fan? I'm on a budget, so wouldn't the fan supplied with the retail CPU be sufficient? If not, why not?

The retail heatsink is sufficient if you don't overclock.

[Sam Jones]

The retail heatsink is sufficient if you don't overclock.

Cheers Case. You should do this for a living :)

[Case]

The retail heatsink is sufficient if you don't overclock.

Cheers Case. You should do this for a living :)

Wow, what an idea!

Tom, Mark, when are you guys gonna start paying me?

:lol:

[Nathan Phoenix]

I think you need to start trying to talk the hardware vendors into giving you commissions :)

[Nathan Phoenix]

Apologies in advance for resurrecting an old thread, but I wanted to pass along my experience with newegg.com

8/15 - we order the parts online, hoping they will be in by the time we get back from our honeymoon. we tell them to ship to my wife's work, because no one will be home at our house to receive the packages

8/16 - we leave on our honeymoon

8/16-8/22 - [censored]

8/22 - we return from honeymoon, stopping by her work to see if our gear has arrived. it has not. at home I check my email and find that on 8/16 they sent me an email saying that they could not ship to the work address 'because it isn't on file with the bank.' I'm boggled by this, because I've ordered from dozens of dot coms and had things shipped to altnerate addresses with no issue. They said if we didn't fix this in 3 days the order would be canceled - and of course we had been gone all week. I send an annoyed reply to the email expressing my frustration and giving them a chance to make things right.

8/23 - we go out and buy a new puppy, and pick up appropriate toys, crate, etc for it. Later that night we find out that our checking account is overdrawn, with $40 in bank fees, because despite newegg.com not processing our order, they still took the goddamn money out of our bank account.

8/25 - still haven't heard back from newegg - I leave on business trip

8/28 - get back from business trip. STILL no email response from newegg customer support, 7 days later. I call them. customer support is unhelpful and clearly just wants to get me off the phone. claims our money has been refunded, though checking with the bank confirms that it has not.


summary:

ordered from newegg.com

two weeks later I have none of my gear, $40 in bank fees, and newegg.com still has my money.

I'm baffled by the amazingly high ratings they have on pricegrabber and reseller ratings so I leave negative feedback there (and here) in hopes of deterring others from making the mistake of doing business with them.

[TimElhajj]

I feel for you Locust. I hate it when stuff like this happens to me. FYI use a credit card for purchasing, but especially when you purchase online. You get way more leverage with a credit card when stuff like this happens. Not that this excuses newegg, but you have to expect to run into these sort of issues occasionally--it's just the law of averages.

[XPav]

Yeah Newegg does that. I suspect that being such a big seller, they've been burned with the stolen credit card thing before. Chips & Bits did this when I tried to order Command & Conquer from them back in 1995. Its not new, its just sorta annoying.

[Aleck]

Lokust,

That's totally bizarre. My experiences with NewEgg have been exactly the opposite -- good customer service, quick shipping, good prices.

YMMV, I guess.

[TheWombat]

Two questions. One, have they changed the retail fan/heatsink combo they ship with Athlons? Because the one I got early this year certainly did not last more than six months before letting the CPU start to fry. It could of course have been crappy installation (didn't do it myself, more's the pity) or some other environmental problem (heat in the case, etc.) but when I switched to a Thermalright the temp dropped amazingly. I also, however switched at the same time to a Barton, which may run cooler?

Second, in perusing the newegg customer "reviews" (I'm looking for a video card to eventually replace my Ti4200 for the fall) I've seen lots of folks talking about "flashing to Pro" in regards the ATI Radeon 9800. I gather this means they are taking stock 9800s and somehow flashing the BIOS to unlock the Pro features or something? Is this 1) possible, and 2) desirable? Or would it be a definite "caveat emptor" type of thing? I'm not fond of overclocking myself.

[Nathan Phoenix]

I am starting to see why people appreciate NewEgg. I got this email today from NewEgg customer service:



We are contacting you regarding your recent post at www.resellerratings.com.

I had recently replied to your complaint regarding your order prior to noticing this post at resellerratings. We are still willing to work with you in order to keep your faith in our company. True we do have strict measure to deter credit card fraud, as we do this to protect both parties involved, but there is always a resolution if we are physically contacted upon finding an issue with the order. If you still require the merchandise, and are willing to give us a second try, we can offer to make up for this issue by offering free FedEx 1day shipping, and to show that we do indeed care for the individual customer, throw in the CASE SCASE|PC-146 SL 400W 7C574-146 your order originally consisted of free of charge. We are here for one reason, and that is to assist the customer, so that when we see that our customers are dissatisfied as your post reflects, we do everything possible to ensure there satisfaction and to make you happy.

Please accept our apologies.

Thank you for your understanding, and I await to hear back from you.


How can I argue with that?

[Aleck]

Lokust,

Glad to see they didn't let you down!

Aleck