Upgrading some stuff...Need opinions please

[PowerHour]

Hey guys, need to upgrade the heck out of my system and after a bit of hunting, I've come up with the following pieces.

Asus A7V8X-X Motherboard

CRUCIAL MICRON 256MB PC 2700 DDR RAM

AMD ATHLON 2200+Thoroughbred XP

I can get these for about 275$ cdn.

Clearly I'm not looking for super high performance, just a good system on a budget. Anyone care to share opinions, comments etc on the brands or what I could/should get instead?

I don't really know a lot about the companies here so any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Friend of Bill]

Looks good to me

 

[dubstar]

NF7 board is better.. IMO.. i'm planning to RMA mine and get it.

also, if you want a budget computer, might as well upgrade a little bit more too, it will help in the long run.

look out for a 2500XP 333FBS, instead of the 2200XP.. its not much more, and its a heck of a lot better,

the ram you chose is good depending on your plans, 512 is normal now, and you can get a good stick of 512 PC2700 for around 75 bucks.

 

[PowerHour]

Well a 512 stick might happen anyway. It's really a toss up at this point. But my roommate yelled at me for even thinking of not getting 512 . Another thing that might happen is a 2500+ Barton. I definitely am not hardline about the things mentioned in the first post, if I can find good things that don't cost a ton more I'm jumping on them.

 

[dubstar]

Originally posted by PowerHour
Well a 512 stick might happen anyway. It's really a toss up at this point. But my roommate yelled at me for even thinking of not getting 512 . Another thing that might happen is a 2500+ Barton. I definitely am not hardline about the things mentioned in the first post, if I can find good things that don't cost a ton more I'm jumping on them.

the motherboard is the same cost, with a better reputation.. the 2500+ is a 333FBS which will help for future software and yada yada blah blah,.. and the 512 stick is definitly the way to go.. if your sticking with the A7N8X-X then grab 2x256 and run them sync'd.. which is just putting them both in the blue ram modules. im not sure if you can sync them in the NF7

 

[PowerHour]

What's the difference between running 2 sticks sync'd and running a single 512?

 

[Friend of Bill]

Originally posted by PowerHour
What's the difference between running 2 sticks sync'd and running a single 512?

My overclocks prefer one stick.

 

[Goatman]

Dudes, he's got a A7V8X-X, not A7N8X-X

 

[PowerHour]

Goatman Dudes, he's got a A7V8X-X, not A7N8X-X

One of them has very easy overclockability right? which one was that? I don't have any of the pages for them in front of me right now and I don't remember.

Recommend one of the other?

 

[Petros]

A7V8X is a Via KT400 board, I do believe. The A7N8X is a NVidia board.

 

[Goatman]

exactly, the Nforce 2 board (A7N8X) is a great board, the Via one is a little dated now

 

[ming]

i've heard that that ASUS mobo got probs according the quite a few threads in this forum.
can't remember what they're all about but if you go searching for them you will find out.

 

[Tearz]

If you are thinking of clocking the Xp2200+ is a bad choice, its the chip I have in my A7n8x and it falls over as soon as i get much more than 50mhz above its normal speed

 

[Petros]

The Asus A7N8X-X is an NForce 2 400 chipset, which does NOT run memory in dual-channel mode. Make sure you get the NForce 2 chipset and not the 400.

Information from NVidia here

 

[Krux]

2500+ are only 90 bucks on newegg is the 2200+ that much cheaper or no? cuzz if its not go with the 2500+ it will sync with your ram (333) and give you better performance plus it has a new and improved core. other then that... the fastest nforce 2 board is the one that comes with the shuttle XPC's but it doesn't have any nifty extras like the asus ones. you get a case and a power supply tho