Montaver

Hey guys, I have been reading the forums on and off here for about 6 months (I never actually find the effort to post tho as all you guys manage to say what I would say!)
Basically, I have quite a few questions which I can never quite get answered.

Firstly,
When choosing ram, does CAs latency REALLY matter? Im told a cas latency of 3 may be 2-3% slower than say 2.5/2. the reason is, I was thinking of building an AXP gaming rig for my little brother, but using minumim £ and getting max performance. So for example, you can get paired OCZ 3700 (the gold heatspreader type) for 120 ish of OCUK, or OCZ 3200 Platinum stuffwhich has a CAS latency of 2 and not 3.
Which is the better buy?

Considering I was planning on:
Abit Nf7-S rev 2.0,
Barton 2500+, I would then push the FSB to 200 (400) making it a 3200+ spec (2.2ghz?). I understand past week 40 bartons are now locked, hence trying to get as fast as possible RAM, whats the max FSB people have to on the nf7-s? Also, assuming my cpu could reach a stable 2.4ghz @ 1.75 volts or so what would be the best cooler? I was thinking of the Thermalright copper ones (SLK 800 I think), then with a 82 or 90mm fan.
Also, would a new Nforce2 mobo unlock an old palmino xp 1800+ (which is what is in my current system), would it the be worth ocing that (using a good air cooler) and adding some cheap but reliable PC 3200 RAM?

I have trawled countless internet review sites, and I would love to know how a barton at 2.4ghz competes with the latest P4's in gaming performance (im not all that worried about synthetic coding benchmarks or any rubbish, what matter to me is real world performance). If anyone who actually has one (which I know alot of people on here do), have u tried comparing with more lrecent chipset, such as the a64?

Which brings me onto my next question, does the reduced cache on the A64 3000+ dramatically affect performance, and it will in future 64 bit apps (hard to specualte I know).
As I was thinking of purchasing one of these also and OCing it (altho from what ive read finding the perfect mobo chipset is hard, the best solution being the kt800?). Does it OC well?

Finaaaaaaly, I was thinking of pruchasing an 9800pro (OCUK selling the sapphire for 160, which is a pretty good deal i'd say!). However, im concerned about the PCI express revolution, I dont want to purchase a decent card, only to find its bus has died out. I underastand the bandwith on AGP isnt at its max yet, but will the more efficient instruction language of PCI experess have a noticable advanateg?

If you have taken the time to read this, thanks. I know I could have gotten alot of the above info from vaious sites, but with all the bias and conflicting interests there seems to be (tomshardware anyone? :o ) I would rather take the word of people on what seems to me to be a very knowledgeable and quality forum.
thanks in advance
Montaver

Vampyromaniac

1. Go with the pc3200 (or 3500,) because the 3700 has a high CAS latency at a speed that's prob not feasible on nf7s-v2 with a locked chip anyway, I don't think

2. I think the nf7-s hits 220-230. Thermalright SLK 800 and 900 are very good coolers. Nforce2 does not unlock Palominos.

3. Maybe these reviews can give you an idea: http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q1...0/index.x?pg=2 http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...00/default.asp http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1884

4.The a64-3000's reduced cache doesn't put it much behind the a64-3200 in current 32-bit tests. It may affect it more on 64-bit, since those instructions and addresses take up more space. The best solution so far seems to be the k8t800, it usually overlocks 5-10%.

5. I have no clue on the PCI express situation. You can probably use a 9800 and current CPU/mobo long enough, until by the time you need a new CPU/mobo, you'd want a new video card also, so the change wouldn't be a big deal. At least that's how it'll probably be for me, since I don't upgrade frequently. There's also the possibility of transistion mobo's which have both AGP and PCIe16x ports, so who knows?

EDIT: added techreport review

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