Topic: Need opinions...which processor/mobo to buy?

[ryams27]

Ok guys... I'm on quite a strict budget, but here's what I'm down to--y'all tell me which one to get. I'm choosing between an AMD 2400+ with a Biostar M7NCG 400 mobo and the AMD 2600+ with a ASRock K7VM4 mobo. As you may know, the M7NCG utilizes the NVIDIA nFORCE2 chipset, while the K7VM4 has Unichrome 3d on board video. If these two are priced the same, which is a better buy? Is the nForce2 video by itself enough for me to enjoy gaming or would it need to be supplemented (I know I would have to supplement the Unichrome)?

I'm not positive on what kind of RAM is in my current CPU (I'm at work and can't check) but my dad believes that it's just plain old PC133 (512 MB) non-DDR. I'll double-check when I get home. If it is indeed PC133, would an upgrade make a tremendous difference?

Also, I realize that one of the major differences between the two processors and mobos I'm choosing between is FSB capabilities. As an average computer user, would I notice a tremendous difference between 266 Mhz FSB and 333 (I know a RAM upgrade would be in order to take advantage of any difference)?

Thanks so much, guys.  As is apparent, I know very little about hardware these days, and any help is always appreciated.

[Dack]

Depends on lots of things I'm afraid

If you are going for a gaming machine then it would come down to the graphics abilities of each of the cards (processors are pretty similar performance wise).

As to RAM you'll find that most Athlon boards these days will not support SDRAM so you are looking at another expense there.

Basic system I just put together (excluding hard drive and CD/DVD drives):-

£35.00 350W power supply and case
£70.00 Athlon XP2500 Barton Core (runs at 333 and is very overclockable) + FAN
£30.00 ASROCK AS78XE motherboard (as this has 400 FSB potential, new version has serial ATA too for £15 more)
£42.90 512M of PC3200 DDR - bought from PC World who have a sale on of the 256 sticks at the moment)

That gives me enough power to play most of the recent games and is upgradeable. As I have recently bought a few other toys (a 3.0G P4 system and a 2.8G P4 system) I didn't put too much value in a decent graphics card.
£29.00 Geforce MX440 with 8x AGP which offers similar performance to the N-Force board you looked at.
Other ones I considered:
£120 Radeon 9600pro
£50  Radeon 9200 or Geforce 5x00

What it comes down to is the boards that have graphics capabilty built in  usually should be treated as a useful extra but not as a replacement for a decent graphics card. For high speed gaming an extra graphics card is always needed.

Oh and  

[Dack]

Noticed from your email address that you are non-UK based

You'll need to convert those prices into $ - buying from newegg.com puts the 8xe @ $51 including shipping and the 8xe+ at $57 while a radeon 9600 pro comes in at about $140

[Sandra]

I built a pc for a friend using an Asus mobo and a 2500 Barton Dack.
It said it supported FSB of 266/333 and 400 but apparently as the 2500 Barton is a 333 it will only work with 333 DDR.
Not sure if this is specific to that board or the Barton CPU  
So if a ram upgrade is required later then it would presumably need a CPU upgrade too ?
Having said that I was amazed at the difference in speed between that and my XP 2100 + Athlon with 266 DDR  

[Dack]

Thats a motherboard issue. I've got PC3200/400Mhz memory in both my Athlon machines here. (An 1800XP and a 2500)

Most new motherboards only seem to support the 400MHz memory for one strip. If you put two strips of memory in then it runs them at 333MHz. The speed rating for memory is the MAXIMUM it can run at, it can run slower.

I got something like a 10% speed increase over the 2100 memory I was previously using when I fitted it to the XP1800 board (and MUCH better stability).

If you run slower memory with a Barton then it really takes a performance hit.