A few questions about RAM and a CPU

[Greeny]

Hi there,

Some of you may remember a good while ago i posted a list of parts for a new comp i was going to build, well i still havent built it, and while i get the final bits of money together just thought i'd get a few questions answered..

so first..

Which is better

A) 3.0Ghz Prescott with 1MB L2 Cache
OR
B) 3.0Ghz Northwood with 512kb Cache

I know one has a higher cache but i've heard the prescott doesnt perform as well, so which is better? - say to run on a Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

and secondly, if i buy 1Gb of DDR400 (2x512MB) which is a websites own brand will it perform just as well as say some Kingston or Corsair? (bearing in mind i dont want to overclock)

Hopefully i will build the comp in a few months time.. (PS is so close :D)

Thanks..

EDIT: Also, which do you guys think is better, a 6800 GT or X800 Pro? bearing in mind i dont want to mod it or whatever...

[Greeny]

no replies??

[TekDragon]

Gosh.. that's a toughy. I REALLY like the Northwood's, everyone does. However, the 1mb L2 Cache is also nice.

Going from MY review experience, i'd say stick to the northwood's.

I'd like to see what other people have to say though.

[Greeny]

same dilemma i had TekDragon :/

Hopefully an answer will come soon :)

[TekDragon]

Try posting on Guru3d.

The only people left here are the people who want to ask questions and a few posers who think they know PC's cause they can use key hacks from Microsoft.

[HunterKiller]

1) go with Northwood it performs better and i think the prescott get hotter quicker.

2) what website?

3) X800 PRO, and i think you should mod it.

[Greeny]

i think i prefer Nvidia over ATI but i may change, but i wouldnt want to mod it..

Thanks, maybe i should wait until Rbstr comes..

oh and the website for the RAM in an english one.. www.aria.co.uk

[Sentrosi]

A great website to go look at is www.anandtech.com. Browse their forums as they have great tech advise and guides that keep most of the techy talk out of it.

I'm an AMD boy myself, so I can't really help you with the P4's.

[Greeny]

Thanks Sentrosi, I'll go and look there

[Rbstr]

Quick answer to the CPU question, get the northwood, it is much better than the Prescott in all but media encoding, and hyperthreading. The northwood offers much better performance in games. Also the Prescott is very hot and needs a big loud cooler.

It's relay hard to say on the video cards i haven't been keeping up on those benches much.

I personaly would go with Kingston or cosair. For one thing don't get Cas 3 ram no mattter who your buying it from.

[Greeny]

Ok, Thanks to all that helped out

Northwood it is..

Video Card - I still like the Nvidia

RAM - Thanks i'll go with a well-known brand of DDR400 CAS2.0

Thanks again guys

[StrangeFellow]

i suggest the corsair memory, i cant really give you a reason but it is what i put in all the systems i build so hey...

also complemts on your motherboard, good choice

from the research and benchmarking i've done you can get alot of a proformance boost with a simple overclock (and the mobo you chose is very good for it) with the P4 northwoods compared to the stock of the same speed.
ex:
P4 2.4Ghz [email protected] out proformes a stock 3.00Ghz because you have a 1000Mhz FSB instead of the stock 800Mhz (save alot of $$$ too)
but as you say you dont want to overclock but i suggest at least giving it alot of thought

-StrangeFellow

[MattxMosh]

Also, which do you guys think is better, a 6800 GT or X800 Pro? bearing in mind i dont want to mod it or whatever...

Generally they are equal. It seems the ATI runs a FEW, a measly few frames bettre in general with high res, and aa and af maxed, but not much difference between the two.

Nvidia has a leg up on the pixel shader 3.0...but remember how long it took for pixel shader 2.0 to go full force?

ATI's also requires less power, and has only one power connector, and higher clock speeds.

So far this generation comes down to this, what brand do you prefer?

[Greeny]

hmm.. well, i'd go for either ATI or Nividia it doesn't bother me..

About overclocking, this will be the first comp i have EVER built, i will be more than satisfied if the thing works in the first place, i dont really wanna go and blow something up, but i'll think about it..

about the 6800, it has been said it needs a HUGE power supply, but i've read a review where both the GT and Ultra ran perfectly well on a high quality 350W PSU, if anyone wants the link i'll fetch it for them?

The review also shows a pic of the card with only one connector for the GT?

I found it pretty interesting so if anyone wants it just leave a post and i'll fetch it out.

[Rbstr]

yeah the GT only uses one power connector. I can't say much as the cards so far have been basicaly equal. But there is a small trend the ATI seems to have a few(like max of 5frames) fewer frames at lower rezes, but a few more at higher rezes. And we also know the pro cna be modded(i know you say you don't want to but its very easy take a look: http://www.pcunleash.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=MyItemReview&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=26)

[StrangeFellow]

About overclocking, this will be the first comp i have EVER built, i will be more than satisfied if the thing works in the first place, i dont really wanna go and blow something up, but i'll think about it..

as long as you have a good HSF (heat sink fan combo) and good airflow within your case you have nothing to worry about as the northwoods can do wonders for overclocking with out adding voltage or anything
for the HSF i suggest this (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-106-032&depa=1) its not the most powerfull cooler there is but it does have a good cooling/sound ratio imo

i'm curious as to what case you plan on getting

[Greeny]

Rbstr - Thanks for the link

Strangefellow - The case i was planning on getting was one i found on www.overclockers.co.uk - CoolerMaster Centurion 2 - Black (No PSU)

It has slots for two 80mm fans 1x Front Intake and 1x Back Panel

I'll be sure to fill them to keep the computer nice and cool..

Also, if i use a SATA HDD can i put a CDRW IDE1 and DVD Drive on IDE2? would that work?

If i HAD to choose between ATI and Nvidia i'd probably choose Nvidia as i have a Nvidia card now and it never failed me so i know they're reliable (although i'm sure ATI is as well) But the card (GeForce 2 64MB MX) is now way out of date like the rest of the computer..

I should hopefully have the comp going within the next few months (money pending)

Thanks for the help btw, Very much appreciated..

[Rbstr]

No problem, amid all of our squabaling thats what we aim for.

[Electrofreak]

Yeah, overclocking isnt as dangerous as one might think. Most decent motherboards have systems that will prevent CPU overheating damage and the like. Basically, the better a board overclocks the better it sells, and mobo manufacturers have figured that out and have recently been making very overclock-friendly motherboards. It used to be a dangerous business but its becoming quite safe and common now.

[Greeny]

Thanks Electrofreak..

Anyone help with IDE question please?

Hope you know which case i mean btw Strangefellow

And if anyone is interested here is a good article on the 6800GT - http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/135/1/

There you go..

[MattxMosh]

Also, if i use a SATA HDD can i put a CDRW IDE1 and DVD Drive on IDE2? would that work?

Theres no reason that you shouldn't be able too.

Just make sure you have up to date SATA drivers for your windows install, or it can be quite a bitch.

[Vitter]

Not having the proper SATA drivers is a bit more than "quite a bitch". You could wind up having to take your HD to somoene else's PC just to get the right drivers.

Thankfully my Asus P4C800 E Deluxe recognized them right off the bat (my old HD got fried so i had no chance to download and transfer drivers).

[DeepStrikeck]

I'm thinking about overclocking my AMD Athalon XP 3000+ "Barton" 2.1GHz 512k Cache 400FSB, anyone know of any software/guides to do so safely with a 5500rpm 73CFM fan? (Thermaltake Extreme Volcano 12 (http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/volcano/rs/a1745.htm)) (on an Abit NF7)

[MattxMosh]

I'm thinking about overclocking my AMD Athalon XP 3000+ "Barton" 2.1GHz 512k Cache 400FSB, anyone know of any software/guides to do so safely with a 5500rpm 73CFM fan? (Thermaltake Extreme Volcano 12 (http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/volcano/rs/a1745.htm)) (on an Abit NF7)

Dont use software if you can avoid it, always use the bios.

We bums at http://www.extremeoverclocking.com have some good guides on the forums, check it out.

[Daleon]

Mattx - first find out if your cpu is multiplier locked or not. More than likely is though, which means all you can do is raise your fsb. Being already at 400 mhz though doesn't give you much room because you are going to be limited by your ram mostly. OC'ing is generally better for lower/midrange chips to get them up to higher end ones. If you bought a mobile 2400 or something you could OC to hell.

If you got good ram, you can lower the timings pretty lax, pump up the voltage on it some, and prolly get it to 225/450. I think your chip is 10.5 x 200, giving you 2.1/400. So 10.5 x 225 would be 2.362 ghz. So prolly start around 210 and make sure you can post. From them go up to 215, 220, 221, 222, etc. If you post at 225 no problem start using memtest86 and prime95 to make sure its stable, run it through some 3dmark's in windows, etc. If it is, you can try and keep going higher. Just keep an eye on your temps, and try not to go over 55 under load.

Can also go through nforcershq.com in the abit forum for specific nf7 bios settings.

[Electrofreak]

^ well said :)

[MattxMosh]

Well said indeed, but his is definatly locked.

[StrangeFellow]

once again very well said...if my memory serves correctly you can not unlock barton core processors anymore (after the week 42 batch i belive, i'll check it out) but there are some cheap unlocking kits that you can buy to easily unlock the muliplier if it is a pre week 42 (or what ever it is) cpu

greeny- good choice of case, coolmaster is a good company

forgive me if that doesnt make sense it's 1:30 in the morning

[Daleon]

Yea, I seriously doubted he would have an unlocked xp3000. Would be able to sell it for a nice profit though if you did.

Got my 2.8c running at 3.41 stable as a rock, hanging around 45c using some absolute POS hsf I got for $20 from CompUSA lol. All my good hsf's are for AMD only, so I am thinking a SLK-948U. An SP94 would be nice, but I am sick of mb mounted hsfs.

[MattxMosh]

once again very well said...if my memory serves correctly you can not unlock barton core processors anymore (after the week 42 batch i belive, i'll check it out) but there are some cheap unlocking kits that you can buy to easily unlock the muliplier if it is a pre week 42 (or what ever it is) cpu

greeny- good choice of case, coolmaster is a good company

forgive me if that doesnt make sense it's 1:30 in the morning

Week 39, I think.

[Greeny]

An Update on my PC:

Well, i was in a computer shop yesterday in a nearby village and after much thought decided to buy a PC from them instead of building my own..

Thankfully its a custom build PC Shop and so wont have any crap comps like PCWorld For example..

In the end i ended up with this spec..

Athlon 3000+
Some Motherboard which i forget
1Gb DDR400 (2x 512)
Radeon 9600XT
120Gb Hard Drive
A New 17" "Flat" CRT Monitor

Then they threw in a free mouse and keyboad and speakers..

All in all it ended up at �754

Very Pleased with the price!

Now im just waiting the remaining hours until i get my hands on it..

We go to collect it in 2 and half hours :D

So, I'm gonna go now, I'll post later!

[Daleon]

Euro prices can be a real killer. Grats on new system. As long as you get a clean install of XP on there and keep it slim and running fast you should be in good shape.

[Rbstr]

that spec will be quite peppey, speaking of keeping the comp slim i'm reformating today, ben along time.

[Greeny]

Hi there,

System is great.. all is good..

But, only problem i got is that i'm getting these pop-ups.. but no pop-up blocker i install stops them..

They try to sell stuff etc but look like a Window not a pop-up off of a website.. any idea how to stop them?

The windows are entitled "Messenger Service"

How can i get rid of these damn things..

EDIT: I just looked in the options of the current blocker.. it had an option that said "Stop Messenger Service Pop-Ups" obviously i selected it..hopefully this fixed the problem..

[Daleon]

There is also a windows messenger service you can stop and set to manual/disabled if you want.

[Electrofreak]

you can disable a lot of shit like that by typing "services.msc" into your run line. Go to www.blackviper.com (http://www.blackviper.com) to find out what services you can disable without any problems. Windows runs a LOT of programs that half the time it doesnt even need/use.