Building a computer, anything else needed?

[NoSoup4You]

Gigabyte has a good nForce SLi board out for around that price, it was on newegg, just poke around.

[spyro415]

Gigabyte has a good nForce SLi board out for around that price, it was on newegg, just poke around.

Thanks, i'll check it out right now.

[22CW Cainius]

you might want an optical drive.... DVD-ROM or at least a CD-ROM???

[spyro415]

you might want an optical drive.... DVD-ROM or at least a CD-ROM???

I've got a 16x DVD/48x CD-rom from my old machine....

[22CW Cainius]

good....

[Versus3k]

I'd ditch the 80mm case fans and go for a case that can handle 120mm ones. This will help keep noise levels down and still give good air-flow. Also I've heard good things about the Akasa Evo 33 (AK-913) heatsink and fan which should help keep that Athlon cool and not cost an arm and a leg...

[spyro415]

So i've read every article you've given, chopperkill, and more on google, but there is one thing i sstill don't understand. OC'in RAM. Like setting the frequency to run at a certain freq. to run at 133, or 266, moving multipliers up, dividers to achieve 1:1, or 1:2 ratios with the CPU. I am completely lost on the subject of OC'ing ram. If someone could explain it to me, set-by-step, it'd be greatly appreciated.

[openheimer]

Spyro. I think you have got a good broad base of opinion from seasoned PC builders. I worry that you are a little over your head on the OC world. I could explain the gains from succesfully overclocking your rig.

You have made it clear that you are on a budget. Can you afford to replace your RAM or CPU if you fry it?

Most OCers will tell you OCing is easy... Getting a STABLE OC is what requires the knowledge you lack.

If you are stretching you budget on this new rig, why don't you experiment on your old machine first.

When you buy the componets I can guarentee you will get to that moment that you are looking at your MOBO and asking your self what in the hell does this connect to? Get past that, get your rig and OS stable then worry about your OCing.

[ChopperKill]

Openheimer makes some good points and you're right to be cautious when overclocking anything. But this is a relatively simple overclock. It's not extreme. I'd mark it alongside overclocking the barton 2500+ to a 3200+. Serious damage is usually only caused if you do something wrong or push it too far. 3800+ out of a 3000+ is a tried and tested overclock and is also stable. If instabilty does occur theres always room to drop it down a bit. I would also use the system as standard for a few days to ensure everything is running ok before you make any changes.

As for the RAM overclock and dividers etc. Your motherboard has a FSB (front side bus) speed. Most motherboards for AMD run up to 400Mhz. RAM and CPU's also have a Mhz rating and can range from 266Mhz to 400Mhz. All these figures are the DDR figures. So 133Mhz is DDR 266Mhz and 200Mhz is really DDR 400Mhz.

If you get a mobo that is up to 400Mhz, your CPU is also 400Mhz and you need RAM which is rated at 400Mhz or PC3200. This means everything is running synchronously at 400Mhz. So your RAM is running at a ratio of 1:1 to your FSB. As you up the FSB to overclock your CPU the RAM is running in line with that at 1:1 so it will also increase. This is were the problem lies because not much RAM except the best will allow for much of an overclock so you become limited by your RAM. So you drop the speed of your RAM to say 266Mhz while your CPU is still running at 400Mhz. This is running asynchronously. This allows you then to raise your CPU FSB and give you plenty of room for your RAM FSB to increase as you are starting from a lower point.

I am starting to wonder though if this may be a little too much for you to do especially if this is the first time you ahve overclocked. I'd hate for you to buy your bits and start overclocking based on what we say here and end up frying your PC. Because to acheive stabilty you sometimes have to up the voltages of your CPU and RAM and this is where things really get sticky. Yeah the benefits of overclocking are great but you HAVE to know what you are doing. Could you get someone to set it up for you like a local PC shop or a friend? Just be 110% you know what you are doing or just stick to a stock machine and at least you know where you stand.

[TVR_Fan]

spyro415 at least your heatsink will weigh less weight and take up less space then my heatsink.

Since my Zalman heatsink weights 918grams and is a 120MM Heatsink.

Also when the system is finally built will you be running Prime95.

[Ev0]

F.L.C. Sounds to me like you've pretty much nailed down a great rig that'll play this game very well and last you a while.

Thanks alot, the help was very much so appriciated..
BTW. just to show and example of how mch of a rip of Ireland is.. our VAT is at the stupidly high rate of 21% so it means what would be a $1300 rig without VAT is now $1500 .. I wish there was an American company that shiped to Europe cuz newegg.com dosen't

[imported_DytHlt]

i dont see a Case in that list.....

[ZiRo]

Right, motherboard syncs with the cpu, defaultly at 200mhz, work together at a speed of 200mhz. If you set the ram to 133mhz this is much slower than the motherboard and cpu are running so data from the ram might take longer to get to.

Ideally you want to be running the motherboard, cpu and memory all at the same mhz.. when ram and cpu are equal this is 1:1.

If you overclock the CPU this is where you want good ram. If you overclock the CPU to 245, you want ram that can acheive the same speeds in an ideal world. However many will reduce the ram, to say 123 and run in a 1:2. Every 1 RAM clock cycle will take 2 cpu cycles, because the speed at which the RAM is operating is half of the CPU speed.

Basically you want the shortest time between the CPU completing a cycle and the RAM completing a cycle so they communicate as frequently as possible.

[spyro415]

I think i really actually understand it now, after your explanations, chopperkill and ziro.

From what i understand, the easiest way to fry your chip is by upping the voltage too high when you don't have adequate cooling?

My pops is a computer engineer, and my brother is an IT, and they're the ones who were going to build it for me. I'm not sure if either of them has dealt with overclocking, i'll call them later tonight.

And yes, i will be installing and running Prime95 to test system stability if do go through with the overclocking. I think i will try running BF2 on the stock system first, if its fine then i won't touch it, but if its running a little sluggish i may OC the cpu.

And Dythlt, my dad told me hes got a ton of cases laying around waiting to be thrown away, so i'm gonna take one of those off my hands. It'll save me about 70 bucks, so thats good.

[Furious-AGE-]

topic creator - you forgot a cd or dvd drive and if you're going to use an sata hard drive make sure you have a 1.44mb floppy drive to install the sata drivers for windows, otherwise you'll be hooped.