I'm probabbly getting a new CPU

[Apokalipse]

alright, here's my situation:
you may remember I upgraded my video card to a 7900 GT a little while ago.

I have now got my Zalman VF900 (with the blue LED) (arrived today)
I've also done a volt mod of the card, to 1.55V, and it clocks at 700MHZ core, 460MHZ mem (effective 1840MHZ) without artifacting
Lord Anthrax and I will be making a volt mod guide for the 7900 GT's

anyway, I'm still running on my Sempron 2800+, which gets 2.0GHZ stable (stock is 1.6)
so I'm planning on upgrading it to something better (which most likely means a new motherboard aswell)

I'll have about AU $350 on thursday (provided my tax return comes in by then)
and I'll most likely be getting it from MSY

I did consider saving up a bit more and going for a conroe, that was until I saw the prices on motherboards that support Conroe (at least AU$250)

anyway, the prices of AMD CPU's has dropped... a lot!
so I'm thinking of getting something like this:

Asus A8N5X NF4 (AU$99)

Athlon 64 3700+ SD (AU$150)
or
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (AU$228)

anyway, I will definately be overclocking the CPU as far as I can, though I'm NOT going SLI, so I don't need a motherboard with a second PCI-E 16X slot

when my card was at 520 / 375 (stock) it got about 7800, and when at 700 / 460 with my Sempron @ 2GHZ, it only gets just over 8000 in 3dmark05
so I know my CPU is holding the card back.
anyway, along with my 7900 GT at 700 / 460, I want to try and break 11000

 

[NosBoost300]

awesome!!! yes..these amd price drops are nice.. i'm gonna pick me up a 4200+ because of how cheap they are down here already... 180 dollars!

 

[Apokalipse]

can anyone tell me how far I might be able to overclock with the Asus A8N5X NF4 and an Athlon 64 X2 3800+?
I've found the board does have a memory divider, and my RAM maxes out at about 238MHZ stable

I'll be using my Thermaltake Sonic Tower with 2 x 120mm fans on it (my Sempron at 2.0GHZ (250 x 8) never gets above 30ºC with it)

 

[Nitestick]

well i'll vote for the x2 3800+ seeing as unfortunately we can't seem to get a break on the opteron pricing . i would try for a DFI Infinity or Ultra D if i were you. check out the OCAU buy/sell forums if you're a member but if you aren't there is a 3 month wait before you can visit that section so i guess that will be out of the question. or you can try austech.info.

 

[Apokalipse]

yeah, I'm not a member on OCAU
I did check out austech.info but they don't have any DFI boards

www.pccasegear.com has them, but they're $209
I may get one if I can scrape in enough money though

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ = $228
DFI Nf4 Ultra-D = $209
total = $437

 

[Nitestick]

did you post a wanted thread :S because i can't see one?

http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=lanparty+ultra+d
lanparty ultra-d prices

http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=dfi+infinity
dfi infinity prices

 

[Nitestick]

here is a free bump for you........


if you wanted i could post a wanted thread on OCAU for you and connect you with any interested sellers

 

[Apokalipse]

after doing some googling, I see that the DFI UT NF4-D (not the Ultra-D) is a great board, and costs AU$159

so if I get that board instead, I save $40
$238 + $159 = $397

anyway, thanks for the offer, though I'd prefer to get a brand new board.

 

[Nitestick]

ok, just remember staticice.com.au is really good for price comparisons but don't use it exclusively. i've found plenty of things that it never listed for some reason or another that where at far better prices.

also according to staticice the x2 3800 is available for around $220 although i am not sure how that will be after postage

 

[Apokalipse]

postage was $10 for my Zalman VF900, so I'd expect it to be around that.
and yeah, I used staticice to find the UT NF4-D. ($159) do you know any places that have it cheaper? (in Victoria)

anyway, I had a look at the Infinity aswell. it looks like a great board too, but I don't like the layout as much.
for one, with my VF900, I can only use 2 PCI slots. and I use 2 PCI cards (my Audigy LS, and my wireless card)
and that doesn't leave a lot of room for airflow to the video card.
I wanna be overclocking it as far as I can. I wanna try and get over 750MHZ (currently at 700)
I know the NF4-D only has 2 PCI slots, but I only need the two. and I want my video card set appart from them.

plus, the UT NF4-D apparently can be modded to the SLI-D