new hardware on the way!

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ak_smallz

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i got real envious if nubius as he overclocked his xp-m 2400 to 2700, so i decided to get one of this mobiles myself. But since i am handicapped in the cooling department (see thread on nubius's cooling), i got a 2600-m to get a bit higher clock speeds.
I Also got a "speeze falconrock cooler" because it was quiet and got really good reviews as far as cooling. I am also hoping to get a few case fans for x-mas.

I needed some better ram too (had 2100), so i picked up some corsair value 3200. Heres my question. Since my processor has a fsb of 266, will the 3200 ram be any better than 2700? I am also going to overclock, so will the 3200 help? How high can i expect to overclock?

EDIT: MB will be Abit NF7-S V2
 
Hey AK! Good choice in mobo and chips :p 4W4K3 gets higher clock speed on less voltage than me so you should definitely be able to get that up higher with cooler settings. Not guaranteeing you'll pass 2.7GHz though even with the 2600+ just because that's still pushing it quite a ways, but you'll need some dern good cooling unless you got a good stepping, but overall it's still quite possible.

Regarding your RAM, it really doesn't matter what the processors FSB is, you're going to change it :D Even if you weren't overclocking, lets just imagine this hypothetically, to get the most out of your RAM you'd simply change the FSB to 200 and just change the multiplier so that you still have whatever the stock clockspeed was, you're just taking advantage of the RAM you have understand what I mean? Remember to keep your AGP at 66MHz though, this is the reason most people simply can't raise the FSB is because they don't have the option to change or lock the AGP bus at 66 which locks the PCI bus at 33, with the board you're getting you can set it and leave it at 66.

The fact that it's valueRAM will hinder your overclocking only if you want to OC your RAM which would mean setting your computers FSB beyond 200 so unless you plan on doing that you can simply keep changing your multiplier by .5 increments until you hit 14 then it starts to increment by 1, so then you can max out your CPU speed with the multiplier but still retaining the same FSB and RAM Speeds, now if you go above 200 then you'll be overclocking your RAM and will need to up Dimm voltage and possibly loosen timings or at the very least have to do some adjustments, but I wouldn't expect to high of a RAM OC with ValueRAM, but you can probably hit 210FSB for DDR420 basically.

So yes the 3200 ram will definitely be better than the PC2700 as you'll have the ability to at the bare minimum set your FSB straight to 200 and just lower the multi, you should do this first. Not sure if the stock clock on the 2600+ is 1.8 but assuming it is, stock settings would be like 133x13.5 or so, so instead you'd change it to 200x9 which would still give you 1.8GHz but your FSB is increased which means the entire system will run better, no bottlenecking between CPU and RAM. So basically that's what the RAM is really good for and this chip and CPU combo, is the ability to get a 1:1 ratio with the CPU:DRAM which is good and best for the system.

If you need any other help post and me and 4W4K3 both will be able to help you as we all 3 will have the same boards lol, but you two will have the 2600+ mobile opposed to my 2400+ of course.

BTW Just so you know my sig is outdated and I run at 2.5GHz so I can keep my Vcore at 1.875 instead way up at 2.05 cause that's a bit high to run constantly, but still I never had any problems with stability while it was up at that speed so definitely good chips ;)

Regarding how high can you expect to overclock, well every system, chip and architecture is just a tad different, and it depends on the stepping because some chip steppings are better than others. For example my IQYHA stepping is supposed to be one of the better ones for OC'ing
 
thanks, glad to know im gettin good hardware :p (ordered friday, but probly wont get here till tues)

fyi, 2600 is stock at 2.0gigs, so with 200 fsb that'l be 200x10.
as for ram, im not comin from 2700... im comin from 2100! man im gettin ready to be blown away just by the ram increase. And actually id be happy with even a 2.4gig OC.

one question though, to ge the CPU to run at 1:1 with ram, will i need to change the timings? What should they be at? That is one thing i havnt ever messed with, ram timings (probly because of my kingston 2100 value ram). What do you 2 have them at?
 
as for ram, im not comin from 2700... im comin from 2100!
Yeah I knew you were comin from PC2100 but you mentioned the jump from PC2700 to PC3200 so I went with that...

one question though, to ge the CPU to run at 1:1 with ram, will i need to change the timings? What should they be at? That is one thing i havnt ever messed with, ram timings (probly because of my kingston 2100 value ram). What do you 2 have them at?

No you don't change timings unless you are overclocking the RAM. Here's a brief explination, PC2100 RAM is 266FSB right, PC2700 is 333, and PC3200 is 400, well in your BIOS when you set your CPU frequency you gotta remember it's DDR which means Double Data Rate, so when you set your CPU FSB at 200 that means 400 for the RAM which is PC3200 speeds....

So in the case of the 2600 since it's stock 2GHz then it'll be like 133x15 and to get a 1:1 ratio with your RAM you'd simply change it to 200x10 like you said and that 200x2 = 400 = PC3200(DDR400)

get what I mean? Whereas with PC2700 you'd want your FSB at 166 so it'd run at a 1:1 ratio with the PC2700's 333MHz and for PC2100 you'd want the FSB at 133 which is the stock setting for that CPU so like I said you simply change that FSB to 200 and that eliminates the bottleneck your CPU and RAM would have if you were to leave it at 133x15.

I have one 256mb stick of PC2700 and one 512mb stick of PC3200, I OC'd my RAM since for the best performance I'd want to run my CPU at 166FSB regardless of the actual CPU GHz because I can keep 2.5GHz with mutliple combinations of FSB and multipliers, so right now I got my FSB at 185 which means my PC2700 stick is technically overclocked while my PC3200 is technically overclocked. I got the PC2700 up to 200FSB and it could pass memtest, but I got freezes, reboots, and memory dumps within windows, so it wasn't exactly stable, but I've had no problems at 185FSB...

Master OC'ing your CPU and getting it stable simply by adjusting multiplier, FSB, and VCore voltage, don't go above 200FSB as that'll OC your RAM and you should learn to properly OC your CPU and learn how to assess stability issues before you tackle RAM as I found out it's completely different from CPU OC'ing and requires a lot more patience and time IMO.

EDIT:
man im gettin ready to be blown away just by the ram increase. And actually id be happy with even a 2.4gig OC.
Yeah actually you should notice a HUGE increase in overall computer speed, game loading and play, and yeah i thought 'Oh even if I reach 3200+ XP speeds I'll be happy" which is 2.2GHz but man, you just get addicted to OC'ing then that 2.2 or in your case 2.4GHz isn't enough and you just want more MORE MORE! :p
 
"then that 2.2 or in your case 2.4GHz isn't enough and you just want more MORE MORE!"

yea that means im soon gonna build a case outta fans and go crazy with everything. Haha lookin forward to it :)

thanks for the help ill be sure to post my results as soon as i get the parts.
 
i was reading some reviews, and they said they were running a gig of ram in dual channel. Is the board able to do dual channel?
 
ak_smallz said:
i was reading some reviews, and they said they were running a gig of ram in dual channel. Is the board able to do dual channel?

" Dual DDR 400
Supports up to 3GB of Single/Dual channel DIMM modules, delivering bandwidth of 6.4GB/sec." - Abit Website

However running 2*512MB sticks can hinder overclocking (smaller modules such as 2*256 will generally overclock better). It really depends on if you want 1GB of RAM (still overclockable very hugh) or 512MB of RAM (chance it will overclock even higher than 1GB sticks, but not guaranteed). I dont think it will make a HUGE difference (might be no difference) with the 1GB, so that's what i'd shoot for. also depends on what brand you are getting and all that.
 
well right now im gettin a 512 mb stick of Corsair Value. I might get another stick in the future to run in dual channel (i know that it might not work because they arent the "exact same" and they havent been tested, but im on a budget). My delima is between more ram and/or a video card. I really have a choice between options
A: 512 mb stick, EVGA 6800 128 mb
B: EVGA 6800 GT 256 MB

which of these additions would perform better with my current rig:

XP-m 2600
Abit NF7-S v2
512 mb 3200
Radeon 9600se (ew....)
80gb 7200rpm


Oh 1 more thing, how will i check my steppings once i get my hardware (god i hate the waiting :p )?
 
ak_smallz said:
well right now im gettin a 512 mb stick of Corsair Value. I might get another stick in the future to run in dual channel (i know that it might not work because they arent the "exact same" and they havent been tested, but im on a budget). My delima is between more ram and/or a video card. I really have a choice between options
A: 512 mb stick, EVGA 6800 128 mb
B: EVGA 6800 GT 256 MB

which of these additions would perform better with my current rig:

XP-m 2600
Abit NF7-S v2
512 mb 3200
Radeon 9600se (ew....)
80gb 7200rpm


Oh 1 more thing, how will i check my steppings once i get my hardware (god i hate the waiting :p )?

personally i'd go with option #2, and just upgrade to 1GB later. But i don't even use my 512MB or RAM to its max, maybe you need more?

Checking processor steppings is as easy as looking on the stocker and writing it down. you might want a magnifying glass if you can't read small print, but it's just on the chip on a sticker.
 
B: EVGA 6800 GT 256 MB
That's the one I'd go for, as the 128mb card doesn't have GDDR3 and basically that GT will provide the most bang for the buck since you'll be able to OC it, I think it's FAR more valueable than getting that stick of 512mb of RAM although yeah definitely get more down the road.

as for checking the stepping yeah just listen to 4W4K3, when you get your processor, before you put it in, you'll see a little sticker, just write down ALL that info and we'll tell you which part is the 'steppings' and what week it was made if you care :p it only matters with the 2400+ XP's really, cause they had unlocked multi's before week39, with mobiles it doesn't matter unless you simply would want to know how to read info off a processor for knowledge sake
 
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