xp2800 or xp3000?

[cybergeek45]

Hi all. Am building a new rig to do some minor overclock playing with. I have read on some reviews & posts that the xp2800 is a better bargain for overclocking value than the xp3000. Unless there is a lot of difference, guess I will stick with the xp2800. Have a question on motherboard preference. The Epox 8rda+ seems to be rated quite highly in this forum & in a lot of reviews. Am concerned about the "quirks" with this board that are mentioned in a lot of reviews, such as aggressive ram settings, not posting with some types of DDR, & not recognizing Western Digital HDs, for example. Not sure whether to get this board & try to play with it till I get it working, or go with the Asus A7N8 Deluxe, which seems to be also highly rated, with seemingly less problems.One other thing, please, the Volcano 7+ hsf is rated to XP2600, but a lot of members on this forum swear by this fan. Is this better than the GlobalWin FSP82 which I am currently running in my XP2200 & is rated for XP3000+? Thanks for your thoughts

[minibubba]

You can't go wrong with the A7N8X Deluxe :thumb:
I've been using it for a few months now and I havn't had a single problem with it, and with good RAM is overclocks very nice

as for the HSF, you'd probably be better off with a volcano 11 seeing as it is an upgraded version of the v7+ and handle those high-end cpu's

[amd_man2005]

The 7+ will be fine for a 2800+ procesoor, and most here that have tried the 8RDA+ havent had any problems with it EXCEPT, it doesnt like generic Ram

[Wiggo]

Generally lower clocked CPU's have more headroom for overclockin'. As to the "quirks" the 8RDA+ has I've never come across any and my 2 here plus the 5 others that I've built all use WD hard drives. I've used both Corsair and Kingmax modules in them as well with no probs even with the timings set as agressively as the BIOS will allow (Corsair only). So I don't know what these reviews ya read are talkin' about.

[The__tweaker]

I'd go for that 2800+, it'a a beast even without any oc, and as Wiggo stated, it will most likely oc better.. :)

[cybergeek45]

Thanks for all the input. Possibly some of the reviews I've read about the 8rda are older reviews, in fact one of them states that there should or will be a bios update to address memory problems. Shoud I use 3200DDR or 3500DDR, & I think I have read in some of the posts here that 512 DDr is the "sweetspot" for WinXP. Also that one should use 2 sticks of 256 instead of 512. Does this mean that for the best performance results I should only install 512DDR total, & in the 2 sticks of 256 combination, or can 2 sticks of 512 be used?

[Wiggo]

Ok I'll give ya the specs for this, my main beast:

XP2600+ @ 2.26GHz (12.5 x 180MHz)
Volcano 7+
8RDA+ (yes very early ones needed a BIOS update)
2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500 @ FSB speed (w/ the fastest BIOS timings possible)
40GB WD "JB" (or SE) HDD
128MB GF4 Ti4200 VIVO

plus floppy, CDRW, DVD in an UNEEC case.

[cybergeek45]

Thanks for the use of your specs Wiggo. I certainly respect & pay attention to your knowledgable posts. Since I already have an Asus board, I think I will try the Epox for some variety. I feel confident that if I do run into trouble with it, I will be able to resolve it in this forum. Thanks all, once again:)

[Wiggo]

The ASUS mobo should be pretty much the same though I find SATA and the extra nic unneccessary (atm anyway) but the 8RDA+ has voltage ranges that I'd never use (unless liquid coolin' entered my life) plus the EPoX mobo is much cheaper here than the ASUS version (or I'd give an ASUS one a run).

[homeworld1031tx]

. As to the "quirks" the 8RDA+ has I've never come across any and my 2 here plus the 5 others that I've built all use WD hard drives.

Acttually, i have read alot of reviews saying that they are some compatability problems, especially with GIeL Memory.

[Wiggo]

Giel and OCZ are 2 that I won't touch due to a lot of reasons which I won't go into anymore. : peace2: