AMD System

[chrisishere]

Hello everyone

This is my first post here, I'm normally at the Whirlpool forums.

Anyway my question is. I am thinking of getting an AMD system.

At the moment I am looking at an XP2000+ with the GA-7VAXP. A little run down on it.

Northbridge : VIA KT400
Southbridge : VIA 8235
VIA 8X V-Link architecture (533MB/s)
VIA VT6306 IEEE1394 controller
Super I/O : ITE IT8705F
Smart I/O : Winbond Smart@IO
Promise PDC20276 ATA 133 RAID controller
Raeltek 8100BL Ethernet 10/100Mb LAN controller
AC97 Realtek ALC650 6-channel sound Chip
Dual BIOS

Now I am not sure which ram I should go for with this mobo and CPU. Another thing, is there a great diffrence if I went to the THOROUGHBRED AMD chips.

Thanks

[pga1234]

I have that particular board. It is very nice and will support up to the 2800+ procs. You will be happy with it if you buy it. Only $113 aty www.newegg.com which has great service. :thumb:

[chrisishere]

hey thanks for the quick reply. At the moment in Australia that mobo is around $270 so a bit mroe expensive to our friends in the US but still worth it in my views with the onboard firewire.

So the max that board will take is a 2800xp+? Just want to make sure, reading reviews on here as well, is it worth to spend the extra and get pc2700 ram? or will 2100 be fine.

I'm looking at a system that will last a little while and only add more ram and HD space later on

[pga1234]

The barton procs will prolly be able to run on it as well, it depends on what the FSB is. It depends on the RAM. How much more is it to buy the 2700? But if you are running XP try and get a 512mb stick as it can run at faster timings...

[chrisishere]

2700 isn't much at all, I was looking at a 512mb stick from kingston or kingmax, both same prices here.

Now, how about pc3200? I notice you are using it as well.

[FLaCo]

I have that particular board. It is very nice and will support up to the 2800+ procs. You will be happy with it if you buy it. Only 3 aty www.newegg.com which has great service. :thumb:

Whatever happen to you getting the At7-MaX2?

You should be fine with 2700 getting 3200 with the 2800+ would be like me and my 2700 with my 2000+...you get very lil performance not even close to noticing. Back then i just wanted the best but i did not need all...even though i am glad i did...since the new AMD's are coming with a FSB increase...512MB is the sweet spot like WiGGo says...i have a GiG of the PC2700 and it not much difference.

[SegiY]

seings 2800+ is the highest (paper) released chip that is all they put as compatiable, newer bios update will extend it's capabilaties.

[FLaCo]

seings 2800+ is the highest (paper) released chip that is all they put as compatiable, newer bios update will extend it's capabilaties.

He is ^^ right...

[chrisishere]

ahhh that's good to know, thanks for the info guys.

at the moment I'm thinking pc2700ram one 512mb stick on the mobo i mentioned and a 2000XP+, see how prices go in a year time and upgrade the cpu and put more ram in.

thanks again

[FLaCo]

Thats would be the best way to go as of now...thats what i plan to do...i am using the Abit KX7-333R and have 2700 so when those 2800+ come out i'll flash my bios and pop it in!

[pga1234]

Flaco - The ABIT MAX 2 wasnt widely available when I purchased my sytem parts. But with seeing how much trouble saidin had with it I'm kinda glag :(

[FLaCo]

Hmm sucks..AbiT is known to be rather GOOD mobo...but nothing against GiGaByte...they are getting up there...and i guess it does the job...well done:thumb:

[Wiggo]

That's not a bad board at all but the o/c features are nowhere near my likin's sorry. It should prove very stable though. If ya not goin' to o/c (or not to much) then PC2700 should be fine. I use Kingmax PC2700 for stock to light o/c and Corsair XMS-3200 for heavy journeys to the darkside. :devil:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[vincents]

I'm thinking of getting something along those lines. Problem is, I've been told that the Promise RAID controller can only use one set of ports at any one go.

For example, I need to connect 8 devices using the GA-7VAXP board. I've been told that I can only use 4 devices at any one time because the motherboard uses the Promise chipset for the RAID controller. Apparently, RAID controolers that use the Highpoint chipset do not encounter this problem.

Am I right or am I just confusing the sh!t out of everyone including myself? :geek:

[JediAgent]

Your very right. I have a KG7-RAID and it uses the HighPoint, whereas i just setup a system last week for a friend with that exact board and he couldn't. He also had some probs with his Ti4200 and the AGPvolt set number in the bios. The system was turning off video randomly and i didnt have the time to fix it so he took it down to the Gigabyte main headquarters (20min away, i live in SoCal, everything is 20min away, go figure) and they did something for him to fix it. I never found out whether it was a bios upgrade or a AGPvolt change in the bios, but it works now. Id stay clear of anything thats not Abit or Asus or AOpen (big 3 A's), but then again im brand loyal.