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[Lil' Dice]

Okay, right now i have an Athlon XP 2000+, an di'm looking to upgrade it to at least a 2800+ for HL2 and maybe Doom 3. My motherboard box (MSI) says it supports up to a 2200+; does this mean that mobos have a max on the processor speed used in them?
It also seems that many boards come with only 2 DDR slots, which seems pretty limited seing that i have 2x256MB and a 512MB memory stick.
I'd like to come away with the cheapest alternative possible(of course), so if someone can lead me to a place that sells quality mobo/CPU combos i would really appreciate it.


My specs are:

Athlon XP 2000+
1gig of Ram
40gigHD+80gigHD
GeForge 4-440MX(don't laugh)

After i update my CPU and video card, i should have a pretty smoking system.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

well if first off if you want the 2800 your going to want a nvidia nforce 2 board the abit one is good and like 90 bucks or so just do a search on newegg. Second I would check and or call your motherboard manufaturer to see if they released a bios update. sometimes your motherboard manufacutere..sorry i been drinking. Will release a bios update so that your board will recognize higher speed grade chips. If your dead set on staying with the amd xp line then you definitely want to go with the nforce2 ultra with dual channel memory. I think its called an nforce2 ultra 400.

Now on another note if you dont want to spend that much money then the 2800 is a good buy, but your going to need a pretty darn good vid card to pull up the rear, the 2800xp 2 years old after all. Doom3 is a very demanding app, I personally would recommend the amd64 3500 chip, its about 350$ and is basically the uber powerful amd64 fx 51 with half the L2 cache. The problem is the newer motherboards for these chips run for like 150 bucks because of all the integrated features in them.

 

[NotMSRP]

AMD Sempron: for teh cheapasses

 

[Shogmaster]

Okay, right now i have an Athlon XP 2000+, an di'm looking to upgrade it to at least a 2800+ for HL2 and maybe Doom 3. My motherboard box (MSI) says it supports up to a 2200+; does this mean that mobos have a max on the processor speed used in them?
It also seems that many boards come with only 2 DDR slots, which seems pretty limited seing that i have 2x256MB and a 512MB memory stick.
I'd like to come away with the cheapest alternative possible(of course), so if someone can lead me to a place that sells quality mobo/CPU combos i would really appreciate it.


My specs are:

Athlon XP 2000+
1gig of Ram
40gigHD+80gigHD
GeForge 4-440MX(don't laugh)

After i update my CPU and video card, i should have a pretty smoking system.

For little money option, I'd go to Newegg and get a Mobile Athlon XP 2400+ (1.8Ghz Barton with 266Mhz FSB) and pair it with an nForce board and PC2700 or a PC3200 RAM and end up with a 3000+ out of it (2.16Ghz with PC2700 with 166x13 multiplier clock), or a 3200+ out of it (2.2Ghz with PC3200 with 200x11 multiplier clock).

If you are feeling brave, you could try for 3400+ or beyond with the second option too.

 

[Lil' Dice]

Thanks for the tips. And as far as overclocking goes, is it something that's frowned upon by PC shops, or will most do it for you?
I've read that it often involves soldering, and i'd like to stay away from doing any of that myself.

 

[Shogmaster]

Thanks for the tips. And as far as overclocking goes, is it something that's frowned upon by PC shops, or will most do it for you?
I've read that it often involves soldering, and i'd like to stay away from doing any of that myself.

The overclocking I'm suggesting involves your keyboard and dip switches. Let them build it and then take it home, go on the mobo to toggles some dip switches, and then go into BIOS and click click click your way into higher clockspeeds.

BTW, you should really build it yourself. They (shops) will suck away any cost advantage of getting the parts of your choosing.