Good stuff?

[Fat_Bob]

Alright..

yesterday was my birtday and i got some Upg money to my computer..
What i was thinking of buying was :

Leadtek nForce2 18D-PRO, 1AGP 8x, 4PCI, LAN, 5.1 Audio, FireWire
MD Athlon XP2800 (barton) 2.083 GHz 333 MHz bus
512MB 2x TwinMos PC3200 DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5 Unbuffered
Artic Colling: SuperSilent Copper 2 TC, Socket A/370, XP 3400+, 10db
Club3D radeon 9800Pro 128Mb

The stuff above costs 390$... is that a good price and does the components look good to you?

I would bet this will get good results but im not 100% sure...

 

[Asus]

Looks good...only thing i would change would be 2x pc2700 DDR CL2 256mb. Run insync with that 333 fsb. and cl2 vs cl2.5 will make a difference.

 

[Sgt.Igneri]

Originally posted by Asus
Looks good...only thing i would change would be 2x pc2700 DDR CL2 256mb. Run insync with that 333 fsb. and cl2 vs cl2.5 will make a difference.

PC2700 would be a bit better but not by much. The better choice would be to keep the PC3200, but find RAM with CAS2. PC3200 will be better for the future, once he starts OCing.

 

[Fat_Bob]

what is CAS2 ?

 

[Sgt.Igneri]

CAS= Column Adress Signal. Lower= Better. Lower CAS or CL timings will allow more memory bandwith.

 

[Fat_Bob]

is it more expansive? and then, how much?

 

[Sgt.Igneri]

CAS2 is pretty rare. The mushkin PC3500 lvl 2 im getting does 2-2-2-5 tmings, which is the tightest timings around ATM. Maybe a few more dollars, but what the price really depends on in RAM, is speed, brand, and how much.

Right now i have corsair XMS PC3700. The timings are 3-4-4-8. You dont get any looser then that. My mushkin im getting, is exactly the opposite and they are the same price.

Mushkin and OCZ make PC3200 CAS 2, and they are about $130-$140 each 512mb.

 

[Fat_Bob]

okay... in sweden those memories costs about 200$... we're a ****ing expensive country =(

 

[Asus]

If you do not plan on OCing your system but rather just looking to optimize your system and would get PC2700 Cas2 and run insync with your FSB.
If you plan on OCing then get PC3200 (cas 2 or 2.5). It will cost lot more for good quality cas 2 pc3200 than cas 2.5/3 but is worth the performance only if your system will use it.
Although you could get a decent set of PC3200 that are set to run at cl2.5 yet under clock to 166mhz to run 1:1 and they could run with cas 2.0
Ive seen cases where good timings on PC2700 can outperform average timings with PC3200 especially when not in sync with FSB on AMD systems.
P4 is when you may consider PC3200 though because usually you do not run 1:1

 

[Washuu]

i really think he should go for the pc3200 ram, and OC the processor, should take much just to up its FSB. didnt take much for me