Topic: Which motherboard / CPU?

[Simon]

Any suggestions as to a good mobo / CPU combination for someone starting out building their own PC?

[bat69]

Questions:

How much have they to spend?
What do they want the PC for?
Are they bothered about upgrading?

They are the fundamental ones

[Simon]

OK, lets say, £100 max, average home PC, would want to upgrade, but not too bothered about overclocking and that sort of stuff.

[bat69]

OK well you can pick up some good AMD chips going cheap and some reasonable Socket A mobos, done in a combo from a reputable dealer, you should get that for £100. It will probably be a Duron processor, but should suffice for most things, and it can always be changed to a better XP chip later, if the mobo can have increased FSB to 133 Hz from 100Hz

[Sandra]

Always get as big a power supply as possible,especially if thinking of upgrading at a later date too  

[Simon]

Actually, sorry Bat, I forgot I'd combined them, but I would probably expect to pay £70-£80 each for a mobo and CPU.

[bat69]

In that case you'll get a Via KT333 chipset mobo, or possibly a KT400 if you're lucky. THese should be very good mobos and give good upgradability for a while, and will be able to use DDR RAM

As for the CPU, you'll get an AMD XP something in the region of a 1700+ to a 1900+ for that amount

[Tony]

Power Supplies,

I'm on a 300 watt, which appears to be the norm, and I'm running two dual head graphics cards and three monitors no problem. That's because every thing bar the Tower is powered mains side of the PSU transformer.

Catch 22

[Tony]

Bat,

I've been meaning to ask, I running a AMD XP 2000+, the MOBO is set at default FSB 100Mhz. Are you saying that I can adjust the MOBO FSB setting to 133Mhz, simple as that, nothing else to adjust ?

catch

[Sandra]

Hi Catch,your power supply is probably ok unless you intend to run a lot of USB bus powered devices.There are a lot of people who only have 250watt ones.USB ports supply up to 500ma at each port so if you have 4 ports running at max power they will take 2A,which is quite a large amount out of a small supply and as most USB connectable peripherals are usually available in both bus powered or mains powered I would always opt for the mains powered ones  
I'm not sure about the 100mhz bit,which RAM have you,as if it is only 100mhz even if you change the FSB to 133mhz your ram would still run at 100mhz,so thatwould need upgrading too  

[bat69]

Hi Catch,

Firstly the mobo has to be capable of having the FSB alterred within the BIOS.

Secondly, if that can be done there must be 'dividers' allowed too. THese are used to ensure the PCI and AGP busses run at the correct speeds of 33Hz and 66Hz respectively.

Now memory is another thing to consider, the RAM must be capable of running at higher speeds too. The speed RAM runs at is dependent upon FSB speed and will usually be set within the BIOS

Right, that is one bit out of the way. Now the tricky bit.

To be able to just change the FSB, you must first consider how the CPU runs at the speed it does. This is achieved by a multiplier within the CPU and is factory locked (ie it can't be changed >) if this were unlocked you would be free to experiment (that's what I need to do when I overclock the CPU 8)) The CPU speed is governed by the FSB speed multiplied by the multiplier. eg a FSB of 133 and multiplier of 10x gives a CPU speed of 1.33GHz    A locked 10x CPU would not be capable of making the jump from 100Hz to 133Hz ie 1GHz to 1.3GHz

However, by increasing the FSB by a little at a time, ie 101Hz, 102Hz etc, you are overclocking the CPU (and all the other PC components) Eventually, those components will become unstable and cause crashes. There are other things that get tweaked along the way like CPU core voltage etc.

I do not recommend messing with these unless you know what you are doing, have adequate CPU cooling and realise that you invalidate warranties, and can destroy your CPU.

Here endeth your first lesson in overclocking 8)

[Tony]

Cheers Sandra and Bat,

I've a MSI KT333 ultra2 MOBO set at default 100Mhz, it say's something in the manual about adjusting it if the CPU can run faster than that. it's an AMD XP 2000+ CPU and PC2100 266 Mhz DDR memory.


So now whats the state of play, is it worth having a dabble. The Mobo has a temp monitor that will switch off the PC if it is triggered. I have set this at the lowest setting 70 C and my CPU currently runs between 34 and 38 C and I do not even run the intake fan. Plus there are two other temp monitor and alarm aids with the MSI Mobo, besides the Bios temp monitor mentioned early.

I dont really want to over clock the CPU, but if the MOBO is capable of 266Mhz and the memory is 266Mhz and the CPU is 266 Mhz, surely there is not point in leaving the FSB on the MOBO at the default 100 Mhz setting. Mind you I don't have a clue what I'm talking about   I only know that I can adjust the Mobo FSB if the CPU is capable of supporting that adjusment.

Should I ?


catch

[Sandra]

I am definitely out of my depth now Catch,sorry you'll have to rely on Bat for the rest but I will see if I can find a site for you and blow you a kiss every now and then  

[Tony]

Out of your depth !! I'm positively drowning Ho you've go and done it now Sandra, I'm of to bed to dream about you blowing me kisses  

Nite, sleep tight mind the bugs don't bite.

catch

[Sandra]

Hi Catch  
As promised I have blown you a kiss and may have found a site that will help you understand what Bat was saying in a longer more simplistic way that you can read a bit at a time.I think that even I can understand it a little better now  

http://www.crazypc.com/articles/overclocking.htm

I hope it helps