Componant Advice

Wiredchild said:
What's the motherboard like, does anyone have any opinions on the ASUS M2N-E? Will it be fine with an Athlon X2 3800+ and 1GB of Corsair Dual Channel PC3200 RAM (I think that's the RAM i have at the moment anyway!)?

I'm pretty sure that the M2N-E is an alright board, good for a budget build. My brother has the M2N32-SLI board, and it's been good for him thus far. For overclocking, the HTT multipliers go up in increments of 1 (on the M2N32 anyways), so it's not the very best overclocking board but it gets the job done. But keep in mind that the M2N-E is one of the cheaper of the M2N series, so it may not be as good as the M2N32; I have no personal experiences with that particular board. Try Googling some reviews or something, that usually helps.
You'll have to get different RAM; you need DDR2, not DDR, assuming that what you got there is DDR. Look for some PC2 6400 RAM (DDR2 800); if that's too pricey for you, get some PC2 5400 RAM (DDR2 667). I don't know if the difference is really noticeable in games, but results will show themselves in benchmarks such as Super Pi & 3DMark. And just keep in mind that that X2 3800+ will need to be Socket AM2 to be compatible with that board, not Socket 939. HTH :D
 
Hey, sorry it's taken me so long to reply - I've been on holiday in Barcelona!

It's all sounding good so far, my only concern is the RAM i have, which is this:
http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~49893~WW~/Corsair XMS3200 1GB 2x512MB DDR CAS2 PT.htm

RAM is something i have never, and don't think i will ever understand. I think the stuff i'm using is DDR, not DDR2, and i don't think i can afford to buy any more.

Will this RAM not work at all with the ASUS M2N-E? Or will it cause a great problem with system performance? Also, with RAM in mind, how much is neccessary to have in a system for an AMD 3800+ X2 processor? I remember some people suggesting that 1GB of DDR PC3200 (what i seem to have), was not really enough for my AMD Athlon 64 3500+, so if i upgrade i could run into some real problems right?

Overall, how much performance increase should i realistically expect through upgrading from:

ASUS A8N-E Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU,
1GB Corsair PC3200 RAM,
Gainward 6600GT.

to

ASUS M2N-E Motherboard,
AMD X2 3800+,
1GB Corsair PC3200 RAM,
An nVidia 7600GT.

Would i honestly notice a great deal of difference in performance when playing games? At the moment i have to play most on low settings, which is a pain.

Just as a note, i really don't intend to overclock these componants as i don't like doing it, and don't really know how either!

How's it looking, the RAM seems to be the major concern at the moment i suppose.

Cheers.
 
that would be a verynice uprade about 5000 more Points in 3D mark 03.

You would definetly notice a difference, i would go for it man.
 
Will the RAM work though?

How much PC3200 RAM does an Athlon 64 3500+, and an Athlon X2 3800+ need?

It's always confused me how much RAM a proccessor actually needs to work effectively.

Cheers again.
 
i wouldnt go with less than 512Mb.

1GB is the standard.


2GB is soon becoming the new standard
w/ Vista and More memory hungry apps than ever
 
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