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The P4 processors are pretty powerful as they are and wouldnt suggest overclocking it, mainly because it wont be 100% reliable as the standard one. [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/s3addict.gif[/img]

Should be ok then but i`d be really hacked off if i was playing a game and it locked up during a important part! lol [img]images/graemlins/s3addict.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/biggrin3.gif[/img]

The only issue is cooling.... as long as you can supply enough cooling to the processor than you can overclock it by 5-10% easily. You have to remember that this will also effect the Memory, PCI bus & AGP bus. You can also overclock your Video Card (assuming its something like a Geforce or ATi Radeon).

Heat is the killer, with the right cooling (water cooling or a fridge system) you can take a 3GHz processor to 4GHz.

I used to do a lot of overclocking, and then gave up. I've got a BP6 and a VP6 (Abit). I wouldn't recommend it to be honest with you, it's a bit of a black art.

I think machines are powerfull enough these days, and the gain of a few hundred MHz ain't gonna make that much difference. What you need is loads of RAM [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] .

I've just bought some bits, and built up the following machine:
Asus A7V8X M/B USB 2.0, LAN, surround sound, etc
Athlon 2200+
GeForce 4 8x AGP 64MB 500MHz
1.5Gb DDR2100
2x 80Gb ATA133 Hard Disks

It rocks!! So I can finally make a start on those videos from the RS4 Challenge. [img]images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

Tweaky,

I wouldn't bother with over-clocking either, the chips today are just monstruously over-powered compared to anything you can throw at them.

The truth is today most people oversize everything in their system, starting with RAM, processor, latest cd-burner at 48/24/48x, etc, but often leave one key component untouched/unmentionned : the Hard-Drive.

Sadly, it is now the SLOWEST component and slowing down everything else. It's THE component that keeps reading/writing to feed all the other components (processor, video card, sound card, etc.). And one of his key jobs is handling the Virtual Memory for your system as well.

It's way slower than the processor, the processor cache or the memory : its transfer rate is measured in dozens of Mo/s, while Ram goes in Go/s and Cache Memory in dozens of Go/s.
Same for access time : HD are measured in Milliseconds while memory/processor are measured in Nanoseconds.

A year ago, typical Hard-drives had access time of 20-30 Mo/s.

Today's latest ones (like IBM 180GXP or Seagate Baracude ATA V series) exceed 75 Mo/s and go up to 90 Mo/s.

The graph here shows the Average Transfer Rate for a group of 80go HDs.
Part of a massive test of 27 HD at 7,200rpm from IBM/Seagate/Maxtor/WesternDigital done last November.
(It's in FR, but if you use the fold-down menu under "Sommaire", you can easily access all different specs and charts, probably the most exhaustive test on HD I've seen for ages)

So if you're doing games/internet or basic video editing, you can double the Ram from 256 to 512mo and see a little improvement on your desktop (but frankly it won't be a WOAWWWW !). Go from 512mo to 1Go Ram, and you won't notice anything, nada...

But if you take your current hard-drive off (or keep it as a slave/backup) and install the latest ones from say IBM, like the 180GXP Serie 80 Go at 7,200rpm as I just did : it's breath-taking and will cost you about the price of 512mo of Ram (like 100 €).

Finally here's my experience : I went from 256mo of fast& expensive RDRAM-Rambus to 512mo and saw so little I thought the Ram was defective.
Then I switched from a 40Go 5,400rpm to the 80Go 7,200rpm 180GXP, and I couldn't believe it.
First the PC boots and shuts down super-fast (10 sec vs 45sec before), and then everytime I launch a program, it goes Wooosh !

Give it a shot, I'm sure that's the best way to spend money on your system.

Eric
PS1 : don't bother with the new Serial-ATA 150 (SATA-150), it won't bring any significant benefit before H1/04.
PS2 : Phil, I thought you'd go for the ASUSTeK A7N8X Deluxe with the NVIDIA nForce2-ST [img]images/graemlins/smile_smoking.gif[/img]

I used to do a lot of overclocking, and then gave up. I've got a BP6 and a VP6 (Abit). I wouldn't recommend it to be honest with you, it's a bit of a black art.

I think machines are powerfull enough these days, and the gain of a few hundred MHz ain't gonna make that much difference. What you need is loads of RAM [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] .

I've just bought some bits, and built up the following machine:
Asus A7V8X M/B USB 2.0, LAN, surround sound, etc
Athlon 2200+
GeForce 4 8x AGP 64MB 500MHz
1.5Gb DDR2100
2x 80Gb ATA133 Hard Disks

It rocks!! So I can finally make a start on those videos from the RS4 Challenge. [img]images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

I buit mine with that board Phil..

with quietness in mind. quiet antec PSU , Quiet Silverado (50g solid silver on heat sink)cpu fan, and coolermaster aluminium case.

still have a few items to try, to make it a little quieter.

what i built...

a7v8x gold version
AMD XP2400+ (2gig)266fsb cpu - in prep for a XP3000+ 333fsb
and 512Mb OCZ PC3200 DDR400 memory.
Geforce 4 4400 Ti 128mb ddr graphics.

Plan to upgrade to a Seagate Baracuda V Sata Hard drive as soon as available, and return this faulty 40Gb deathstar for replacement.. and either sell it or chuck it in case as a spare.

Not so sure i should have got the PC2100 DDR 400 memory as it limits me to only one bay. wise or not what you think?

so soon i will go for the XP3000+ chip and resell this one. with the remainder iof its 3yr warrenty, and upgrade the HD
with a sata one of 120gb ready for when broadband is available to me.

i suppose best upgrade was my CDRW burner. 52x 24X 52x

massive improvement on my old 8x!burner

F*ck me Paul, you speaking English there or what [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

You guys certainly know your stuff - I just buy the stuff off the shelf (albeit good stuff [img]images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

Andiroo

Tweaky, the first 7,200rpm disks (like the Western Digital WD800BB & the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X) peaked at 52.5 to 54.2 Mo/s. So you may want to check that and compare with the latest 7,200rpm (a good HD is always good to keep as a back -up drive or storing MP3/Pix).

Paul, SATA-150 HD (like Barracuda V) are a step in the right direction, but don't run out to upgrade because the performance increase just isn't there, and you may bump into compatibility issues around SATA accessories like the power adapters and hot-swap bays (if you need that).
As a reviewer put it a week ago "performance wise, there is no difference between single or dual disk configurations on SATA in comparison to Parallel ATA. Simply put, nothing is pushing the 150 MB/s bandwidth limitation which Serial ATA sets. Serial ATA is not a miracle technology which will boost speeds across the board; it's simply a bigger pipeline".
Probably because most current SATA controlers use the old PCI which is limited to 133mo/s as the ATA-133.
But then it's the only way so far to move to the next 10,000rpm HD; so you could wait for the Western Digital Raptor which seems to be "absolutely the only performance-oriented reason to migrate to Serial ATA."
As for the latest DDR 400, I heard about the incoming DDR-II 400. Do you know the difference ? (I don't)
Not sure about the link between SATA and Broadband though.

Eric

What about IDE RAID???

Not sure about IDE but IKEA got raided the other week [img]images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Nastipoo

IDE RAID 66 or 100 or 133 ? [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Here's a good paper though [url=http://]IDE RAID Tech Report (Dec 02)[/url]

Eric

Hi Eric.

I have a board that supports ATA 100/133 and also SATA

My 7200rpm 40Gb Ibm Deskstar is on a death row. im awaiting to fail at any minute. Although under warrety, id like to upgrade it to a larger spec. I have already had to HIT yes HIT it to get it to stop clicking and to start spinning and to get it to boot! Needless to say, i have all my data backed up now. previously i had let this lapse.

Serial Ata just seemed logical step, if forced to buy a new drive. Board supports it etc etc.

link between boradband and new drive? wasnt so much SATA , but the higher 120Gb capacity i planned to upgrade to.

Ie faster download speeds = more data available to store.

I might also convert my cd collection to hard disk too. If i can be bothered.


so what would you suggest in this situation.... ? ?

Hard disk fails. (under warrenty)
Board Supports ata 100/133/ and sata
Want to upgrade anyway and sell replacement ibm as they are renound for being unreliable, and ive had two fail so far..

what should i consider?