Athlon64 upgrade help

[XYZ]

MSI K8N Neo Platinum (Motherboard)
Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle Socket 754 (Retail)
1-Corsair VS512MB400 512 MB DDR 400 Cas 2.5
ATX Case (Need advise on a case)

ATI Radeon 9600xt (This is my current video card which I plan to continue
using in the new system.)

I'm considering these parts to upgrade my current Athlon 1600+ system.
Shooter Games are probably the most demanding thing I use my computer for.
I'm trying to keep the cost below $400. Am I doing a good thing or am I
making a big mistake by not spending more and getting a socket 939 setup?

Is this something that would overclock well? if so what type of results
might I expect to see? Is the ram I'm considering of good enough quality
for overclocking?

Is it okay to have only one stick of ram? I sometimes see 512k advertised
as "two" 256k sticks.

I also need some advise on a good case with a power supply. My current case
along with the other left over parts will be used to upgrade my Daughter's
computer. All I ask for is a Plain Jane case that is easy to take apart for
upgrades and maintenance and provides enough power and ventilation for the
new
Athlon 64. I don't need it to look like an alien space ship with lights and
bright colors.

I'm considering zipzoomfly.com to order everything from. They seem to have
good prices and a good reputation. Is that a wise choice?

It seems kind of scary going from the XP 1600+ which is 1400 MHz to a Athlon
64 2800+ which is only 1800MHz. On the surface it doesn't seem like much of
a jump. I know that the benchmarks show a much bigger difference.

Well I hope you guys can help me out. I'm sorry for asking so many
questions but this all seems so overwhelming at times. Thanks for all of
your help.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

MSI K8N Neo Platinum (Motherboard)
Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle Socket 754 (Retail)
1-Corsair VS512MB400 512 MB DDR 400 Cas 2.5
ATX Case (Need advise on a case)

ATI Radeon 9600xt (This is my current video card which I plan to continue
using in the new system.)

I'm considering these parts to upgrade my current Athlon 1600+ system.
Shooter Games are probably the most demanding thing I use my computer for.
I'm trying to keep the cost below $400. Am I doing a good thing or am I
making a big mistake by not spending more and getting a socket 939 setup?

Is this something that would overclock well? if so what type of results
might I expect to see? Is the ram I'm considering of good enough quality
for overclocking?

Is it okay to have only one stick of ram? I sometimes see 512k advertised
as "two" 256k sticks.

I also need some advise on a good case with a power supply. My current case
along with the other left over parts will be used to upgrade my Daughter's
computer. All I ask for is a Plain Jane case that is easy to take apart for
upgrades and maintenance and provides enough power and ventilation for the
new
Athlon 64. I don't need it to look like an alien space ship with lights and
bright colors.

I'm considering zipzoomfly.com to order everything from. They seem to have
good prices and a good reputation. Is that a wise choice?

It seems kind of scary going from the XP 1600+ which is 1400 MHz to a Athlon
64 2800+ which is only 1800MHz. On the surface it doesn't seem like much of
a jump. I know that the benchmarks show a much bigger difference.

Well I hope you guys can help me out. I'm sorry for asking so many
questions but this all seems so overwhelming at times. Thanks for all of
your help.

I'd recommend Newegg to get your parts from, don't know anything about
zipzoomfly.

If you go with a 754 then you'll what to use one large DIMM rather than
two small ones so that you don't limit your future upgrade possibilities.
The 754s have only one memory channel so multiple DIMMs don't contribute
to performance. The 939s have two memory channels so you want matched
pairs of DIMMs. With DDR 400 you can only have two DIMMs on a memory
channel which is why I would suggest getting one large DIMM now so that
you can add a second one later. If you use DDR 333 (PC 2700) then you can
have three DIMMs but you give up some performance. With the 939 pin part
you have two DIMM sockets on each channel so you can have four DIMMs
running at 400MHz. The difference in price between an Athlon 64 2800+ (754
pin) and an Athlon 64 3000+ (939 pin, 90nm) is less than $40 so if I were
you I'd buy the 939 pin part so that I could upgrade the memory system to
four DIMMs in the future.

 

[XYZ]

Thanks for the advice. Your suggestion of a socket 939 CPU being less than
$40 more is true, but then the motherboard has to be changed to a MSI K8N
Neo2 which is another $35 to $40, so now I'm looking at about a $70 to $80
difference. I was just trying to keep the price down although I do realize
that a 939 is probably the better choice. I'll check out newegg. Thanks
again.

 

[jacoby]

ATX Case (Need advise on a case)

Compusa is selling the Antec P160 for $60 after an instant and mail in
rebate. I think today may be the last day. Has no power supply but maybe you
have one already.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=307300&pfp=SEARCH

 

[jacoby]

MSI K8N Neo Platinum (Motherboard)
Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle Socket 754 (Retail)

It appears you are looking at a bundle from zipzoomfly. Although I would
recommend a DFI board, you will probably save money going will the bundle.

1-Corsair VS512MB400 512 MB DDR 400 Cas 2.5

Options here would be to consider a lower latency ram. If you went with 2
sticks of 256 mb you could take advantage of the relatively small
performance increase of dual channel without buying additional ram if you
upgraded later to 939.

 

[borolad]

Thanks for the advice. Your suggestion of a socket 939 CPU being less than
$40 more is true, but then the motherboard has to be changed to a MSI K8N
Neo2 which is another $35 to $40, so now I'm looking at about a $70 to $80
difference. I was just trying to keep the price down although I do realize
that a 939 is probably the better choice. I'll check out newegg. Thanks
again.

Don't disregard the socket 754,.a socket 754 Sempron 3100+ overclocked
is probably the best value / £ around, Everyone says go with 939
because of the dual channel ram, everyone has an opinion and mine is
that there is not enough benefit for the £% cost - so the dual channel
is not a cost benefit at all.

The model numbers of the A64 are no indicator of [ real ] performance,
the socket 754 Sempron 3100+ ( default clock of 1.8GHz ) overclocks
easily to and maybe above the speed of the stock speed ( 2.5GHz ) of
the 4000+, and gets very close to it ( many with a reduced voltage )
that's a gain of about 30%+ in performance. A 4000+ CPU system will
cost 3 times more than the Sempron 3100+ system. Don't be too
concerned with the cache size or the dual channel, it's clock speed
that produces real performance benefit in most apps, and there are
[ almost ] no non-linux 64 bit apps!.

Doubling the cache [ 512 to 1024 ] size and using dual channel ram
will only produce the 3% [ ish ] in performance, if you look at the PR
numbers of the 3800 which AMD labeled as a 4000+ you will see that the
actual performance benefit should have a PR of 100 not 200. As stated
above it's clock speed - clock speed - clock speed that makes
performance gain.

Overclocking, providing you don't exceed the max vcore is, and has
never been a problem with AMD. All new cores are capable of xx+ but
are released at an x- price point - whatever the worldwide consumer
will pay for, the consumer want's more over the following year - no
problem there's loads of headroom in the core to up-the-speed. We did
it with the K5/6/6+/7 and now the K8. The CPU is overlocked but the
core is not. The Barton [ 681 ] core as an example, and before that
the [ 680's ] AQXEA 2100's. It's a pre - requirement of overclocking
that the die temperature is kept well below the maximum [ spec ]
temperature that the specified chip.

There's always a risk that you will get an underperforming slug, all
CPU's are not equal, speed grade means only that AMD guarantee that
it will run at a particular clock / die temperature, we in the O/C
community know only too well that it's not only possible but probable
that most slugs will give a faster clock rate, it's just not
guaranteed.

Like I said earlier - everyone has an opinion - BoroLad

Overclocking a Sempron 3100/754 board here :
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/print/sempron-3100-oc.html