Hello! First post, about to build an Epox EP-9NDA3J...have some questions

[AaronATX]

Hello! Been lurking here for about a week or so trying to answer my own questions, and have found lots of good info about what to expect with my upcoming install. Have a few questions still, and if anyone can offer some input that would be great!

First off: I'm an armchair overclocker, i've been building computers for about 10 years now so I am fairly aware of what I am doing. ( most of the time )

Bought an Epox mobo because it was dirt cheap, and I have built plenty of epox based systems in years gone by, mostly back in the "duron age" of AMD proccessors. In the "xp era" of amd computing, all the systems I built were nforce2 chipsets and I have been very very pleased with them. So when I saw epox had an nforce3 chipset, and was super cheap, it was a slam dunk as to what to buy.

Parts from my current rig I would like to transfer over: Corsair CMX512-3200C2 - 2 sticks

X800 XL Agp card

Antec 550w TruePower (its about 2 years old)

And of course various hd's and dvd/cd drives.

Anyway, on with the questions:

Is my ram going to be decent to overclock this system? I havent built a single A64 system yet so the process will be new to me. I've read up on it so I have an idea of how it should work, but im getting mixed reviews on the web about real life experiances.

What about this powersupply? I believe it is suffecient for what i'll be doing here, but i'm not sure if it has the additional power connector that this motherboard requires. (and it IS a requirement that it be connected, right?) Obviously i'll find out when I tear the system down but I figured I might as well ask.

Installing the OS: I'll be doing a clean install on my Segate 160 gig SATA drive.
-First of all, if I get a mobo with an older bios revision, will I need to flash the bios in order for the motherboard to recognize the Venice +3200 that i'll be putting in? (I hope not, that creates a whole new set of pains in the butt)
-Assuming I install windows 2k, will I need a floppy disk to install SATA drivers to get it to work? Or will win2k automatically detect it?
-Does this motherboard work with Win64?


Well thats all I've got for the moment. Thanks in advance!

[danrok]

You'll need to use the 4-pin power connector, the one which has the pins arranged in a square configuration. I'd imagine that your PSU would have this.

[GrahamGarside]

Does the PSU have the 12V P4 connector? if so then that PSU is more than up to the task and then some.
The ram won't prevent you overclocking, as it's easy enough to limit the memory speed while still increasing the bus speed, don't know how much the memory it self will overclock, but if it's DDR400 CL2 then it can probably handle a decent overclock with some extra voltage

You will probably need a floppy for the sata drivers, unless you have a slipstreamed install disk with the latest service packs and drivers

[AaronATX]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

Does the PSU have the 12V P4 connector? if so then that PSU is more than up to the task and then some.
The ram won't prevent you overclocking, as it's easy enough to limit the memory speed while still increasing the bus speed, don't know how much the memory it self will overclock, but if it's DDR400 CL2 then it can probably handle a decent overclock with some extra voltage

You will probably need a floppy for the sata drivers, unless you have a slipstreamed install disk with the latest service packs and drivers

As far as the powersupply connector, I dont remember, i'll have to check, I just figured i'd ask

As it relates to overclocking....so am I to understand I can still possibly get a nice overclock with my setup, but if I was to use some ram that can hit higher speeds I would be able to run it at a higher frequency and gain speed via a larger memory bandwidth?

[cadaveca]

For that CMX, it's BH-6, Double sided. 2-3-3-6 to 220mhz avg, 2.65v, not much more @ 2.8v. Bh-6 does not seem to like the high volts that some other winbond based chips like, but they will run 2-2-2-5 @ 3.2v. Try 2.5-3-3-8.w/trc of 12, and trfc of 22.

[danrok]

You may be best doing as I do with similar modules. I'm using the 166 divider and maxing the CPU core speed.

[AaronATX]

what generally provides better benchmarks? Maxed core or maxed memory? With the nforce2 I was always under the impression that memory bandwidth = king (for gaming at least )

[cadaveca]

you gotta balance both. the timings i posted should let you get the mex outta that mem, but don't expect too much from it. it WILL perform better than it did on the AXP platfrom, thanks to the new memory controller.

[danrok]

I haven't bothered making benchmark comparisons between using a 166 divider and running at 1:1. At 1:1 I have to run at a lower core speed. Perhaps, I will invest in some faster modules in due course, so that I can get the best of both worlds.

Anyhow, running with 166 divider is much faster and smoother, for me, in games. Noticeably so.

The A64's don't take an extra performance hit in the way the XP's do when using memory dividers.

[GrahamGarside]

You gotta balnce both, but when the chips are down for most things cpu performance is king, just look at the Pentium M with it's single chanel DDR333, but there comes a point where memory througput is the limit for certain apps
If you take the differance between socket 754 and 939, 939 has double the memory bandiwdth, but cpu's of equal ratings are only 200mhz apart

Your memory won't limit the clock speed the cpu can reach

[cadaveca]

Yep MHZ wins. 1:1 you won't max out with the mem, most likely, with default multi.

[AaronATX]

Total System Failure