worth overclocking?

D

Dome

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 16, 2002
Messages
2,096
alright so far i've got 2 systems priced out, my budget has extended because well, frankly i've decided i want a better system. my question first is:

both setups costing about the same, which one is the better deal for ~850. better deal = more for money and lasts longer. the 2nd half of that being more important

i plan on using the same antec soho 1040B case for both and radeon 9800 pro built by radeon, and i already have periferals, optical drives, and harddrives

setup 1: amd (plan to overclock)
barton 2500
nf7-s
2x 256 kingston hyperx 3500
3x vantec tornados (case comes w/ 2 fans stock)
vantec nexus
vantec cpu monitor and fan controller (i have 2 cuz i will have 5 fans total and don't like noise, but want good cooling)
hlk 947 U HS for cpu
artic silver ceramique

setup 2: intel (will run at stock speed for a long time)
2.4c
ic7-g (feel free to recommend others)
2x 256 corsair xms 3200

so i'm asking you is it worth the bother of buying all the fans and rheobuses to overclock an amd to speeds of the stock intel for the same money?

if i got intel i would probably wait a long time, then when my computer started getting old i would slap in all the air cooling i could afford, new ram and oc it.

edit: with the intel system i am not planning on putting any more than the stock 2 fans w/ the case because it'll be running stock. if you think i need all 4 fans to run smoothly please let me know
 
well, looks like after doing a bit of quick research, the intel system has changed to:

2x 256 mushkin pc 3500 L1 184 pin
abit is7-E

anyone know anything about the ram? it costs less than corsair pc3200 so i'm a bit skeptical, i'd rather buy better quality pc3200 ram than lower quality pc3500...

the system now costs me ~750 (depending on the ram)
 
I recently built my first rig for around £550 and am very happy with it. I benchmark 6010 on 3DMark03 (which may have gone up now as I've done some more tweaking).

AMD Athlon XP2500 Barton (running at 205Mhz 11x multi 1.824V)
Antec 80mm Case Fan dual bearing (running at 29xx RPM)
Antec 92mm Case Fan dual bearing (running at 29xx RPM)
Asus A7N8X Deluxe GD2
Coolermaster Aero 7 Lite (running at 36xx RPM)
Corsair XMS 512MB PC3500 CL2 (running at 205Mhz 5-2-2-2 2.8V)
Sapphire ATi Radeon 128MB Atlantis PRO (running at 398.65Mhz Core / 357.35Mhz Memory)
Superflower 470W QuadFan PSU (running at 26xx RPM)

I ordered some other things too including a modem, case, 5.1 speakers etc which probably came up to over £100, although I got my graphics card about £150 cheaper than retail so that makes up for that.

Anyway I'm extremely happy with my system and it games great, I can even capture video and audio at 720x576 25fps 8000kbps LPCM 48,000khz 320kbps (PAL DVD quality) MPEG2 without dropping any frames which is something I couldn't even dream about doing on my old PC. All the games I've tried so far work flawlessly on full settings and most even let me use 4x AA and 8x AA without much of a noticable difference in games. My computer is rather loud though, it's mostly the two case fans.

Having never used the Intel setup I can't really say the AMD route is better but I'm extremely happy with it and it runs comfortably at 39C and 47C load.
 
mmm i like setup #1 just cause thats my setup. I have a week 49 barton2500, and the nf7-s. GREAT combo there. Im running the aerocool heatsink with two thermal take smart fans on it...yeah so my heatsink looks like a skyscraper but i tell you what, it works. I got the 2500 at 1.7 V, 2.3 ghz, idle 28, load 33. Now, if i dont want my case to sound like a jet engine (anyone who knows the smartfans) i run 30 idle, 35 load.
 
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