Upgrade, is it worth it?

[usslindstrom]

Would an upgrade from an XP2800+(Barton) to the 3200+(Barton) be worth it? It will beef up my fsb to 400 instead of 333. I believe that it's bottlenecking my system as it is. I have Samsung PC3200 ram that's kinda' just going to waste right now at the lower speeds. I don't have the money for a whole new mobo, and that's the max it'll take. And the mobo I have kinda' blows, since if I try to overclock the fsb to 400 it dies... So stock speeds on everything are the only way to go it seems.

[John Prophet]

you cant overclock it to something less than all the way to 400?

What about trying to get halfway to 400?

like get the fsb to 180ish or so....

JP

(PS...the cpu is RARELY the bottleneck....the cpu speed has outpaced EVERYTHING else.....hard drive, RAM and vid card are a bottleneck wayyyy before a cpu is)

[nukes]

Try clocking it up a bit at a time. You may need to bump the voltage a notch or two as well to get it stable at the higher speed.
A 3200 barton isn't going to run a whole lot faster than a 2800 one.
Why do you think the system's bottlenecked? A lot of the CPU time is spent waiting for other pieces of hardware to catch up.
Most likely the bottleneck will be the hard disks. (or graphics card if you're gaming)
what mobo is it by the way?

[twiztidtruckie]

depending on how large a psu your using, that may be holding you back as well. With such beefy cpus, you usually need to run a psu capable of handling all the stuff you have on that system. I agree with nukes too...the barton 3200 is not a whole lot more than the 2800.

Truckie

[rourkchris]

What motherboard do you have? It'll help to give an answer. If you had an nForce2 motherboard then it would be very easy most likely to overclock. You might find it more financially feasable to replace the motherboard and invest in better CPU cooling than to buy the XP3200+ CPU. Here's an example using newegg.com:


Chaintech nForce2 Ultra 400 7NIL-Summit, $59.00 shipped
Vantec AeroFlow TMD CPU cooler, $28.99 shipped
Arctic Silver 5, $10.99 shipped
Total, $98.98


AMD XP3200+ CPU OEM(no heatsink/fan), $207.00 shipped.

Difference, $108.98. With the savings you're well on your way to a new video card or more RAM as well. The nForce2 motherboards are the only way to go IMO. You'll be able to overclock your CPU easier as this board locks the PCI/AGP dividers and supports the 400fsb. It also runs dual channel memory and is likely a newer chipset than you are currently using.

[nukes]

In addition the NForce2 has the best memory performance for the Athlon platform atm.
I've just got one of those boards in, waiting till I can get a CPU/PSU/HSF for it and then it will rock.

[usslindstrom]

Everything else on the system is Perfect. I have a 9800 Pro, Antec TruePower 550w power supply, 1GB PC3200, 1 40Gb HD (Maxtor) & 1 120Gb (WD), SBlive 5.1, . The mobo is the only thing that kinda' blows. It's the Asus A7V600 with the Via chipset. I was experiencing a crapload of problems when I had the fsb set to 400, since the Barton 2800+ is only 333. The memory can do it... But I was just wondering if it was cost effective to go with the 3200+ (The max the mobo can do), or not to bother. Other than that, the system is perfect.

It sounds like most of you are against the upgrade, so I'll go ahead and hold off.

Thanks for the info though.