Not if you have a decent cooling solution. In fact, the newer retail bartons come with a decent heatsink that has a copper base. I would trust that heatsink assuming you apply it correctly with thermal compound. The temps I have been getting are around 46 degrees Celcius when overclocked at 11x200.
Another point... and don't yell at me if this is a wrong assumption... but I have only heard of one CPU actually "burning"... and that was because the user did not set the heatsink correctly. But assuming you correctly seat your heatsink, your system will lockup or randomly restart well before the processor ever gets to its melting point. so if your system freezes hard... just reset the BIOS and put the FSB back to default, and everything will work like new.
Overclocking really is not a scary thing once you do it a few times. And especially if you don't move the voltage up from default, chances are, you will be in the clear.
I believe all barton 2500+'s are unlocked if you find one that was made before week 39. I found out that zipzoomfly had a pretty good stock of week 34's... so I bought 5 last week! :)
But yes... I also have a locked barton which runs at 11x200 (400FSB) at default voltage just fine. so 2.2GHz from a 2500+ without touching the volts is very common in my experience.
Seraphs; most Barton 2500+ can be run on a 400 bus with a default multiplier with default voltage and defauly cooler. Also, all bartons come unlocked AFAIK.
I have a XP2600+ FSB333mhz OC @ FSB400mhz and it runs fine. You can also increase the multiplier which gave me XP3200+ and just using the standard fan supplied. Of course if you wish to run it 24h at such speed it would be wise to get a better cooler since under heavy stress and hot days the cpu gets very hot easily. I'm using ASUS's deluxe mobo with its temperature watch program. I also have a pretty decent power supply so it can give the CPU plenty of juice.
I asked all over the forums and couldn't get this question answered. Hopefully you could?
Getting a 2500+ 333mhz FSB have DDR400, need to up the FSB to 400mhz so it will sync with the memory. Chances are the multiplier on the cpu will be locked so I need to know if lowering the voltage is better since I can't lower the multiplier. And to what voltage is safest?
On other hand if its not locked obviously I should go with 10x200 multiplier to begin with and if its good I'll go to 10.5 at most.
I'm lucky to say that I have not only visited the Ferrari museum in Maranello but also the Porsche museum in Zuffenhausen, the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, and the BMW museum in Munich. I've ridden passed the VW museum in Wolfsburg and the Audi factory in Ingolstadt. If I had to rank the museums, this is how I would do so: 1) Ferrari, 2) Mercedes, 3) Porsche, 4) BMW. BMW's was simply dreadful by comparison to the others. Then again, München is the nicest city of all, so once you leave the museum, there is PLENTY of beer to drink. I have also taken the BMW factory tour in South Carolina. That is very cool!
And as far as a car and/or digital photography forum goes, I volunteer to moderate :)
Thanks for the driving tip, so far if I leave at 4PM it seems like the only traffic I encounter is just getting out of Raleigh and onto US1 North.
Gaurav Sharma
The next generation of motherboards will most likely have 1 - x16 and 1 or 2 x1 PCI Express slots, as well as conventional 32-bit PCI slots, so no worries there.
GTaudiophile
I do it from time to time when my hands are free, since I'm not working on the hard drive stuff until tomorrow I had some time to answer a few questions ;)
I went for the Rebel simply because it is more affordable than the 10D. There are a number of other forums I'd like to see created, but it's actually more of an issue of making sure we can moderate it all. One of the things I'd like to tackle next year is to expand the forums a bit and with FT Enterprise that may be an easier option.
No, Brandon never showed me the postcard, I'm jealous :) I think you should define "able" though, I lack the time to make a trip out to Maranello :) I have heard great things about the Ferrari factory tour, the Porsche tour is supposed to be pretty impressive too.
Take care guys, it's time to turn in for me - I've got a long workday ahead.
Wow, Anand was on a roll tonight! Never seen him indivdually answer questions like that. Cool!
Just looked at your wish list, Anand. Why not go for the Canon 10D? At least you're a Canon fan like me! Maybe we can get a digital photography forum going?!? Along with a car forum?!? I know you have the power! Besides, the more you have me talking about Ferraris and Canons, the less time you have me dissing nVidiots in GH :)
BTW, did Brandon ever show you the postcard I sent him of the Ferrari Factory while I was in Maranello, Italy? Since you are able, you should take that Canon Digital Rebel (and Vinney) and take the Ferrari factory tour!!! Now that would be a trip.
Anand, Are the new BTX boards likely to have a few "older" PCI slots on them for backwards compatibility? Other than graphics there's stuff like sound kit /wireless adaptors that's running off PCI, so it's something to worry about I presume. Also, are the boardmakers going to be offering equivalent BTX motherboard designs for AMD chipsets, or will that come later such as with the DDR-II support on athlons?
After taking several trips from CT to NC, I can tell you the easiest way through CT/NY/NJ is to take the Garden State through NJ to the Tappen Zee bridge. From there you can take 84 or 15 towards New Haven. It's a little longer mileage wise, but it can avoid some traffic and will save you plenty of time, as long as you don't hit the bridge at rush hour. Can't help you with the Delaware/Baltimore traffic though, I don't know if anyone can...
Heh, gotchya now :), scratch #13 that was an oopsie.
Alright that about does it, thanks, I'll be building it in several weeks(want to avoid the holiday rush, might get damaged during shipment), thanks for your help and I'll let ya know soon. :)
I'd say the 2500+ Barton is a very good solution; pretty much the best you can get under $100.
PC2700 (or DDR333) is fine, but if you want to try overclocking you may want to look at some DDR400 instead. As long as you don't go after the insane low latency stuff, the price difference should be minimal (and you can always reuse the DDR400 if you should decide to go the Athlon 64 route later).
As far as features on a motherboard go, I'd really just look for something with on-board sound, a SATA controller, and on-board ethernet. Everything will have USB, and unless you're an iPod owner or a DV cam enthusiast you'll find very little need for Firewire. Shuttle makes some fairly cost effective boards that are very basic in their feature set, and then there's always ASUS who has one of the best nForce2 boards out there.
As far as cases go, I'd take a look at some of Kris' case coverage to help you out there. I'm very minimalist in terms of what I look for in a case, I really just want something quiet - not flashy.
Take care and let me know how the system turns out when you get it built.
For CPU, you would recommend the 2500 barton?(I'm not too into overclocking, its probably because I don't know how and I'm scared to, lol) Memory ddr 2700? Motherboard is what always gets me because It comes with so many features I don't know which I need and which I'm paying extra for.
And yes the bottleneck is the CPU and hard drive on my system so I'll get a new hard drive as well, SATA? or Ultra ATA?
The main bottlenecks in your system are the CPU and your hard drive. You've got more than enough memory and your graphics card is faster than most of today's midrange selection, granted you have no DX9 support but there are also no real uses for a DX9 card these days :)
The problem is that you can't upgrade your CPU to something much faster without really going for a new motherboard. And unless you already have DDR memory, you'll need new memory as well.
I'd say a new motherboard, CPU and memory should set you back around $300 if you want a comfortable boost in performance. A new hard drive would be another $80 (see my <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/christmas.html">C... Wish List</a>). So for under $400 you get a good boost in performance.
Then, after all the new stuff has been out for a little bit, you spend another $600 upgrading you even further and you've got two good upgrades out of it all.
And yes [b]ViRGE[/b], it's snow, I just miss the 50F temperatures of NC during this time of year :) Frozen pavement isn't fun either, the tires no-likey the lack of traction.
Ok, middle of next year. See the problem I have with that is, you spend around a grand. Then six months later you buy the expensive new technology right? What do you then do with the $1000 system?
I have a pentium 3 800mhz, 512ram, G4 Ti4200, 30gb seagate system right now.
I don't see any way to upgrade my system more, and I believe buying budget system is not economical for me, given that I would be purchasing xpress,ddr2 and btx when they come out.
WOW! Anand thank you so much. My dilema is finaly over. Yes! It helped a lot, because as you said my system is very slow(00' DELL pentium 3). And again you said it right, I'm looking into several specific game titles which need a high end system to run it.(Matrix Online has some kind of evolving graphics engine)
I'm going to college after this summer so It's my last chance to be a gamer, and I'm putting all my money into this sytem, so unlike my DELL, I want this system to last. :)
As far as release dates go, PCI Express and DDR-II should be on motherboards in the middle of next year on Grantsdale platforms for the Pentium 4. BTX should be around the same timeframe.
PCI Express won't do anything great for a while, but I'd hold off on buying a truly expensive graphics card until you can get a PCI express version simply so it'll work in all future motherboards.
I don't expect DDR-II to be a necessity until the end of 2004 at the absolute earliest. If you go AMD, you won't have the option of DDR-II until 2005 anyways.
BTX will be nice, however I do think there is room for an intermediate upgrade between now and when BTX is available. If you have a horrendously slow system now, I'd upgrade to one of the CPUs that came out on top in our <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1927&q... CPU Shootout</a> with a cheap motherboard and a decent midrange card if games matter, then upgrading again later once BTX, DDR-II and PCI Express are more prevalent.
Anand, I beg your sweet heart, update us on PCI Express, DDR-II and BTX. I'll be buying a new computer soon and I really need to know is it worth waiting for these revolutionary technologies?
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33 Comments
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illuminati - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Good.SeraphsSati - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Yea it helps thanksilluminati - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Not if you have a decent cooling solution. In fact, the newer retail bartons come with a decent heatsink that has a copper base. I would trust that heatsink assuming you apply it correctly with thermal compound. The temps I have been getting are around 46 degrees Celcius when overclocked at 11x200.Another point... and don't yell at me if this is a wrong assumption... but I have only heard of one CPU actually "burning"... and that was because the user did not set the heatsink correctly. But assuming you correctly seat your heatsink, your system will lockup or randomly restart well before the processor ever gets to its melting point. so if your system freezes hard... just reset the BIOS and put the FSB back to default, and everything will work like new.
Overclocking really is not a scary thing once you do it a few times. And especially if you don't move the voltage up from default, chances are, you will be in the clear.
Hope this helps... have fun! :)
SeraphsSati - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Illuminati but its very hot right? And chances are it might burn.illuminati - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
I believe all barton 2500+'s are unlocked if you find one that was made before week 39. I found out that zipzoomfly had a pretty good stock of week 34's... so I bought 5 last week! :)But yes... I also have a locked barton which runs at 11x200 (400FSB) at default voltage just fine. so 2.2GHz from a 2500+ without touching the volts is very common in my experience.
HammerFan - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Seraphs; most Barton 2500+ can be run on a 400 bus with a default multiplier with default voltage and defauly cooler. Also, all bartons come unlocked AFAIK.SeraphsSati - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
Case 1: XP 2500+A. Multiplier locked. FSB 333. Bump it up to 400. What do you change the voltage to?
Case 2: XP 2500+
B. Multiplier unlocked. Change FSB333 to 400. What should your multiplier be set at and voltage be set at?
Anonymous - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
So you didn't mess around with the voltages? Just the FSB?Pete - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
I have a XP2600+ FSB333mhz OC @ FSB400mhz and it runs fine. You can also increase the multiplier which gave me XP3200+ and just using the standard fan supplied. Of course if you wish to run it 24h at such speed it would be wise to get a better cooler since under heavy stress and hot days the cpu gets very hot easily. I'm using ASUS's deluxe mobo with its temperature watch program. I also have a pretty decent power supply so it can give the CPU plenty of juice.Anonymous - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
Dear Anand,I asked all over the forums and couldn't get this question answered. Hopefully you could?
Getting a 2500+ 333mhz FSB have DDR400, need to up the FSB to 400mhz so it will sync with the memory. Chances are the multiplier on the cpu will be locked so I need to know if lowering the voltage is better since I can't lower the multiplier. And to what voltage is safest?
On other hand if its not locked obviously I should go with 10x200 multiplier to begin with and if its good I'll go to 10.5 at most.
Hope you could help. :)
GTaudiophile - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
I'm lucky to say that I have not only visited the Ferrari museum in Maranello but also the Porsche museum in Zuffenhausen, the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, and the BMW museum in Munich. I've ridden passed the VW museum in Wolfsburg and the Audi factory in Ingolstadt. If I had to rank the museums, this is how I would do so: 1) Ferrari, 2) Mercedes, 3) Porsche, 4) BMW. BMW's was simply dreadful by comparison to the others. Then again, München is the nicest city of all, so once you leave the museum, there is PLENTY of beer to drink. I have also taken the BMW factory tour in South Carolina. That is very cool!And as far as a car and/or digital photography forum goes, I volunteer to moderate :)
anand lal shimpi - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
Thanks for the driving tip, so far if I leave at 4PM it seems like the only traffic I encounter is just getting out of Raleigh and onto US1 North.Gaurav Sharma
The next generation of motherboards will most likely have 1 - x16 and 1 or 2 x1 PCI Express slots, as well as conventional 32-bit PCI slots, so no worries there.
GTaudiophile
I do it from time to time when my hands are free, since I'm not working on the hard drive stuff until tomorrow I had some time to answer a few questions ;)
I went for the Rebel simply because it is more affordable than the 10D. There are a number of other forums I'd like to see created, but it's actually more of an issue of making sure we can moderate it all. One of the things I'd like to tackle next year is to expand the forums a bit and with FT Enterprise that may be an easier option.
No, Brandon never showed me the postcard, I'm jealous :) I think you should define "able" though, I lack the time to make a trip out to Maranello :) I have heard great things about the Ferrari factory tour, the Porsche tour is supposed to be pretty impressive too.
Take care guys, it's time to turn in for me - I've got a long workday ahead.
GTaudiophile - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
Wow, Anand was on a roll tonight! Never seen him indivdually answer questions like that. Cool!Just looked at your wish list, Anand. Why not go for the Canon 10D? At least you're a Canon fan like me! Maybe we can get a digital photography forum going?!? Along with a car forum?!? I know you have the power! Besides, the more you have me talking about Ferraris and Canons, the less time you have me dissing nVidiots in GH :)
BTW, did Brandon ever show you the postcard I sent him of the Ferrari Factory while I was in Maranello, Italy? Since you are able, you should take that Canon Digital Rebel (and Vinney) and take the Ferrari factory tour!!! Now that would be a trip.
Anonymous - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Hammer so If I change the FSB to 200 its going to be 11x200=2200ghz? Is that safe?HammerFan - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
#18: 11xAnonymous - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Whats the default multiplier on a xp 2500+ bartonGaurav Sharma - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Anand,Are the new BTX boards likely to have a few "older" PCI slots on them for backwards compatibility? Other than graphics there's stuff like sound kit /wireless adaptors that's running off PCI, so it's something to worry about I presume.
Also, are the boardmakers going to be offering equivalent BTX motherboard designs for AMD chipsets, or will that come later such as with the DDR-II support on athlons?
Happy xmas all.
Anonymous - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Anand,After taking several trips from CT to NC, I can tell you the easiest way through CT/NY/NJ is to take the Garden State through NJ to the Tappen Zee bridge. From there you can take 84 or 15 towards New Haven. It's a little longer mileage wise, but it can avoid some traffic and will save you plenty of time, as long as you don't hit the bridge at rush hour. Can't help you with the Delaware/Baltimore traffic though, I don't know if anyone can...
Take care.
Anonymous - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
P.S. I couldn't find anything on case coverage, the only serach result I got was the BTX coverage. Is their a specific link?SeraphsSati - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Heh, gotchya now :), scratch #13 that was an oopsie.Alright that about does it, thanks, I'll be building it in several weeks(want to avoid the holiday rush, might get damaged during shipment), thanks for your help and I'll let ya know soon. :)
Happy Holidays
SeraphsSati - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
P.S. I also obviously need a new case; the one I have now is a companies which is specialy built and I can't remove motherboard from it.The cases I've been looking into are sub $100, one in particular is ThermalTake.
anand lal shimpi - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
SeraphSatiI'd say the 2500+ Barton is a very good solution; pretty much the best you can get under $100.
PC2700 (or DDR333) is fine, but if you want to try overclocking you may want to look at some DDR400 instead. As long as you don't go after the insane low latency stuff, the price difference should be minimal (and you can always reuse the DDR400 if you should decide to go the Athlon 64 route later).
As far as features on a motherboard go, I'd really just look for something with on-board sound, a SATA controller, and on-board ethernet. Everything will have USB, and unless you're an iPod owner or a DV cam enthusiast you'll find very little need for Firewire. Shuttle makes some fairly cost effective boards that are very basic in their feature set, and then there's always ASUS who has one of the best nForce2 boards out there.
As far as cases go, I'd take a look at some of Kris' case coverage to help you out there. I'm very minimalist in terms of what I look for in a case, I really just want something quiet - not flashy.
Take care and let me know how the system turns out when you get it built.
SeraphsSati - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
P.S. I also obviously need a new case; the one I have now is a companies which is specialy built and I can't remove motherboard from it.The cases I've been looking into are sub $100, one in particular is ThermalTake.
SeraphsSati - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Alright thanks a bunch Anand.For CPU, you would recommend the 2500 barton?(I'm not too into overclocking, its probably because I don't know how and I'm scared to, lol)
Memory ddr 2700? Motherboard is what always gets me because It comes with so many features I don't know which I need and which I'm paying extra for.
And yes the bottleneck is the CPU and hard drive on my system so I'll get a new hard drive as well, SATA? or Ultra ATA?
Thanks for the help :)
anand lal shimpi - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Hmm the HTML stuff didn't seem to make it through in the last post, sorry about that guys :)anand lal shimpi - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
<b>SeraphsSati</b>The main bottlenecks in your system are the CPU and your hard drive. You've got more than enough memory and your graphics card is faster than most of today's midrange selection, granted you have no DX9 support but there are also no real uses for a DX9 card these days :)
The problem is that you can't upgrade your CPU to something much faster without really going for a new motherboard. And unless you already have DDR memory, you'll need new memory as well.
I'd say a new motherboard, CPU and memory should set you back around $300 if you want a comfortable boost in performance. A new hard drive would be another $80 (see my <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/christmas.html">C... Wish List</a>). So for under $400 you get a good boost in performance.
Then, after all the new stuff has been out for a little bit, you spend another $600 upgrading you even further and you've got two good upgrades out of it all.
And yes [b]ViRGE[/b], it's snow, I just miss the 50F temperatures of NC during this time of year :) Frozen pavement isn't fun either, the tires no-likey the lack of traction.
Have a great weekend guys.
SeraphsSati - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
Ok, middle of next year. See the problem I have with that is, you spend around a grand. Then six months later you buy the expensive new technology right? What do you then do with the $1000 system?I have a pentium 3 800mhz, 512ram, G4 Ti4200, 30gb seagate system right now.
I don't see any way to upgrade my system more, and I believe buying budget system is not economical for me, given that I would be purchasing xpress,ddr2 and btx when they come out.
What would you make of this case?
Anonymous - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
WOW! Anand thank you so much. My dilema is finaly over. Yes! It helped a lot, because as you said my system is very slow(00' DELL pentium 3). And again you said it right, I'm looking into several specific game titles which need a high end system to run it.(Matrix Online has some kind of evolving graphics engine)I'm going to college after this summer so It's my last chance to be a gamer, and I'm putting all my money into this sytem, so unlike my DELL, I want this system to last. :)
Thanks for taking the time Anand, appreciate it.
anand lal shimpi - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
As far as release dates go, PCI Express and DDR-II should be on motherboards in the middle of next year on Grantsdale platforms for the Pentium 4. BTX should be around the same timeframe.Take care,
Anand
anand lal shimpi - Sunday, December 14, 2003 - link
PCI Express won't do anything great for a while, but I'd hold off on buying a truly expensive graphics card until you can get a PCI express version simply so it'll work in all future motherboards.I don't expect DDR-II to be a necessity until the end of 2004 at the absolute earliest. If you go AMD, you won't have the option of DDR-II until 2005 anyways.
BTX will be nice, however I do think there is room for an intermediate upgrade between now and when BTX is available. If you have a horrendously slow system now, I'd upgrade to one of the CPUs that came out on top in our <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1927&q... CPU Shootout</a> with a cheap motherboard and a decent midrange card if games matter, then upgrading again later once BTX, DDR-II and PCI Express are more prevalent.
Hope that helped :)
Anonymous - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
And a release date on them would be nice :)Anonymous - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
Anand, I beg your sweet heart, update us on PCI Express, DDR-II and BTX. I'll be buying a new computer soon and I really need to know is it worth waiting for these revolutionary technologies?ViRGE - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
It's called snow, Anand.;)