Overwhelmed

[Woodstriker]

I've decided to finally build a new PC after having my third PSU die and take my motherboard out with it. I was big on overclocking when I build it but times have really changed since then. I'm trying to put together a system quickly but I haven't kept up with the newest technology and I'm very lost. Is there a guide out there to brush me up on the new changes?

When I built my system DDR2 was just coming out but it wasn't good. Now I see now that everything is using it. I don't even know where to begin looking at CPUs and motherboards, but I do know I still want to overclock since it put some excitement into building a new system 8) . I got a few questions but I'm not sure if they are even relevant now

Is the CPU/RAM ratio still the same with DDR2 as it was with DDR1 (I don't really know much about DDR2 other than I think it runs double the speed of DDR1)? Is 1:1 still the best or do the new CPU and DDR2 speeds make it hard to stay at 1:1?
My current system uses 1GB (512x2) or ram but runs somewhat slow. Is 2GBs normal now or should I go higher?
How different is overclocking a C2D than a P4 (What I have now)? I hear you can change the multiplier now somewhat but only on the expensive versions.

Thanks in advance.

 

[bc4]

I don't know much about OC but I read this site often, they have pretty good guides.

link

About half way down the page you will see Tom's guide to OC part 1, then go on to part 2, then part 3...

Just pointing you to some good reading, i'm sure someone else will be able to answer the detailed questions.

 

[fantastapotamus]

If you post your budget and what you want to do with your comp then someone will probably be willing to put together a build for you. The forums are pretty good for that.

Today you would probably want to put 2 gigs of RAM into a build, especially if you plan on running Vista. You would want to get 2x1GB to run in dual channel

As far as the C2D vs. P4 overclocking - it shouldn't be substantially different. The same rule applies - Front side bus x multiplier = clock speed. The only difference is that when they talk about the front side bus they multiply it by 4 to give you a rated bus speed of 800mhz or something like that. But for detailed information on overclocking THG still does a pretty good job.

 

[chuckshissle]

Yeah, what's your budget on this new build of yours?

 

[Woodstriker]

I'm not so much looking for someone to put a system together for me as I am looking to find out what's good right now and what makes it good. For instance I see that DDR2 runs at much faster speeds than the DDR1 I'm use to, but should I be looking for just fast speed or also tighter timings? I will probably go for an intel chip and I think I saw one article about ram speeds not being as important for C2D as they are for AMDs. Whether that's true or not I don't know but that's the sort of info I'm looking for at the moment.

 

[Woodstriker]

I wish my computer would have held out a little longer. I almost feel like waiting for the price cuts but I don't think I could go that long without a computer . Which of the intels will be dropping in price? You mentioned the Quad cores but will the Duos also be dropping? Would it be possible for me to buy a very cheap processor now and then replace it when a better one when the price cuts happen? Do Quad's and Duo's require different chipsets? I have a lot of questions so bare with me until I get caught up :? .

As far as a budget goes I don't actually have one but I really don't want to spend more than $2,000 on a system if I don't have to. Problem is I am a gamer and I want to be able to run everything smoothly, both now and games to come. I also want quality parts because like most people, I tried buying cheap parts and found that it's not worth it for the most part.

 

[Woodstriker]

Thank you so much! You've really helped me out a lot. I've had great experiences with Asus boards so I'll definitely look into the ones you mentioned.