Will this CPU/RAM/MOBO combo work?
Friday, 02 April, 2004
... hope you can help!
I'm looking at upgrading the computer for the kids, and am wondering how well this combination of parts will work. The CPU will be an AMD Athlon XP 2400+, which has a clock speed of 2.0 GHz, and has a 266 MHz FSB. Is the FSB information correct? Is this the same as the system bus?
For the motherboard, I'm getting a Gigabyte GA-7VT600, which has the KT600 chipset, DDR400 RAM speed, AGP 8x, ATA133, onboard sound and USB 2.0 This motherboard is on the list of AMD's recommended motherboards.
I'm also going to buy 512M RAM, however I'm not sure which to buy. Should I get the DDR400 RAM? Or should I get RAM which is the same speed as the CPU's FSB? I'm not sure whether the CPU and RAM will work together, or if I will cause a severe bottleneck in the system by doing this.
I'd appreciate your assurance.
Andrew Tan, Christchurch, New Zealand
 To answer your questions, yes, it will all work together. Yes, the FSB figure is correct. Yes, if you can afford to do so you should purchase DDR400 RAM, to allow for a future processor upgrade, and you can have it set to operate at the lower FSB speed to have it efficiently operating 'in-sync' with the processor. Yes, if the RAM is operating at that speed it won't in itself be a 'bottleneck'. The bottleneck will be the FSB speed itself!
For that, and other reasons, I'd recommend you change your purchasing plans slightly.
The GA-7VT600 is a very inexpensive motherboard, but for about $20 more you could purchase the GigaByte GA-7N400L and gain the benefit of the more efficient nForce2Ultra chipset, better onboard sound and also onboard LAN (which would be useful if you are considering ADSL broadband at some stage).
I'd also recommend you spend the extra $7 and purchase the far better XP2500+ processor which has 333 MHz FSB, and more L2 cache memory, giving quite a bit better performance than the XP2400+ processor!
Corsair, Geil, Samsung and Kingston are worthwhile and reputable brands of RAM modules. Look out for them.
Good luck with the upgrade. Terry O'Shanassy
 Reader solutions
jeffPosted: 05/09/2004 re: Will this CPU/RAM/MOBO combo work? Terry,the info Andrew has provided, well, it is a 'carbon-copy' of everything I am using right now.
For video, I am using a Gainward Geforce2 MX/MX 400 (three years old and still doing it's job for me).
For Sound, I am still using Sound-Blaster 128 pci card (it's even older and still working fine)
Both have been 'updated' drivers-wise to work better with XP, of course.
But, for a few bucks more, Andrew, by all means, follow Terry's suggestion, go for something better if that is what you want?
Remember, you are the one doing the buying, right? Larry JentzPosted: 03/04/2004 re: Will this CPU/RAM/MOBO combo work? On the question of Kingmax. I have been using pc2700 256meg x 2 Kingmax for about 18 months. The first two were tiny bga versions and both went back under the life time warranty about 4 months ago. They replaced them with the super ram version and touch wood they are fine so far. Only glitch i get is occasional error when they were in dual chanel setup. Dont know if it is the ram or a mainboard error as it works fine single chanel and i think faster. Geil will be my next purchase as it is compatable in price to kingmax and getting better wraps from the experts. Allan McWatersPosted: 03/04/2004 re: Will this CPU/RAM/MOBO combo work? The 7N400L board is also on the AMD recommended motherboards list for the Barton core 2500+ cpu.
It also has dual channel ram support. I have used the Kingston 512mb kit (2 x 256 mb chips 400mhz) in the more expensive 7N400Pro2 board and it works well. A friend has the same board and he just used a 512 stick and didn't bother with the dual channel. That works ok too!
Cheers..........Allan
Quoc DoPosted: 02/04/2004 re: Will this CPU/RAM/MOBO combo work? Just wondering is Kingmax a good brand too? I didn't see you list it in the reputable RAM brand list.
thanks.
(I met the guys from Lexar recently. I asked about Kingmax memory cards and they'd never heard of them. When I showed them one they recognised the markings and said "Oh Yes. Very large Taiwanese maker at the budget end of the market. -Paul Zucker)
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