"Gary Lightfoot" said:
Hi Paul,
I managed to find a board that supports the 400fsb 3200+ and that's
the A7N8X-VM/400, and the above utility confirmed it. Hoorah!
Yeah, that's what I thought - thanks for confirming that for me.
That was the confusing part, and to make things worse, an HTPC case
manufacturer actualy said that as the manual says it will support it,
it will! I'm glad I was a bit cautious and didn't buy the board for
that chip....
Ok, another question for you. Is ther any advantage to having a 3000+
CPU with 333fsb and 400DDR memory, over the faster 3200+ CPU with
400fsb and only 333DDR memory capability? The ATX board I found that
takes the 400fsb 3200+ has a slower DDR capability. Which one equates
to a faster machine for Hi Def WMV video material would you say?
Many thanks for your time.
Gary.
A7V8X-MX XP2600+/FSB333 DDR333 1700MB/sec
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/showstory.jsp?storyid=51423&upto=2
A7N8X or A7N8X-X XP3200+/FSB400? DDR400 2900-3100MB/sec
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/asus_a7n8x-x/5.shtml
First off, the DASP prefetcher on the Nforce2 will leave the Via
chipset in the dust. The only question is, which Nforce2 board to
choose. If you go with a full size board, the A7N8X-E deluxe or
the A7N8X-X are dual and single channel boards respectively, with
maybe 5% difference on a good day, in memory performance between
the two.
The A7N8X-VM/400 microATX is a dual channel board too. The only
remaining question, is what impact would running a 3200+/FSB400
with two channels of DDR333 memory. If the prefetcher sees a regular
pattern, then the FSB stays busy. The only question is the occasional
extra cycle or two waiting for first data, on a random access.
On the A7N8X-VM, the manual says the use of a plugin AGP video card
will allow that board to use DDR400. I don't see such a suggestion
in the A7N8X-VM/400 manual, although for some people, the use of
a separate video card improves their stability. Since the VM/400
doesn't have any adjustments for memory, the lowest risk is to
buy actual PC2700 memory with its SPD contents reflecting DDR333
operation. With the few BIOS that have been released for the
VM/400, it is hard to say whether the board would do the right
thing with PC3200 memory plugged in - either to automatically
select operation at DDR333, or to recognize that it can run at
DDR400 when a video card is used. (If you flash the -VM BIOS
into a -VM/400, then the FSB is stuck at FSB333 and the memory
can run at DDR400 when a video card is used, and that would
also suck.) You will need a copy of CPUZ, just to be sure the
BIOS has set things up in a reasonable fashion, with no recourse
if it hasn't.
You can try searching here, for A7N8X-VM/400:
http://nforcershq.com/forum/search.php
Generally, full size boards like A7N8X-E deluxe or A7N8X-X
would have more adjustments and fewer gotchas than the -VM.
If you can afford the size increase, and the cost of
throwing in a FX5200 video card, for your video card, then
they would be much more likely to give you a fast system,
with FSB and DDR rates that can be set to the same value.
HTH,
Paul
