Updating CPU & MB?

[RickS]

I was thinking of updating my CPU & MB to these two items. Any other suggestions or concerns. What else should I be adding? What memory would be the best for this board? I was also thinking of the ATI 9600 Pro video card.


1) Gigabyte GA-8KNXP 875P Chipset Socket478 800 FSB 1AGP8x/5PCI/6DDR w/Sound SATA Raid Gigabit Lan IEEE1394 USB 2.0 ATA-133 Raid

2) Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz 512K 800FSB w/ Hyper-Threading

Thanks Gordon!!!

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

That's very cutting edge stuff Rick! You can't do any better than the 875 chipset right now...

The 9600P is an excellent choice or even the 9700P.




Bing

[RickS]

Bing,

Thanks for the reply! I am deep into upgrade mode at the moment and wasn't going to update the HTPC but,.................then T2 Extreme came out!!!

What is the recommended RAM for this MB? I want to order it today and found a place in Vancouver with very good pricing. Have a look here and see what you think.

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

You should be ok by going with the Kingston PC3200 DDR400 from that site.

The Corsair TWN Dual Channel DDR kits are highley rated right now, however they are still relatively expensive at $470 for 2x512Mb sticks.

That Kingston will work and the price looks good. Just make sure to buy DDR 400 and you will be good to go.




Bing

[RickS]

Bing,
Thanks for the reply! Will dual channel Ram make a large performance difference?

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

Hey Rick, Dual channel RAM will increase performance theoritically by doubling the memory bandwidth over a single memory controller, ie 5.4 GB/s (2.7 GB/s per channel)

How much of a system level benefit is seen from this I don't know off the top of my head, although I suspect it may depend on the application. The P4 historically loved higher memory band width, such as those enjoyed by RAMBUS ram. My understanding is the P4 actually sees bigger gains with Dual channel RAM than the Athlon XP.

The system you have planned probably won't suffer much if you don't go Dual Channel, however I would recommend it just because MPEG encoding and decoding benifits from the dual channel more than some other applications, and the P4 responds well to memory bandwidth.




Bing

[RickS]

Bing,

Now just to find the 1024 TwinX Dual Ram at a reasonable price in Canada.

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[RickS]

Bing,

This from Tom's Hardware site.......looks like some problems with the 875P Intel chipset and Corsair Ram

"By Scott Wasson - 12:00 AM, June 16, 2003


I should share something with you about Corsair RAM that we learned this past week and confirmed in spades—Geoff, Andy, and I all three—over the weekend in our various testing endeavors. I mentioned in my 875P and 865 chipset reviews that I'd had some trouble getting Corsair's XMS3200LL memory working with its default timings on these new Intel chipsets, so I wrote Corsair to see what was up. Here's the answer I got from Robert Pearce, Corsair's Applications Specialist:
Scott,
The problem is the chipset won't handle a tRCD (RAS to CAS Delay) of 2. We've done a revision of the SPD to make the LL's work on the 875 and 865 chipsets, the settings are now 2-3-2-6 by default.
We will, of course, warranty any modules with the older SPD but it should be noted that the end user can simply manually adjust the BIOS to the settings noted above.

Sure enough, using the latest BIOS revisions for the various 865 and 875 boards we have running around here, we were all able to get XMS3200LL (or in my case, plain ol' XMS3200 v1.1) DIMMs working with very aggressive timings, up to and including 2-3-2-6 at 400MHz, so long as the RAS to CAS delay was set to 3. Conversely, even with very relaxed timings for the other settings, the systems weren't happy with the RAS to CAS delay at 2.
This is a minor snag for Corsair, I suppose, but the manual workaround works beautifully, and the RAM is still easily superior to the other DDR400 samples I've encountered."

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

Rick, good find, although it seems the Chips set doesn't like the aggressive timings the Corsair is capable of :LOL:

You don't particullarly need the TWN or dual Channel specific RAM to run in Dual Channel mode. Although they recommend it, I suspect it may be more marketing hype that you need tightly matched RAM. I think if you use 2 sticks of that Kingston RAM you would be fine.

FWIW, I running 2 sticks of Samsung RAM in dual Channel mode and they are 2 different sticks on different PCB's. It could be why I can't hit as high FSB overclock, but it still runs at it's default 166Mhz rock solid.




Bing

[RickS]

Bing,

Another issue I guess is the power supply.......What is this P4 ready PS standard. Will the current 300 watt PS work with what I'm planning? Sorry for the million questions but, just want to get the proper parts for the upgrade!!

This is the rack mount case I currenty have.

Antec Black Rack Mount Case IPC3480B + 300 watt PS







Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

Hey Rick, no problems, ask away, that's what we are here for 8)

The 300W power supply will be sufficent for your needs. Generally the Guideline is 250W minimum, however I have used cheap 200 Watters driving a system with 2 harddrives and 2 CR roms with an AMD CPU (so much for the 250W guideline) :LOL:

I can't tell by the picture if your power supply has the 4 pin 12V power connector, however you will need one to power a P4 mobo in addition to the main power connector, that is what is refered to P4 compliant.



Check to see if yor power supply has the above 4 pin +12V power connector.

If it doesn't talk to Jeff Kowerchuck, he has 350W Enermax power supply brand new in the box that he is wanting to sell. It is P4 Compliant




Bing

[RickS]

Bing,
Thanks again for the info! I'll have to check tonight to see if the PS has that 4-pin plug.............It may not the case is a year old now!!! Man things change fast in this game!!! 8O

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[RickS]

Bing,

While I didn't take the HTPC out of the rack, I was able to get the part number of the back. Antec PP-303X. Here is a review. It doesn't look like it has the connector you mentioned above.

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Bing Fung]

Bummer Rick... That review looks like it was written before anyone knew what a P4 was :roll:

You still may want to have a look to be sure, however I zoomed into your picture and it didn't show me anything conclusive other than I don't see it. If you still have your shipping box it might have it on there as they generally featured boldly that the Case or PS is P4 ready.

If not contact Jeff, he as asking a great price for his power supply.




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Rick, YGM.

[RickS]

Jeff,
Thanks for the mail! I had already ordered a new 400watt PS with the items I have coming from Vancouver. Sorry!!




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[Trevor Schell]

Careful Rick!!

I did the same thing early this Spring!!
Original plan was to upgrade only the Processor.
Ended up upgrading the whole box in the end, there for the birth of TTP BlueZone! :bluezoned:

Anyways..Looking forward to the final outcome!!




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[RickS]

Trev,
Yeah......when you get started one thing leads to another!! I just found out yesterday that Power Strip program does not support the ATI 9600 Pro xvideo card. So, I'll have to go to the 9800 pro. Another 250 bucks. Anyone building a HTPC should be aware of this. I feel the Power Strip is a must for tuning any HTPC-FPTV System. I'm looking forward to upgrading the HTPC so I can watch the new T2 Extreme disk.

Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection