nice setup i was thinking of making the switch to intel.I've always ran AMD before but these C2D cpus are looking pretty good now with the price cuts.
That was the mobo I was going to get for a cheapo upgrade as it also supports AGP but the down side was its slow PCI-E meaning if I ever wanted to push the system a little harder I would have to get a new mobo too. Please let me know how you get on with it as I'm sure the missus would be interested so that she can upgrade on the cheap
The dual-RAM type supporting boards aren't great at OC'ing, you can get some OC from them, but not fantastic (as you'd expect), they're made to be a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak, not an OC board.
This is also what I plan to do, a friend of mine has just done the same thing, - get the asrock and a new cpu, (E4300/E4400) - sell your old CPU, - buy new DDR2, (micro direct had some PC-6400 for £70 the other day), - sell old DDR, - buy new mobo; (go for a P5N-E SLI, cheap as, OC's brilliantly), - then oc like crazy So in my eyes this board is just good transferring from 939 to C2D with litte hassle, it could be doen over a month or two, or as quickly as you can sell! -Fr4nk
You should expect a good o/c out of that mobo too because you're using an 800FSB C2D (E4300 9x200=1.8ghz) with a mobo capable of 1066FSB (9x266=2.4ghz) and most of these mobos get to around 1180FSB (9x295=2.7ghz). Of course if you'd spent the extra £10-20 for an E4400 (10x200=2.0ghz 800FSB) you could get up to 3.0ghz but since the mobo lacks CPU over-voltage support you're unlikely to get much more than 2.7ghz. Super bargain regardless, even at 2.4ghz C2D is a match for even the fastest A64. X1950XT is also particularly sweet now they've dropped in price, only the 8800 cards are a step up and they cost £200+. If I had the cash I'd be buying the same, but I don't so I'll trundle along with my 939 A64_3000+ @2.4ghz with 6800GT.
Apparently 8800 don't work in PCI-E x4 slots, AFAIK not enough power can be supplied. As for the X1950XT I doubt the PCI-E x4 slot is holding it back much, more of a deficiency in 3Dmark. Ideally you'd want to use actual games testing the same settings on both rigs and noting the FPS diff and then setting both to attain an average of 60FPS and noting the res and effects achieved by each. Second best would be to run some 3Dmarks but add AA+AF and/or up the res. X1950Pro is a great card in its own right, somewhere near 7950GT speed while the X1950XT though great isn't insanely faster (roughly a notch above 7900GTX). Off the top of my head your C2D @2.4ghz should be pretty evenly matched with A64 @3.0ghz, but of course it should feel much faster thanks to the dual-core (esp when multi-tasking or using multi-thread apps). I wonder how much of an effect single-channel has on C2D. Perhaps the mobo doesn't like 2x1GB of DDR1, is it using the latest BIOS? Anyway, enjoy.
My 7800GT comes close (within 100 marks, which can be put down to different drivers as I'm on Vista) to beating your 1950 (on skt939).
You might want to trim that sig down Burnout - size 1 is usually required, and it's already over the 5-line maximum.
