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Hi guys, Last time I looked there were getting on for 60 million people in the UK & there were 100,000 at the demonstration - not exactly a large %. Of those 100,000 not all were British (I suspect that quite a large % weren't), just for example there were some U.S. citizens demonstrating too. & Bush has something like a 46% disapproval rating at home anyway ;) Anyway, we may bitch & moan a little (don't all friends?) but we are always there when needed. Would you really rather have friends who you bought rather than because of common ethics/goals etc.?

But they do more instructions per cycle to compensate . Intel is going to have the same problem promoting its next generation - clockspeed wise they won't be any faster than the current range. Traditionally, they have both had different areas where they were stronger - AMD better at pure calculation /office whereas Intel better for video etc. Up until Intel introduced the C core with 800FSB it was neck & neck, perhaps even AMD nudging ahead. Since then Intel has been in front, however the new AMD64's seem to be blowing P4's away although they are currently dear. You can get a 9800 non Pro (don't get an SE) for $263 - its clockspeeds are the same as a 9700 Pro but has the improved GPU & will probably overclock more than the 9700 Pro. (my original suggestion was $172 & if we are overclocking the fact that its an XP2500 makes no difference. Also, check if that XP2600 is a Thoroughbred or Barton (better) core.) I wouldn't get an A7V8X series, an A7V600 maybe,but ideally you want an nForce2 based board which on ASUS means A7N8X series. The A7N8X-X doen't have dual channel, the A7N8X has dual channel & basic features with the A7N8X DeLuxe adding firewire/SATA RAID & a very good onboard sound solution. If you get an A7N8X or A7N8X DeLuxe make sure that you get a rev. 2. Yes, it makes a difference which is why when you are overclocking it is better to run a higher FSB & lower multiplier. However, on an Athlon going over 400FSB (which is why I recommend the nForce2 boards) the CPU can't really use the extra bandwidth whereas a P4 can. Hence why Intel regained the lead when they went to 800FSB. Haven't a clue & it will vary card to card, checkout some reviews & the best ATI forums I know of are at Rage3d.com With the rate of change in PC technology there is always something better just around the corner. You should be aware that the Athlon XP & the current P4 are at the end of their development lives. Although they will be around for a while yet, 32-3400 level will be the highest that we officially see. Their replacements are moving to new sockets & require new boards plus from about Spring'04 there is going to be a move towards a redesign of case/mobo layouts, PCI Express is coming & possibly 64-bit computing for general use. In other words, the next 7-8 months are going to see a lot of fundamental changes. I don't know your current specs & I don't know if you feel that it is currently struggling. What I am saying is that you can upgrade now to a not quite cutting edge system but that will handle everything that you can currently throw at it knowing that the potential for future upgrade is going to be relatively limited or wait until next summer to get onto the bottom rung of the next generation which should give you upgradeability for a few years. Whew! :o

As for Cougar questions, have a look at http://cougar.frugalsworld.com/ CH Pro instead of Cougar? Same kind of money, isn't made of metal & doesn't look as cool but just works.

Hi Fates B) Abit = headache , just ask quite a few people. But that's a discussion for when Beer gets back in town Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion & having had 2 ASUS boards previously I am a now an ABIT convert :) My NF7-S is the best board that I have ever owned & it's rock solid even heavily overclocked. I don't think that there is any doubt that the NF7-S V2.0 up until now is the overclockers nForce2 board although the A7N8X series are fine boards. Most of the problems that people have are common to the chipset rather than ABIT's particular implementation. ABIT's may have a few quirks but the IS7 is hard to beat performance wise at that price point.(Alternative for FATES :P, ASUS P4P800 $111) to quote Hardocp' s latest test of an ABIT AI7 (which would be an excellent contender but it's $125): "Once again we have taken an ABIT board out of the box and run it at stock and overclocked speeds with aggressive memory settings virtually error free. Actually, outside of pushing the board beyond the MHz mentioned above, there were no failures. Over 100 repetitions of Winstone testing revealed no weaknesses." There may be no difference price wise between PC2700 and 3200 but check your motherboards acceptance of such RAM. I found that my older A7v8x would take up to 3200 but only in 1 slot. Thus it was better for me to run 2700 so I could utilize more slots. Shouldn't be a problem on a new board & if he wants to get all the benefit from an 800FSB P4 or overclock an Athlon he should get PC3200.

Hi, Are we to assume that you have a case, decent PSU, floppy & an OS? I think that you are going to find it hard for your budget to get what you ideally want (a 2.8C P4 is $285 on its own). From what you are saying sounds like you want to go Intel whereas AMD is the "bang for the buck" builders choice. You should care what rpm hard drive you get & go 7200rpm. An 80Gb HD will cost you like an extra $10 over a 40GB so you ought to go bigger. 2 Sticks of RAM will give you Dual Channel= extra performance. There is virtually no difference pricewise between PC2700 & 3200 so get 3200. Prices from newegg.com Intel system: ABIT IS7 with 865 chipset $101 Intel 2.4C 800FSB Retail $184 Corsair VS PC3200 RAM 2x256MB $90 Sapphire Atlantis 9600Pro $149 WD 80Gb 2Mb cache 7200rpm $69 Total $593 AMD System: ABIT NF7 $82 ($106 for NF7-S, $115 for AN7) AMD XP2500+ retail $90 Corsair VS PC3200 RAM 2x256MB $90 Sapphire Atlantis 9600Pro $149 WD 80Gb 2Mb cache 7200rpm $69 Total $480 Both boards/CPU's should overclock happily to 3000/3200 level. If you go AMD I would recommend spending some of the savings on getting the better board - AN7 if you can. Again if you go AMD you might want to get a 9600XT & free HL2 for an extra $30. An 8MB cache WD 80Gb 7200rpm would cost an extra $13

Sabre download link not working. Guess Zur changed the filenames.

Sabre

It's definitely XP compatible - I've got it on 2 XP machines. Sorry, can't offer any help as mine were plain sailing.

Hey Mr. Mudd, If i recall you've got an NF7-S V2.0? You ought to easily be able get your XP2400 upto at least 2.2GHZ on that if not 2.3GHz. I can run the LOMAC demo on higher than medium settings on my 9700.

Crank up "Ride of the Valkyrie" & don't forget your surfboard! :D

#1 leave for someone else;) #2 Depends. Which card? There is a thread on SimHQ with some settings for use with Radlinker (a 3rd party ATI tweak utility). This seems to work for a lot of 95/9700 cards but not 100%. TK says that it is related to ATI 's TCL & that patch 2 stops the game engine from trying to access it so definitely fixed in patch 2 when released.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/l/o/lordoliver/download.htm

I believe that the Ultimate is the one with the passive cooling solution so what you are paying $60 extra for is less noise rather than extra performance. A 9500 Pro should beat a 9600 Pro - but it'll be close. Considering the 9500 pro is an extra $43 that's why i say the 9600 Pro is the better buy. The 9600XT should take them both to the cleaners - according to ATI it should outperform a 9700 most of the time.

I know that I answered this before... At those prices the 9600 Pro. However, if you think that you may want to overclock it then you need to check the spec. of the memory chips used (this is more likely to be the limiting factor rather than the core). The newly announced 9600XT looks like being quite a card at a reasonable price ($199) if everything they are saying turns out to be true :). Best ATI forums I know www.rage3d.com

Unless they have recently changed it, I don't think that the manual shipped with the X45 is current. Iirc, it covers the SST that was actually SGE renamed rather than "true" SST. Latest drivers & SST Manual I tend to use modes setup as AA, AG & Nav. For Aux. I tend to use as a sub-mode.

At those prices probably the 9600 Pro. There are however, differences between manufacturers in e.g. the memory that they use so a bit more info would be needed.

Sorry, but what exactly is your question?

Hi, Sundowner on SimHq has found a solution for the corrupted/non-functioning RWR on ATI 9700 cards (I'm assuming 9500 too seeing as the GPU is the same just fewer pipes ). see this thread Can anyone report if this works for 9800 (probably) but also 9600 etc.?

SF doesn't get on well with ATI cards (fixed in the 2nd patched we are told). Make sure that you have mirrors & shadows turned off.

Sorry to hear that Beer, my ABIT has been great. Just picked up a 9700 for half price today :D - currently its in the A7V266-E but will probably end up in the ABIT.

How's it coming MrMudd? Did the XP3200+ arrive & is it up & running (you might need to get PC3200 memory if your OCZ won't run 400FSB). Btw, that XP2400 is unlocked (all T'bred B's are) - I have an XP2400+ running in an ASUS A7V266-E & an XP1700+ in, yes, an NF7-S V2.0 :) both @2.3Ghz .

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Well, you get your speed by a combination of FSB & multiplier. Sometimes you can get a better result with a lower FSB & higher multiplier (although there are benefits to a higher FSB) so you might want to see if it will do 166 x14. Alternatively, assuming that you are running RAM & FSB in sync you might want to try relaxing the timings on your memory @ 200FSBx11.5 to see if it improves stability. Btw, how are your temps?

It is 333Mhz (2x166FSB) RAM but you are running it at 400Mhz (2x200FSB ) assuming that you are running the RAM in sync with FSB (which you want to do as on nForce 2 that gives the best performance).