P4T-E questions / new technologies this year

Hey all,

First, I just want to thank everyone that helped me 2 years ago build
a rock solid 1.7GHz P4T-E. She's purring along quite nicely.

Later this year I'm going to build a new system altogether (more on
that in a sec).

But for now, I want to upgrade my trusty P4 1.7 P4T-E and I have a
couple of questions:

1) Is 2.6GHz (400Mhz) the fastest chip the P4T-E can handle? Asus's
site says 2.4+, and the manual says 2.0GHz+

2) I'm going to be getting another 512MB of RAM (I have 512 now).
eBay has them for as low as $100 - $120 for the Samsung nonECC
2x256MB. On Pricegrabber, the lowest price I can find new is about
$190 shipped. Anybody know of a cheaper place?

3) Does anyone have any tips for overclocking the 2.6GHz chip?

4) I'm going to be purchasing a GeForce 4 FX 5900 (non-Ultra) in a few
months. Anybody running one of these with the P4T-E? Any problems?


And now for the future. The reason I'm upgrading the P4T-E instead of
just buying the P4C800-E that I really want is because I've been
reading up on what's in store this year: Prescott, DDR-2, SATA 2.0,
Gigabit Ethernet, etc.

What does Asus have planned?

If you guys are upgrading this year, what are you getting?

Thanks for the help..

Jason

 

anyone?

 

Jason,
I have given my rock solid p4t-e system to my 12yr old son as i have
upgraded to the p4c-800e system myself.
My answers are in line beneath each question.

I upgraded the p4t-e system to the newest bios and went up to the 2.4 ghz
if i remember the problem with any 533 cpu or the 1033rdram mem was the
earlier p4t-e had a slower clock chip than the last batches.
maybe someone could clarify the chip differences for you.
either way if you stick with the 400mhz cpu and latest bios it should work
with the 2.6 400fsb and the 800mhz rdram. (make sure the pair you get is
identical pieces)

As i work for a oem i got mine up to 1 gig pretty cheap but now that board
mfg are not supporting rdram like they were going to prices are up.

I pickup up a cheap evga Geforce fx5200 ultra and it works fine for my son.

Everything is changing very quick so if you hold off 2-3 mths some of the
new things to come should be known but,
by the time it comes there is always something new just around the corner.