AMD Athlon 64 Newcastle Core/MSI K8N Neo3

[mokaboy]

Hi, Im gna ask a few questions in one here if you dnt mind

I have just replaced my motherboard after my other blew with a MSI K8N Neo3. I bought it mainly cause i got it cheap, looked good, sounded good and had AGP & PCI Express (future).

Im a bit concerened over the temperature the motherboard is reading for the CPU (AMD Athlon 64 Newcastle Core 3400+). It sits idle at around 55C and ive seen it at 59C. im near certain that the other board read its temperature around 45C. Any ideas?

I have a normal sized case with 3 fans blowing cold air IN (one in normal system fan place and 2 at side facing the graphics card). Id like to know should i change the direction of one or more of these fans to reduce the amount of hot air in the case or is more cold air better?

Also what does cool&quiet do? AMD thing. I turned it on and it cause windows the halt and it performed a physical memory dump... i turned it off and it didnt do it?

Is the board i got... MSI K8N Neo3 Gold any good?

Also, what PCI Express graphics card do you recommend i upgrade to in the near future? I will have a budget of around £50 and have a 9700pro 128mb at present.

Id also like to know a stable speed for the newcastle core if i overclock it (3400+) running at 2.4ghz 200fsb. I can add 10 to the fsb with it running fine but am a bit worried because of current temp at normal speed to go any further.

Any/all help is appreciated
Moka

 

[riekmaharg2]

I think that temp is alrite with that CPU, however it wouldn't hurt changing your fan arrangement. I would have the 2 side fans bringing air into the case, and the back 1 blowing heat out the back. All the cool n qiet mode does is use less power, not essential. For your graphics card I would save up some more money and get a radeon X1900GT PCI-E. And for overclocking, you are probaly better not bothering with, as its quite complicated and can blow things if you overclock them too much.