Need help on compatibility of hardware

[fsuorange]

Hello I am very confused on which hardware to buy.

My computer's motherboard (asus a7v) recently broke down and would like to upgrade now to an asus a7n8x-x motherboard but would like to know how and the best way to do this.

Since the a7n8x-x uses ddr memory and my old a7v uses sdram I will have to buy ddr memory and am planning buy 2700 ddr.

NOW this is what I am confused about: I currently have an amd athlon thunderbird 900 mhz with I believe a 200 mhz front side bus, in my old a7v motherboard. The a7n8x-x says here http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X-X&langs=09 it can run its front side bus at 400 / 333 / 266 / 200 MHz. SO does this mean that I can transfer the athlon 900 mhz in the a7v into the a7n8x-x and will everything will work? Does anyone know if this setup will work. What exactly is front side bus?

[808smokey]

You'll have to get new DDRAM any of these will work: PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600. The SDRAM is only PC100 or PC133. It physically won't fit in the board. Your Processor should fit but with that board it doesn't really make sense to keep the old one. You can get an AMD Athlon Xp1700+ (the slowest CPU that will fit in that board) for $52.00 which is a 1.4ish Gig chip www.newegg.com Xp1700+ But since your upgrading go for broke and go all out. Get this one it's $299.99

What exactly is front side bus?

Go here for a general answer

[fsuorange]

if I get a 400mhz frontside bus processor will it work with 2700 ddr ram. Is the front side bus backwards compatible?

[redwudz]

2700DDR will work, but not at a 400MHZ bus speed. 2700 has a speed of 333MHZ. If that's what you have, use it. But if you are buying memory, go for the 3200DDR. If that board uses dual channel memory, you might want to look into that also. For a processor, I would go for a XP1800 at least. They are just a bit more than the XP1700. If that board supports it, the XP2500 Barton CPU is one of the best buys from AMD. It supports 400MHZ FSB with 3200DDR memory.

[rallynavvie]

I second the 2500 Barton. It's a great value chip. It also works very well with the A7N8X. I know two people who have that combo, though I think the 2500 Barton only supports 333 FSB, not 400. The board supports 400, but that's for 3200 chips and the like. Also get a matched pair of 256MB RAM sticks and utilize the dual-channel memory on board. Well worth using, and 512MB in this manner is about all you'll ever need for most apps.