confused about bus speeds - Asus motherboard

[morr1s]

I plan on purchasing the P4P800-E Deluxe motherboard. I currently have 2 PNY 256meg pc2100 I would like to use at least for now.

Asus's website says:

*800MHz FSB CPU is not the default specification of this motherboard. If you decide to overclock with Intel Pentium 4 processor on 800MHzm FSB, DDR400 DRAM module is a must.

1) Apply only one DIMM
2) Download the latest BIOS and the P4PE series will automatically upgrade to 800MHz FSB.
3) Only supported Northwood/WM CPU

Does this mean only the Northwood can reach 800mhz?
Does this mean I can only reach 800fsb by overclocking?
I plan on buying the Prescott 3.2e

Is it worth the upgrade to DDR400?

Also I have a PNY 4xAGP Geforce 3 videocard. How can I tell if it's compatible with this Asus board?

[glockjs]

p4p800 shows at 800. shouldnt have to overclock. if you are gonna overclock your gonna need good ram anyways. even if you upgrade to cheap ddr400 its not gonna do any good.

and yeah new boards are backward compatible with agp with usually everything besides agp 1

[rallynavvie]

PC2100 is 266 MHz RAM. You need 400 MHz RAM on a dual-channel system to reach 800 MHz FSB speeds, thus the need for PC3200.

I recommend against the Prescott, those things run too hot for their own good. I'd really recommend the Northwood for now. Perhaps the next run of 90nm cores will work better but the Prescotts and Noconas are HOT.

[morr1s]

Thanks for the help. I think I am going to use my existing Ram until I save a little more money than I will upgrade the ram to pc3200. The Prescott, Northwood debate is what's keeping me from placing my order. I read arguments to both sides. I thought the processor would be the easiet decision.