Will this be a good upgrade MB?

Tim

My current main computer system has an Abit NF-7 Version 2.0 motherboard. It has 768 MB of 400 Mhz PC3200 memory, a Barton 2500+ CPU overclocked to 2.2 Ghz, XP Home, and it runs very nicely.

I may have some extra cash soon and I'd like to build a dual processor system. Not anything 64 bit, that's still too expensive. I've done some research and would like an Asus A7M266-D motherboard along with a lot of memory, an Antec power supply of at least 400 watts, and 2 of the fastest (2600-2800) Athlon MP processors. With overclocking I'd like to have it in the 4.5-5.0 Ghz range total speed. I've looked at several dual Athlon boards, but they are not overclockabe. I'd use XP Pro on it to support dual processors.

The reviews I've read say it can use either 2100 or 2700 (200/266 Mhz) memory sticks. That's fine, I'd like to run some 3200 speed sticks in it for 1GB-2GB total RAM. I wonder how that will affect overall speed and folding performance.

Leonardo

The speed of a computer with multiple CPUs is equivalent to sum of both CPU cores' speed. Your computer will whatever the speed is of either of the CPUs you install in it. You will have great production and multi-tasking capabilities, though, but in this case, that will be a function of multithreading, not raw processor speed.

Enverex

I thought real world performance worked out as roughly 75% the speed of both processors/cores added together but with better latency... (due to the way everything works and the fact that both processors don't get used 100% for every operation, etc).

Tim

Yes, I mean that each CPU should be in the 2.25 - 2.50 Ghz range once I get them overclocked. I was just adding the numbers up, which I know wouldn't be the real world case.