AMD Newb Needing Advice

[Bumrush]

Ok guys, I finally bit the bullet and am ditching my aging Intel system. I haven't built a computer from the ground up in nearly 3 years and need some advice in setting up my new XP 2000 MSI KT3 Ultra rig. Here is my system config...

CHIEFTEC Server Chasis (Aluminum Workstation Tower with Plastic Front Cover) Blue w/acrylic window 400W AMD approved Power Supply

MSI KT3 ULTRA (MS-6380E-010) VIA KT333 DDR ATA133 SocketA MOTHERBOARD

GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 4 Ti 4200, 4ns, 128MB DDR, Power Pack Golden Sample

AMD ATHLON XP 2000+/266 FSB PROCESSOR CPU

KINGMAX DDR333 PC-2700 512MB

Arctic Silver's NEW Premium Silver Polysynthetic Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 3. 3-gram( 1 cc. ) tube

Thermaltake VOLCANO 6Cu. Heatsink + Dual Ball-Bearing Fan, FAN Speed: 4550±10% RPM. Max. Air Flow: 32CFM


Firstly, what do the VIA All in One Drivers do? Are they needed with newer motherboards and system configurations? What are the performance issues that they resolve?

How many bios settings need to be adjusted when setting up the CPU/MEM/BUS SPEED/PCI DIVIDERS/ect..

Is this an accurate assessment of how to correctly place thermal paste on the CPU? http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

What are the optimal MB settings? I'm most interested in gaming.

How can you relate memory speed, memory voltages, PCI Multipliers, AGP settings, bus speeds, ect.. to run things optimally?

How should I O/C the GF4 4200 "Golden Sample" card? In what increments?

Do I NEED to reformat my XP partition? I'll be going from an Intel Celeron 566 @ 953 with an Abit BX6 Rev2 board. Will XP adjust system properties and drivers on the fly and will performance be hampered by the older configuration settings/conflicts?

If anyone can think of other issues that I need to be aware of, please do!
Hate to sound like such a newb, but overclocking and simply setting up a system bios seems a lot more complicated than it used to be

Thanks!

 

[OlympusXP]

Ok, you seem to have a lot of questions, so I will answer the ones I can.

The VIA 4-in-1 drivers aren't an optional thing to install, I believe they are requires if you have a VIA chipset or else you can't play games or anything. They basically optimize your computer for the chipset, and these are what make it fly.

Uhm, as far as I know, there are no bios settings that need to be adjusted right off the bat. Most jumpers on your mobo will come set to 133, so I don't think you will have to mess with that.

Yes, the company has compiled those directions for the arctic silver and be very careful to follow them by the word! I have seen so many people spoil their cpu by not applying the paste correctly.

I believe your motherboard comes with preset configurations you can set it to. For example, a Turbo mode. Other than that, try your ram at cas 2.
You maybe able to overclock your cpu a little, but from my experiences that volcano 6cu heatsink pretty much sucks. Hell, my friend's volcano 7+ sucks. His XP1800+ is 49 C at idle and 58 C at load and he has the volcano 7+ using silver 3.

My friend runs his gainward gf4 ti4200 golden at 250/600. You shouldn't have a problem acheiving this.

I have known people who have upgraded their entire system without reformatting, but this is NOT a good idea.
Do yourself a favor and reformat, this will ensure your system operates with its full performance.

 

[Bumrush]

I cancelled the Heatsink/Fan combo... Any suggestions for a replacement?