i've seem quite a few post here stating how good a amd 2500+ are for overclocking. (up to 3200+?) i'm now being tempted to try it out. i need some opinion on the best asus board for overclocking.(hopefully one that can match with a 2500+ that goes up to 3200+) any idea?

If I had my time over again, I would have gone with an Abit NF7-s instead of the Asus A7N8X Deluxe I currently have, not that the Asus is a bad board, its reliable and feature packed, but the Abit, is a far better overclocker, do a forum search on the NF7-s, you will find all sorts of usefull info as well as a heap of links. I can only offer advice, in the end, it is your decision.

Litz If you have never O/C before my personal opinion is leave well enough alone. If you must dable, do some hard research into the topic. And take it 1 step at a time at the smalest available incriments. The asus delux is a great board, but adam is right the abit just seems to have the edge in the OC department. Great board built by a great company. Their latest INTEL board the MAX3 is an awsome peice of engineering. Good luck, and use caution, but you have been warned. One wrong move and bang go your redies. Regards

Good advice all around.

Yeah, If you want a stable overclocking board, go with the Abit NF7-S VER. 2! My first Asus board was the A7n8x deluxe version 1, and i didnt have good luck with overclocking. But, then again ver.2 mobos do actually fairly well with ocing to a 3200+. With my NF7-s, I have mine oced to a 3200+ with a 420 mhz FSB. GO ABIT!

If all you want is to turn a 2500+ into a 3200+, almost any nforce2 board will do it. The abit nf7-s is the best oc'r because it averages a max fsb of maybe 460 as opposed to 440 for the other current nforce2 boards. btw the dfi nf2 lanparty may be the best board right now but not many people are getting it because of the price you pay for the cool looks. So if you want to go with asus, get any of their nf2 ultra400 boards and you'll be very unlucky if you can't hit a 3200+. The key to buying a cpu is maximizing your odds of getting one that oc's well. Sometimes vendors will state the cpu stepping right on the web site which can almost guarantee you a good oc'r. You could bank on 2.4g from a 1700+ over the summer that way. But as the 2500+ has become the most popular amd cpu its hard to find those top 1700s. As far as what 2500+ to get, you want one that is the most recently made, and the way to do that is to buy from those who move the highest number of them, which is newegg.com if you are in the US. So get a 2500+ from newegg and you maximize your chances of getting one that will oc well. Hitting 2.2g (3200+ speed) is a virtual guarantee, and with an slk800/900 cooler hitting 2.4g-2.5g is even money. That would make your cpu a 3700+. If you can find a website that will guarantee you a manufacturing week of 30 or later (a code of 0330 or 0331 or 0332, etc), go with it. Here is a screenshot of a guy who just got his newegg 2500+ and to keep it at the lowest temp he lowered the vcore below the default and its still able to run at 2.31g. http://www.saunalahti. fi/psjogar/kuvat/barton2300.jpg