Am building a new PC with hardware listed. One question has come up while reading the mobo manual about "Phoenix-Award" BIOS settings. Specifically, in the Advanced Chipset section, I need to determinte what to set the CPU Frequency to. According the manual, the choices range from 200.0 to 250.0, with a default of 200. The 4400+'s frequency is 2.2 GHz. Is the proper BIOS setting 220.0? Is this a case where a multiplier is also applied? I don't see any mention of a multiplier BIOS setting in the manual. With a never-been-used-before mobo, would this setting be automatically detected & set? Many thanks!

Why don't you start with setting your CPU frequency at 200MHz, your HT frequency to AUTO and your HT Width at [16 16}. At these settings, what is your CPU frequency? You also might consider downloading and installing the CPU software CPU-z at THIS WEBSITE and monitor your CPU frequency as you adjust from 200 to 250MHz.

Thanks Gilloz. Good suggestions. I just finished downloaded CPU-z. It looks like a handy tool.

The 4400+ runs with a multiplier of 11x Hence the stock fsb is 200 :) Jay

I just setup a small DB server using the Tomcat K8E and an Opty 170... it's a boring, rock-solid workhorse of a motherboard for under $200, which is what I was looking for. Don't bother overclocking with it, though. Bit of advice--update to the latest BIOS before you start doing anything important with it. Some people have said that the board wouldn't boot afterwards until they cleared the CMOS, but that didn't happen with me. Anyway, loading the Optimized Defaults should work fine for you. If the board isn't in a production environment, you might want to tweak the memory timings as they're pretty conservative. A few people have reported problems with A/V performance and AMD dual cores in XP SP2, so you might want to disable AMD's C&Q in the BIOS or try MS' KB896256 hotfix which is supposed to help the OS better handle the changing CPU power & frequency states the C&Q function produces. I experienced some small application weirdness on my home machine (Opty 180 on AN8 Ultra) even though I had C&Q disabled--AMD's CPU driver seems to have ironed it out. BTW, jaythespacehound's right about the CPU frequency & clock multi for the 4400+. "If it ain't broke, upgrade anyway."

THANK YOU everyone! Great info & advice from all of you. BTW tropic, I don't believe in overclocking. The 4400+ has plenty or horsepower for my puposes, otherwise I would have gotten something better.