cheesemoney

Ok, I certainly don't expect to unlock the processor. You don't need to unlock it to overclock your FSB though. Its hard to get an unlocked stepping these days, but its still damned easy to get a 3200+ speed out of a 2500+ by just setting your FSB to 200/400 instead of 166/333.

For me, its cheap and fast to not worry about getting an unlocked stepping and then unlocking the multiplier.

I guess my question is should I spend 110 bucks on 2 corsair Cas 2.5 3200 256mb sticks or should I spend about 130 bucks on 2 crappy 3700 sticks at 512 mb?

Will 2 corsair 2.5 sticks at 3200 give me more bang for my buck than two unknown 512 mb sticks at 3700 (possibly bumped down to 3200 for better CAS timings?)

As to the Abit board--I know it rocks, and if I was building my own system I'd be tempted to go for it, but I save probably over 40 bucks by going with the MSI board--which has been known to overclock very successfully and run extremely stably at 3200+ speeds.