Planned Upgrade and a few questions!

[Jud666]

Hi eveyone im new to these forums and still learning a lot about hardware and overclocking and the like, i recently made the grave error of purchasing an 8600gts due to lack of homework but am trying to make the best of it and making the rest of my PC futureproof for the new releases at winter.

As you can see in my system specs my mobo is a P5LD2-SE which i recently found out is not the newer revision which supports c2duo chips :x so anyway im looking to upgrade my mobo processor and some extra ram with a cooler to hopefully run an e4300 at a decent speed until the new 45nm processors are released (or keep this if they are no good ) so here is what ive got planned.

MOBO

Gigabyte GA P35-DS3R -

PROCESSOR

Intel core 2 duo E4300 2mb cache 800mhz FSB -

RAM

GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) -

CPU COOLER

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro -

THERMAL PASTE

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound -

Total Price= 250 quid

So the questions, first of all i would like to know how on earth you judge a motherboard's overclocking potential simply from reading specs on retail sites, i know there are a lot of reviews out there but when there isnt one i am just lost, and the only real basis i work on is black pcb and big price= good overclocker O.o

Secondly how much of an overclock would i be looking at with that board and cooler, and will my 550w power supply handle everything nicely?

Thirdly after reading the guide here and a few others on overclocking, i am still completely dumbfounded by ram timings and i have no idea about what to change with them when overclocking and how much you should be changing, i also dont understand the 1:1 ratio bit, im not asking for an answer as its probably too much to ask but any extra links or information i could read would be very appreciated.

Finally, is there anything i could cut down on without affecting the quality too much, any drop in price is good news for me

Thats all for my first post here! Hope you can help and thanks!

(doh i cant post the URLS without 5 post count, sorry for the inconvinience)

[Mossy]

Firstly I would go for an Asus motherboard rather than the Gigabyte as they are more reliable and seem to be a lot more stable especially in the over clocking dept.

Please see http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...ight=overclock for CLUNKS excellent advice.

I would not cut anything on this system as you are touching minimal for a good overclock on this system as it is.

[Jud666]

Ok thanks, i was looking at the new asus ones but i really didnt want to spend over 100 quid on the mobo, i was looking at the Asus P5KC, my only dilema is how much am i missing from the deluxe? Am i only losing features, or some overlocking power too?

The Asus P5KC is 101 quid so i could push up to that, just trying to keep a tight budget for myself for when the 9*** nvidia cards are released mainly

[DratUK]

I would also look at the Abit IP35 Express. Abit are as good overclockers as Asus, secondly, prepares to get flamed, support is far better.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=605524

At £88 its a steal.
http://www2.abit.com.tw/page/uk/moth...&fMTYPE=LGA775
For spec