It's time for an upgrade, and to finally throw off the shackles of my outdated mobo

[Biscuit]

well it sounds to me that this build is going to be a bit of a temp build until *decent* quads come down in price. Baring in mind S775 is about to be removed from production, i would make sure you get the case you want then just build up a budget PC around that. For this reason you are probably better with the E5200.

I would tend to disagree with goin as cheap as CAT is suggesting for the motherboard because it will be extremely limited all round and it sounds like you want to do a bit of fiddling which would result in some serious frustration. I would maybe even recommend spending a couple quid more than the one i suggested and getting something from Asus or Biostar.

This is a build with a much nicer case

The RC 690 is very popular and a lot of people have had a lot of success using it

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would tend to disagree with goin as cheap as CAT is suggesting for the motherboard because it will be extremely limited all round and it sounds like you want to do a bit of fiddling which would result in some serious frustration. I would maybe even recommend spending a couple quid more than the one i suggested and getting something from Asus or Biostar.

??????????? Have you even read the reviews for this motherboard?? Some Hexus members have it and it is perfectly fine.

This is the conclusion from one review:

"Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L is a mainstream motherboard targeted to average users that want a platform with good features, outstanding overclocking capability, high performance but doesn’t want to give an arm to buy a high-end product. In our opinion this motherboard brings an excellent cost/benefit ratio for the average user that is building an Intel-based PC.

It has several advantages over entry-level products such as four memory sockets (instead of just two), Gigabit Ethernet, very high overclocking capability, on-board digital audio outputs and more.

The only negative point from this motherboard is the absence of a RAID controller and eSATA ports but frankly we wouldn’t expect that from a motherboard that costs far less than a high-end model."

You can lock the PCI-E frequency too. With a E5200 with its 12.5x multiplier you will only need to raise the FSB from 800mhz (12.5X200) to 960mhz(12.5x240) to get to 3ghz. In the review they could raise the FSB to 1500mhz with no problems.

Here is a review of the similiar GA-P31-DS3L:

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/revie...L/index6.shtml

Here is their conclusion:

"For me to talk about what this board is, first I must talk about what it’s not. It’s not your high end enthusiast level bragging rights board. However, the board is much less expensive and is based on older technology with its ICH7 Southbridge. Despite the technology limitations, this board features near identical performance to the higher end P35 boards I have tested. All at a price point that won’t make your significant other beat you with the stupid stick for feeding your computer habit.

The BIOS offers up a significantly large amount of BIOS tweaking options, on par with its more expensive Gigabyte counter parts. The use of Solid caps is also a nice touch, adding to longevity of this board."

In short, I have never had such a solid board come across my test bench at this price point. This board is just screaming to be paired with a budget CPU and overclocked to get premium performance at a fraction of the cost. I highly recommend this board to any builder on a budget, that is not looking to sacrifice BIOS configuration options, or board quality.

Considering that it also has all solid capacitors it is brilliant value for money. The difference between the GA-EP31-DS3L and the GA-P31-DS3L is that has the former has "Dynamic Energy Saver(DES) technology" which is meant to cut power consumption(more marketing hype probably).

Here is another review:

http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...p31ds3l/22.htm

Here is their conclusion:

"The GA-P31-DS3L acts like both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As a budget desktop offering, it is the mild mannered Dr. Jekyll. Start playing in the M.I.T. section of the BIOS and Mr. Hyde comes out to play. That can be taken one of two ways, very good or very bad. In this case, it is very good. I was pleasantly surprised to see a budget offering overclocking like some of the better known hardware on the market. I was able to adjust the front side bus up to 465MHz with the default multiplier on the E6750 and stopped at 425x8 with my Q6600 used in this review. In no way was I expecting the overclocking results that I pulled from this board. It was not the best in every benchmarking category, but it was at least comparable to its big brothers' performance when it was not exceeding their results. The two things that I really did not like were the hidden performance options in the BIOS, and the voltage settings. It really is more of a nuisance to find the performance settings without doing the research in the manual. Once found, they do offer enough flexibility to get the job done. If you don't know what the beginning voltages are for the chipset and memory, it makes it difficult to make sane adjustments to the voltages. If you are looking for a motherboard that is inexpensive yet has excellent overclocking potential, you may just want to check out the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L. It has the neccesary tools to function as both the little desktop that could, as well as performing like a thoroughbred purpose-built overclocking board if it needs to."

Microdirect have the GA-P31-DS3L for under £50:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...ource=googleps

[handscombmp]

I'm roughly in the same position but i'm leaning more towards the p4* chipset as it's just a bit more modern and i've read bad things about dual sided memory not working in the p31

[Hawker1986]

I'm roughly in the same position but i'm leaning more towards the p4* chipset as it's just a bit more modern and i've read bad things about dual sided memory not working in the p31

The P31 chipset is limited to two sticks of dual sided RAM, so if you want 4GB you have to go 2x2GB not 4x1Gb even if the mobo has 4 memory slots, there are no problems so long as you do that.

Hawker

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

4gb is going to be more than enough for gaming for the next two years or so. Most people use a 32bit OS anyway and it can only address 4gb RAM in total including the graphics card.
Considering that it is usually cheaper to get 2x2gb instead of 4x1gb it is not really a limitation IMHO.

[Biscuit]

im allowed to disagree with u u know... I dont really care what reviews say its quite an old board and the features it has will most likely be there and with quite a few others in the P43.