howdy.

my pc has died. its been acting up for a while, needed to wiggle the gfx card to make it post sometimes..anyways, its time to upgrade it.

il looking at system built around the Core 2 Duo E3600. I know sod all about motherboards, cooling or RAM anymore. I want to be able to overclock this system. (my old system ran an Intel Engineering Sample P4 Northwood, and since 4 years ago had an FSB higher than most current systems!)

anyhoo - anyknow recomend me a motherboard, or some ram. 90% sure i can source an ok PCI-E gfx card for nowt.

i had a maplin cataloge here the otherday with 2 mobo+cpu+heat sink n fan combo deals in it, looks like mrs dave has filed it try their website

Budget?

Liam

whatever it costs, but i'm pretty set on working round an E3600 - which i think kinda sets my budget ie i'm not going to spend £100 on a CPU and then £160 odd on a mobo.

ive no intention of using SLI, so dual PCI-E isn't needed!

this no good then?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=99690&TabID=1&QV=Y

Some ideas here Mark

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html

Liam

Need some more info to get a mobo compatable with your existing hardware...

Are you using a 20 or 24 pin PSU? Are you using any SATA drives (little connectors rather than the IDE ribbon cables)?

Check out www.ebuyer.com and www.cclonline.com - both great shops with low prices, ebuyer has more choice tho...

BTW, I'd go for AMD over intel anyday but others wouldn't... its an endless debate tbh

EDIT: just had a look, your looking at around £180 for an E4300 with decent mobo and sum RAM

dave said:

this no good then?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=99690&TabID=1&QV=Y

Click to expand...

nah, i'm after a Core 2 Duo based system.

Liam said:

Some ideas here Mark

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html

Liam

Click to expand...

ta, only one 3600 on there.. and its an mATX mobo.. which looks like a generic type motherboard. I'm after a branded motherboard which is going to be solid for overclocking.

Xen said:

Need some more info to get a mobo compatable with your existing hardware...

Are you using a 20 or 24 pin PSU? Are you using any SATA drives (little connectors rather than the IDE ribbon cables)?

Check out www.ebuyer.com and www.cclonline.com - both great shops with low prices, ebuyer has more choice tho...

BTW, I'd go for AMD over intel anyday but others wouldn't... its an endless debate tbh

EDIT: just had a look, your looking at around £180 for an E4300 with decent mobo and sum RAM

Click to expand...

yeah, on sata (current mobo was a very early sata board!). PSU.. can't remember, its a Tagan 480w - iirc there is a convertor that came with it, guessing that'd do for 20/24pin.

i'm not daft, and used to know a lot and keep on top of hardware and stuff.. but i've just totally lost touch.

Basically what im after is a decent stable motherboard that doesn't mind being overlocked, (are fsb/agp/pci dividers still an issue..even though its pci-e now!), and RAM that will suit.

i know how to use search.... but i'm asking which motherboards are worth bothering with. a lot of 'bundles' just include whichever cheap mobo can be had at the time. i want a brand i know works, abit, asus, gigabyte etc

iwill

the last iwill mobo i had was a k266 or something like that.. and it was rubbish

some here http://www.dealtime.com/xPP-Motherboards-iwill~r-1~CLT-INTR~RFR

kk266, actually, it wasnt that bad - it was good for high mem speeds, better than the abit k7a

arc said:

the last iwill mobo i had was a k266 or something like that.. and it was rubbish

Click to expand...

did it keep making the pc restart its self?

overclockers.co.uk have bundles on there which are helpful if your not uptodate with the current market. they also have an awesome forum connected to the site to solve any problems.

i tend to spend my money between
quietpc
overclockers.co.uk
aria.co.uk