It takes me about 2 hours to do the hardware, and varying time to software it up. Your first will take you longer. Newegg is the way to go in my mind. Wargame different configs of PC's first. Read all the specs and documentation on mfg websites linked at newegg under that respective product. If you don't know what something is, read about it in several places on the net. You'll get the hang of it. Less than $800 out of pocket will get you a kick-butt gaming rig. I just built this one for a co-worker on Friday.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=5546712

e4300 has gone up in price since then though. Good little over clocker. Does the job great. Why would you need any more than that?

[QUOTE="sogviamask"][QUOTE="richyroo1"][QUOTE="Zaber123"]

[QUOTE="richyroo1"]Good point, will check thaOh okt out. Am I right in thinking that the PSU can make a difference to CPU temperature?richyroo1

OK, that sounds like a good idea, thanks. I'm off to get some cleaning fluid now so I should be able to test later on. I'll let you know what happens.

I wouldn't use too much paste either. Spread on thin and even with a razor blade. Heat sinks gotta be tight of course too. Don't over look system fans too. Make sure to check direction of fans to make sure they're not all blowing inward. That would keep hot air festering inside of your box. For every in fan, there should be an out fan. Air flow pattern should make sense as well. The fan rotation and airflow directions should be posted on the fan body. It'll be hard to see on some fans though, most likely as raised arrows in the plastic body of them. Overclocking is best with liquid

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835108075

Well it's all back together again and happier than ever. Idle temps are around 40-44 (measured with Intel TAT) which I'm really pleased with though its not as good as it could be. You mentioned having 1 fan in for every fan out, well I have 3 out and only 2 in. Should I get another? I wasn't aware of this rule before. I realise I'm not going to achieve a massive OC with my setup, and indeed I don't want to. I just want to have a play and see what's it's all about and whether I get an increase in performance - I won't be changing any voltages. So what do you think now? Is 40ish OK? Or should I get another fan, or somethingelse?

The safest way to OC is with FSB frequency manipulation. But I believe the board has to be setup for that, or have that feature in the BIOS to do this easily. Most build your own system boards have this to some degree. Check your BIOS setup features under CPU headings and see what you have. Voltage tweaks can be dangerous, and instantly fry your chip. Note what your normal voltage is in the BIOS first. If you do voltage tweaking, you must increment by the lowest step available on your BIOS and then test that setting by playing your favorite, most graphic/cpu intense game for stability. By that I mean don't go more than one "+" keypress for CPU voltage in the BIOS . Unless your board supports 0.001V increments, then you could step by 0.005 to 0.010V increments each iteration of testing.

FSB manipulation takes the cpu clock multiplier and multiplies by the clock number. A 4300 has stock 200FSB and multiplier of 9 for 1800Mhz or 1.8G. The board I have allows for 90-340 FSB, so 270 FSB * 9 = 2.44Ghz. I tried 300 and it wouldn't boot. At that point I may have to add some voltage or accept that I'm limited to 280 or 290 FSB on that chip with my board. Believe me, it's plenty fast enough having a C2D at 2.53G for my gaming...

This is why I have a 4300 for playing around with OC. If I fry it, I'm only out ~$100. I'll buy another...

I know I will never go liquid... Its too complicated and pointless when you can get a really nice air coolnig soultion LouieV13

I thought the very same thing until I actually bought one and installed it. I installed it on the system I was about to decomission first as a learning curve. No leaks or issues. Went ahead and upgraded. No leaks or issues. Less fans, less noise.

I also have a question about RAM, I currently have 1gig of Consair ram on my computer on a DFI mother board andI was wondering that ifI could upgrade it to 2gig of RAM but different RAM manufacturer.

xvi3tprid3boix

Is the 1G 2x512 in dual channel memory mode? How many RAM slots are there? If you have 4, and you have said 2x512 already in dual channel mode, I would say buy 2x512 more of the same manufacturer andmodel.

If you have a 1GB stick and your board supports dual channel memory mode, I'd buy another 1GB stick of the exact same model and run dual channel memory mode.

It really depends upon how many RAM slots you have, how much your board supports max, and whether or not it's dual channel capable.

Don't exceed 3GB in XP. Heard it's not recognized. I run 2GB anyway. Is that true? Anyone know first hand?

[QUOTE="Zaber123"]

[QUOTE="richyroo1"]Good point, will check thaOh okt out. Am I right in thinking that the PSU can make a difference to CPU temperature?richyroo1

OK, that sounds like a good idea, thanks. I'm off to get some cleaning fluid now so I should be able to test later on. I'll let you know what happens.

I wouldn't use too much paste either. Spread on thin and even with a razor blade. Heat sinks gotta be tight of course too. Don't over look system fans too. Make sure to check direction of fans to make sure they're not all blowing inward. That would keep hot air festering inside of your box. For every in fan, there should be an out fan. Air flow pattern should make sense as well. The fan rotation and airflow directions should be posted on the fan body. It'll be hard to see on some fans though, most likely as raised arrows in the plastic body of them. Overclocking is best with liquid

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835108075

I say drop the fans and go liquid. Liquid is 13x more efficient at removing heat than just blowing hot air around the inside of your case. Let the liquid take it away. This thing rocks on my little 4300. Just follow the LGA775 portions of the mounting instructions...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835108075

Topic. How can I overclock a E4300 to make it faster? THanks.Cornerstore

Check your motherboard documentation. The easiest way is to modify FSB clock in the BIOS setup, if your mobo supports it. FSB clock speed x processor clock ratio=processor speed. The E4300 stock is 200 FSB with clock ratio of 9, for a 1800Mhz speed, or 1.8G. If your board can go up to 300 FSB, then you'd run at 2.7G. Other ways are to adjust the voltage that the CPU gets, but that's more risky. Can fry it if you don't have enough cooling...

The best way to overclock is to build your own PC with a motherboard that's designed for overclocking with such features in the BIOS. Easy to find if you look for them. Newegg.com is a decent place to hunt.

Paragraph breaks are the normal thing, you know.

However, the important thing not to overlook is that RAID 0 accomplishes no speed increase for game play. It's helpful when really large files are involved, such as audio and video editing. For the game benchmark comparisons, you have to go back a couple of years' worth of storage system articles at AnandTech, but they documented it very well. Debunked RAID 0 totally.

Kiwi_1

I didn't clarify what "speed" I was talking (or rambling) about. Loadingwas faster not actual gameplay. The Dinosaur was an MSI 6398 Ultra AR with onboard RAID 0/1/0+1. Back then it was pretty cool, and one of the few onboard at the time.

The salvage upgrade Iwrite about does not have any RAID implemented whatsoever. I'm not so sure I believe in it anyway, except for RAID1 of important data such ashome video, pics, downloaded music, financial,datayou can't afford to lose.

I think in my next build I will try 4 separate physical drives, 1 small for OS only, 1 partitioned for program installs, and 2 large 750GB+ in RAID1 for storage. If anyone knows of documentation testing this type of physical drive set-up vs RAID array performance, please let me know. I'm curious.

Is that enough paragraphs for you, English major?

[QUOTE="sogviamask"][QUOTE="dayaccus007"]

If you go with C2D you need to change the memory too because you will need DDR2

Sorry I didn't saw that you will give this pc to your mum. So what's your budget is the main question then

Ephexis

You don't need DDR2 necessarily to run a C2D or QC processor with the ASROCK 4 core dual vista mobo. Read my post

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25776993

Is there really a noticeable difference between a PCI-E and AGP 8X card? I max out settings on my shtuff and I'm satisfied with the results...

My whole speech was basically a way for people to salvage value from eagerly trying to breathe life into antiquated systems like I tried to. I spent all this money trying to squeeze up my old system, now I had fairly new parts, RAM, video card, liquid cooling, etc.that I didn't feel like scrapping so I found away to get better processing technology usingthe previous generation stuff. It's a way to take it all a step further without breaking the bank so to speak. Had I not been stupid in the first place, I could have built a better system by far from the onset, rather than bleeding myself in stages. But in the end, I wound up having something that's a decent performer by DX9 standards anyway. It was also a learning curve system for overclocking and liquid cooling as well. Moral of my story is if you can't wait all the stuff you just bought may not be junk...