Pretty much want to get a core 2 chip up to 3 GHz in the most cost efficient manner. Here's what I got so far...

e6300 - $180

one of these 4 boards-
Gigabtye 965P-S3 - $125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128017

Asus P5B - $129
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131030

Gigabyte 965p-DS3 - $135
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128012

Asus P5B-E - $151
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131070

or maybe an NVidia based 650 board?


memory - no clue, but want just 1 gig for now (will upgrade to 2 gig when the prices come down).

Will I need an aftermarket cooler? If so, which one?

I'm also going to get a 7600 or 7900 based vid card for now (not a big gamer at all).

Thanks for any help. If I can keep it under $600, great....

Your going to need really good cooling, some great ram, and an act of god to get to 3ghz with an E6300, i dont think it can be done for under $600, you'll need a water cooling setup.

so, 6400 or 6600 instead?

p3Matty, here is all you need to OC your E6300 to 3+ GHz for $631:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/har [...] 05223.html

6300 can do it, but it will be a noisy little sucker!!

take a look @ this post here

I would go with the e6600, I would though still get another cooler... (I'm not an expert, I just thought you might wanted to see that link), it can only be better than following the "3+GHz on a budget" for 631$ the e6600 is 309$ throw in a 150$ mobo, another cooler and it will take you where ever you wanna go

water cooling? no, a simple arctic cooling pro 7 should do the trick, at 30 bucks its a steal

A 6400 would be the better choice, 6600 is unnecessary for the price, because you only need fsb of 350 or so to get a 6400 to 3ghz, which any board should accomplish

i agree
go for a e6400 and an artic cooling freezer 7 pro, with a fairly good board like the gigabyte s3

Just get Decent memory.. and you'll be fine, the 6300 will do 3ghz without even breaking a sweat..

Mine's 12 Hour Prime Stable (maybe more, but i shut it off myself) at 3ghz on my DS3 with stock voltages on the chipset and 1.34 on the CPU.. with my cheap old Arctic cooling freezer 7 pro.

Here's IDLE Temps at 3255mhz, oh.. I dont have TAT installed anymore. it reads about 10 degrees higher.. and reaches about 50C Full load.

So, checking my math, I'll need to get to 429 FSB with the 6300 (429x7=3 GHz). Will the DS3 safely and efficiently do this? Will any decent 800 memory do this?

Spending $40 more, the 6400 would only need a FSB of 375 (375x8=3 GHz). Really, how much safer is that OC? It's still underclocking 800 memory, but will 675 or even 666 memory do that?

I was thinking about saving the $40 from the 6300 to the 6400 and using it to buy the cooler....thoughts on that though process?

Again, thanks for all the help, and happy holidays to all.

Just wait until E4300 released in late Jan.

200MHz * 9 --> 333MHz * 9 = 3GHz

I think any DDR2 667 and any decent motherboard should be able to handle this. And it should be cheap as well.

Gigabyte GA965P-DS3
Intel Core2 Duo E6400
2x512MB Nanya DDR2-800 CL5 5-5-12











http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6 [...] puzay4.jpg
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1908/cpuzcc6.jpg
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205 [...] i1mnj9.jpg
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204 [...] ammul6.jpg
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208 [...] aluiu0.jpg
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205 [...] 2k5uq2.jpg
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7 [...] ngsmp8.jpg