I bought on at Frys in Oregon coupled with and ECS MoBo for $158 back in December. Running it with my old DDR PC3200 Memory. I can't seem to OC at all, but the machine is fast and stable even if the chip might be slightly neutered by the DDR memeory(my assumption). I know ECS boards are hit and miss so I'm pretty happy with this "free" one that let me keep my old memory and AGP Video Card.

I know I would need a new board and memory to oc the system properly. The question is would it be worth the upgrade to get the best out of my cpu. I assume that my AGP card will be obsolete on this system as well, but I have another system that can use it. If you have an economic board and memory suggestion it would be most welcome.

ECS P4M800PRO-M mobo
supports DDR400 & DDR2 533
1.5 gb DDR400
FX 5700VE w\ 256mb
P4M800PRO nortbridge
VT8237 Southbrdige

Thanks.

I needed a new computer because my 5 year old Athlon just was too hot and too noisy. I went with the E6300 because of it's price. I knew in the beginning that I would be over clocking it because, believe it or not, this CPU was made to be over clocked. The first time I over clocked it I went from it's stock speed to 3Gh and it's idle temps were 30c and load temps were 60c. Right now I've settled on 3.2Gh as my final specs as I think this is as high as I want to go on stock cooling. Below are my specs.

E6300
Gigabyte 965P DS3 Rev.2
Kingston Value RAM 1G stick
7600GT "Silent Pipe"
AcBel 525w PSU
Seagate 320GB HDD

If you're looking to get the "best" out of your CPU, you'll need to upgrade to a P965 mobo(except MSI). Of course, memory and vid card will have to be bought at the same time.

If you're pretty happy with the way it performs now, why not wait? Prices will come down and mobo companies are just getting the handle on this new chipset. I'm @ 450 fsb setting when reviews back in October had 335-350 as the max fsb. It's only going to get better

The question is not "would it be worth the upgrade", its: would it be worth the upgrade to YOU?

I did the EXACT same thing. I bought one of the Fry's specials and ran it that way for about 5 months with a 6600GT. A couple of months ago, I grabbed a 7900GS for $130. Two weeks ago, I got a DS3 and 2GB of DDR2 800 memory. I'm now running at 3Ghz, and this thing is *very* fast.

I do a lot of CPU intensive computing, so it was worth it to me. If you run CPU-bound programs or if your system is CPU bottlenecked, it might be worth it to you to. Even at stock, its a fast CPU. If it's not worth it to you to upgrade for the sake of overclocking, it might be worth upgrading when something dies... like the MB or graphics card. The extra 50% CPU power waiting in the wings will be a pleasant side-effect of the upgrade.