I am building myself a new rig around mayish but am still deciding on the cpu to use

I was originally going to go with the e4300 since the price cut should take it down to the $120 range roughly

however my main goal is to get a mild to moderate overclock since this will be my first go at it. and secondly I want to be able to maintain a 400 fsb so that it will run 1:1 with my ddr2-800 ram. and 3rd I tend to keep my systems for quiet a while so I will want to try to get it to run for 4-5+ years.

componants so far:

Tuniq Tower 120
Gigabyte ds3 rev 3.3 (maybe get a bearlake p35 board depending on price and overclockability)
G,Skill 2x1gb pc6400 4-4-4-12 timings
FSP 500w psu
antec nine hundred case

I have been reading reports of the bearlake boards giving conroe chips an average of a 15% boost in performance so thats why I have started to lean more towards the 6xxx series core 2 duo's.

now the question is which one? prices effective april 22 are as follows as a refresher (rough guess based on memory but i think i am pretty close)

e4300 - $113
e4400 - $133
e6320 - $163
e6420 - $183
e6600 - $224

so main questions is which could I easily get upto the 400 fsb and maintain it without having to shoot my vcore to high but yet keep it stable? I would like to get it over 3.0GHz, yes i know i would need a higher fsb to get it on the 6320 due to the x7 multiplier - but the rest would be over that range. and with the ram I am getting slightly over 400 fsb should be no problem what so ever.

comments welcome

I'm currently running my 6300 at 429fsb pretty effortlessly. I think my memory is holding me back in my stability at 3.337. I can get a ways into orthos at that setting but dies to a memory error. So don't under estimate the 6300. I tend to like it to because you get that higher fsb with the clock speed unlike the 6600 and what not just using a higher multiplier. Also that G.Skill will take you far above 400fsb with good cooling on your CPU, and a Tuniq will do that for you very easily. Good Luck!

anyone else got similar experiences with the other chips in getting them up to 400-450 range and stable.

also can you list your cpu temps and voltage settings. trying to find the sweetspot so to speak at which to aim for.

E4300 seem to be maxing around 3Ghz, most can do 3.2, but after that it is all luck (and skill). Some E4300's just don't want to OC (happens with budget chips). I have an E4300 and it started throwing issues around ~350 FSB, but I got it up to 375 with my DFI board.

6series will probably give you more headroom but requires more money for the proc (obviously) and a higher FSB (ala 63/6400). E4300 is a test of tweaking talent and the 6 series can be a test of cooling talent (kinda, this is a large generalization).

My E4300 takes 1.4vcore * 1.1065
FSB voltages are a hair over 2v
Cpu VTT is pretty high at 1.49
GTL Ref at 124
NB 1.8 is at 2.31v

I got a rough chip.....

Temps 54 maxed Orthos at 1.2625 in the bios with Core Temp.