System Upgrade Help

Hi

Im am thinking to upgrade my system so any advice would be much appreciated as I'm a bit of a novice and not sure about the finer points

I will be keeping my case+Power unit, SATA drive, dvd writer, keyboard/Mouse, Monitor and installing XP Pro

How does the Gigabyte M/B GA-965P-DS3P or GA-P35-DS3R look? Is the P35 chipset better than the 965?

I would be looking to try my hand at overclocking is this processor any good for that, Intel Core 2 Duo E6750?

I will be using it for gaming from time to time so what would be a good G/card? Nvidia or ATI? does the GA-965P-DS3P support both Nivida and ATI?
I can't see me using more than one G/card but it may be nice to have the option in the future

I would also hope to get a min of 2 Gb of Ram

Have I missed anything?

I don't have a huge budget
Please advice
Thanks in advance

Thanks for reply

here's what I've narrowed it down to

1, Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (rev. 2.0)

2, Intel Core® 2 Duo E6750, 2.66 GHz (BX80557E6750SLA9V)

3, Heat sink Gigabyte Volar GH-PSU21-FB

4, RAM 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-8500

How's it look?

Just have to look for a G/card, i'll check out the 8800

i'd need to check my PSU i think it's 450 or 500W

Thanks for the info

think i'll go for the XFX GeForce 8600GT Fatal1ty 256MB DDR3 PCIE TV DVI just because it cheaper

and my PSU is 500w

Can't wait to start building it

Thanks again

no need for an aftermarket cpu cooler. you'd get more performance out of your money if you got a better gpu

If your PSU is good enough and of decent quality, you should at least get this GPU, it will be better than the 8600gt for games.
GPU - $141 shipped Best Bang for the buck on DX 9
SAPPHIRE 100176L Radeon X1950PRO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/product/Prod [...] 6814102061

If your budget is close to $700 than I/we could suggest a better build for gaming, but I don't know what your budget is for this build. We could fit a 8800gts 320mb into a $700ish build for you and would smoke the 8600gt/x1950pro out the window, but without a budget limit we can't help you there.

My 2cp's

Well shoot for $700 you can get a heck of an upgrade. I would suggest...

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ($99)
http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6813128059

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6750 ($195)
http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6819115029

RAM: 2x1G Corsair XMS2 DDR2800 ($60 after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6820145034

GPU: EVGA 320 MB 8800 GTS ($290)
http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6814130082

Total after rebate: $644


Your HDD, DVD writer and all other peripherals will still work on the motherboard. However, I can't stress enough that you need to be sure about your power supply. If its not a quality PSU you might not only lose your PSU but it could take out some of your new hardware with it. If you're not sure about it, find a link to it online and we'll check that it will work with your new hardware.

The hardware config. that I just posted won't be able to take you to SLi land (but I think SLi is over-hyped and not really going to take off) but it will allow you to upgrade later to a Core 2 Extreme in the future when their prices drop, plus the board will let you tack on another 2G of RAM for cheap. The 8800 GTS is a beast of a graphics card and in all but a few cases preforms identically to its 640MB brother for 100 bucks less. Plus, if you upgrade to Vista for dx10 you won't need a new card to make the switch.

Finally. If you're serious about trying to overclock (which the mother board and CPU are both great at) make sure that you spend the money on a quality after market CPU cooler. Other than that, you might consider throwing in some case fans if your case doesn't have great airflow. Newegg's 'Power Search' makes find the fan you need a breeze.

Oh, and feel free to post your current rig hardware configuration so that we can double check everything. Good luck!

Wow, never seen so little information about a PSU on a website. Don't even know what kind of connectors you get with it. Is there any power information on the side of the PSU? There should be a 12Vx 12Vx (x is usually a small 1 or 2). Under these it should list the "amps" that they supply for each rail. Could you get these and let us know what they are? If your going to support Dx10 and don't have the $ for the 8800gts, than at the minimum I would get a 8600gts. They are around $150 or so right now.

Apparently the entire collective knowledge of the internet has zero clue about your PSU. I couldn't find anything about what connectors it has, which makes knowing if it'll work all the more difficult

I've just read a review in a mag on the GA-P35C-DS3R "The cooler on the northbridge looks the part but is retained by two feeble plastic push pins" and it got quite hot and came loose during testing, can anybody comment on this if they have one?

See http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088
Q-Tec is Tier5, not good!
I have a Hiper, try http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=408083

Scan.co.uk has good selection PSUs. The 500-580W are at http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] bnails=yes

Mike.