I am thinking of buying the following parts for my budget OC build:
 
 
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail - £43.46
 
MOBO: Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £119.84
 
RAM: G.Skill 2GB DDR2 HK PC2-6400C4 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400CL4D-2GBHK) - £43.46
 
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) - £42.29
 
Total: £249.05
 
 
These components fall just into my budget of £250. I wanted to know are these parts the best I could buy for my budget, keeping in mind it is an OC build. The reason I've selected the E2160 rather than the E2180 or E2200 is because I heard that it OC's just as good or better than the two others. Am i right thinking this? I also wanted to know if I could've picked better performance ram within the same price range, same goes for the cooler.
 
P.S. I'm from the UK and I'd prefer if suggestions were given from the Overclockers website.
 
 
Thanks,
Maroc.

Yeah sure.... It's a decent combination.... My only question is :
 
Are you putting any video card on what thing?

Yes actually. I'm going to use my current one up until something I fancy comes along.
 
Any suggestions at all in ways of improving my selections without exceeding my budget of £250?

What's your reasoning for picking the IP35 Pro? The Abit IP35-E and Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L are half the price and both are good overclocking boards. Are they missing something you might need or could you consider one of these boards instead and save a good chunk of money?

Thanks for that, I'll take it into consideration. How about my ram? What do you think would perform better for the E2160, PC2-6400 or 8500+? If you could give me actual names i'll be even more grateful.

I have changed my setup hoping I've improved things:
 
 
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail - £43.46
 
MOBO: Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £64.61
 
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT25664AA804) - £83.41
 
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) - £42.29
 
Extra: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £7.04
 
 
Please comment on it with improvements.

Also, you could consider an AMD rig, intel is currently the performance king, but for about the same price, you could probably go with the 5000+ Black Edition from AMD, which you should be able to get to 3 ghz, they give you an unlocked multiplier on that, so a little better for overclocking I would guess.  Just another option...b/c you could get an AM2+ board and be ready to go with a quad core in a year or 2 and probably not have to upgrade the mobo and all.  

I would rather stay away from the AMD route.. And yes, I do believe Intel is currenty the performance king. I also believe it will stay that way for a good few years. I am planning to upgrade to a 45nm Quad in the summer also.
 
Would you be able to comment on my current setup? Like whether it'll OC well or ways to improve it.

Actually to tell you truth, I'm gonna let someone else answer that, I am not as studied up on intel.  

Ok, thanks for your help anyways.

the setup looks good for what you want to do. if you dont need 4gb of ram, i always recommend the SuperTalent T800UX2GC4 2GB kit. Its extremely cheap, runs stock timings of 4-4-3-8 at ddr2-800, and they overclock very well. i've seen these personally in action running ddr2-950 at timings of 4-4-4-12.  
 
also, for a cooler, look at a Tuniq Tower 120. most of the time its a bit cheaper than the zalman and its one of the best coolers out right now.

No prob, I've been doing computers for about 10 years, I may know bits and pieces, but I don't know intel as well as AMD, so I'm not gonna give you info that might be wrong.   I always ran AMD myself.  For my needs, they seemed always have good bang for the buck.  Sorry I couldn't be more help.  

For my ram would having that 4gb improve my OC or not?
 
If not, I'll just settle for 2gb of Ballistix PC2-8500+

Well, an Intel Rig for right now will give you the quad core route for upgradeablity, since AMD will take about a year to catch up (if they do) and another year before that will permeate the market price wise. With the last configuration you listed, I think that will be a good system overclocking.