Hi my current pc specs are:
450w power supply
Ati x1950xt graphics
2 gig of ram
intel core 2 duo E6600 cpu
asus p5b motherboard

i have a budget of about £600ish
or i could wait a month and just get a totaly new pc for £1300 from pcspecialist.co.uk
i mainly use my pc for playing games like age of conan and want a better frame rate so what should i get?
btw my monitor max resolution is 1280x1024 i think synmasters 930bf i duno if that makes a diffrence when getting a vid card.

At 1280x1024 you should have more than enough GPU power with an 8800GT/GTS 512. You just have to check that your PSU has enough +12V amperage to support your system.

I see no need to upgrade your E6600 as you can easily overclock it past 3Ghz to match any newer chip. You may want to inves in a better heatsink for it to handle the extra heat.

ok cool how do i overclock my cpu ill try it now i have coretemp on my pc and current cpu temp is 31c for each core is that a decent temp?

Sounds alright for now. You will have to keep an eye on it as you overclock to make sure it stays reasonable. I would recommend keeping it under 70C full load when overclocked.

Overclocking is very easy to do. Essentially, you raise the FSB on your motherboard and add voltage as needed. You may also need to adjust your RAM speeds to keep it in spec. If you started by putting your FSB at 333Mhz (1333FSB), raised your core voltage to 1.35V and made sure your RAM stays set to it's proper speed you will have a very easy 3Ghz.

I would recommend reading the C2D Overclocking guide as it goes much further in depth and details how to stress test your overclock to insure stability.

how do i make sure ram is at proper speed?

You should refer to your Mb's manual on where the settings are at in your BIOS. What ever the speed raiting of your ram (i.e. 666mhz, 800mhz, 1066mhz, ext.) you should try to keep matched when you raise your FSB. More details are provided in the guide I linked you.

Essentially, when you raise the FSB, the speed of your ram increases with it. You need to set a diffrent FSB:RAM divider to keep your speeds in spec.

ok thanks i read in the guide i need to know what type of ram i have before i overclock how do i find out the timings of my rm and the highest its frequency can go?

You can use CPU-Z to find most of the information. The best place to look would be at the manufactures product page.

Take out your RAM and see what it said on the chips. There should be a sticker or something painted on it. If you have any problems finding information on it, post what you have.

hey sorry to keep asking questions i have done everything on that beginners overclocker guide except change my cpu frequency i changed everything else but when i move to it in the bios and press enter nothing happens its like its stuck at its default setting

You probably need to change it from Automatic settings to Manual settings, or something similar. If you read through the Manual it should point you in the right direction.

cant find it thanks anyway

nvm i had to use the + - to adjust it i put it on 333 and my pc just turne doff and wouldnt restart for ages then after about 6 times off pulling the power my bios said overclocking failed press f2 to load default settings

That is good!
You found the right settings but failed to adjust all necessary fields.

What happened is one of Asus' features. If it detects you constantly rebooting with out the BIOS posting is assumes you biffed your OC and resets.

Now you just have to find the proper adjustments that will let it boot. My first guess is that the RAM was set to fast. Also check the voltages. It may be necessary to bump the CPU voltage to 1.4V (perhaps even higher, just not past 1.5V). Once you are able to stably boot, you can stress test as described in the OC guide. Lower your voltage until you find the minimum stable voltage.

You are not an overclocker.
Pull out that aging 1950XT, was a great card in it's time.
But it's time has come and gone.
Buy yourself and 8800GTS (g92) and be happy.
You will be amazed at the difference, trust me.
Between that and your CPU, at the resolutions you will be gaming you have all you will ever need for the next year or so.

i found my memory its this
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Produ [...] &GroupID=0
ive set the memory to 667mhz in bios cpu to 333 and all diffrent power settings as high as 1.5 but still my pc just wont boot so i think i give up

That is unfortunate but at least you gave it your best try. Hopefully you learned something in the process and, in a few years, you will be better prepared to overclock a different system.

I agree with jitpublisher, at your resolution you don't really need to have your CPU overclocked. At least it was still fun to try