Motherboard choices......

[stridervm]

Currently, here is my system :

MSI K9VGM-V
Athlon64 X2 5600 @ 3Ghz
2GB 667 DDR2 RAM

I'm thinking of buying a budget build, however my budget seems to be quite low..... So these are the specs I'm planning to buy.....

Motherboard Choices (All of them cost about $70 or lower) :
Gigabyte GA-VM900M
Gigabyte GA-945GCMX-S2
Jetway P4M9MP
Jetway 775GT2
MSI P6NGM-L
MSI P6NGM-FD
Asus P5GC-MX
Asus P5GPL-X SE

Processor Choices :
Pentium Dual Core E2160
Pentium Dual Core E2180
Intel Celeron 430 (Heh)

Well, my basic idea is that I could be able to overclock the processor to at least reach the performance level of my Athlon64 X2 @ 3Ghz

(Which I'll assume as 3Ghz also since the E2000 series are Core2Duos with severely reduced cache.)

But still has an upgrade path to the E8000 series......

But primarily my questions are this......

.... If I buy an aftermarket cooler, would it be possible to have the E2160 or E2180 to 3Ghz at least?

..... Or perhaps if it would be possible to overclock an E2160 or E2180 to 3Ghz on a stock cooler?

.... And lastly, which of those motherboard choices should I choose to have the biggest chance of a 3Ghz overclock?

PS. I'm actually willing on adjusting settings on the RAM to reach higher overclocks as I think that RAM timings don't affect performance in games too much, at least on my AMD system. I also don't use SATA drives as most budget motherboards, SATA and overclocking don't mix......

 

[evongugg]

Are you a gamer?
What is your graphics card?
I would stay with the AM2 board you have.

 

[evongugg]

You should have DDR2-800 memory with the 5600+. That may be the reason the system is slow.

 

[stridervm]

Well, the main idea is for upgradability, currently, I'm quite satisfied with my current rig. (I have a Radeon 3850 video card and prefer to play on 1024x768)

.... And currently I'm not really impressed with Quad Cores, and sadly for that, I have no upgrade option as the 6000 and 6400 Athlon64 X2 aren't supported by the current motherboard I'm using, probably because of the 125W TDP. It also doesn't support the 3 core and 4 core Phenoms as well.

And, so I was thinking if possible, I sell off my old rig and then buy a Intel based one, slap a slow processor, overclock it to my current rig speeds, and still have an upgrade path.

I only mentioned the RAM timings because when you overclock the processor you also overclock the RAM, so I can allow lower RAM timings/speed as to not stress the RAM.

But anyway the RAM is fine as when I overclock my 5600 to 3Ghz (214x14), it ends up with the RAM at exactly 667Mhz (It's underclocked when the processor is on stock speeds.)

 

[Onus]

Well, avoid VIA and SIS chipsets if you're interested in performance.

Edit: And, however low it is, what is your budget?

 

[stridervm]

Something at $300. It should include everything including hard disks, DVD-Writers , video cards and the like.

On that budget, the whole price setup would look something like this :

Motherboard : $70
Processor : $60
Video Card (Radeon 4850) : $180
RAM Sticks : $40
HD and DVD-Writers : $70
Others : $40