Advice on upgrade

[Budee]

My computer died and I want to rebuild it with a new E8400 cpu, P35 Motherboard and 2 gigs of ram. Can someone check out these components and make sure they work together. Thanks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280+107172277&StoreType=7&CompareItemList=N82E16813128337%2cN82E16819115037%2cN82E16820146784&bop=And

 

[aevm]

I'd prefer GA-EP45-DS3L and 2x2GB DDR2-800.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146731
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128345&Tpk=GA-EP45-DS3L

You combo costs $58+$104 = $162 after shipping and rebates. Mine costs $75+$108=$183.
For the extra $21 you get twice the RAM, a motherboard with better fsb, PCI-E 2.0, more SATA ports.

 

[dirtmountain]

^ +1

 

[Budee]

Ok that combo looks good. Just a quick question: Will my existing optical drives that are IDE (the flat ribbon cable) work with this board. I can't tell what to look for in the specs. Is this a silly question? Do most sata have this built in as a default? I've only built 2 computers so I don't want to have any surprises. Thanks in advance.

 

[aevm]

That MB (and most others too) has one IDE (PATA) header where you can hook two IDE devices. You can definitely use one of your opticals. With both on the same cable, I think you'd run in trouble, at least if they are in use at the same time, but try it, why not.

Edit: there's probably a BIOS settings or more that need adjusting if you use that IDE header. I hope they documented it all in the MB manual.

 

[Budee]

Thanks aevm for your advice. I placed my order on newegg. Hopefully by this time next week I'll be back up and running on a desktop computer. I really don't like laptops for everyday computing!