[CPUs] E5200 and Motherboard compatibility question

Hello, I plan on building my first gaming pc and found these parts on newegg.com


This is an ASUS P5Q mobo and a radeon 4850 combo deal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.190415

The discounts/rebates are amazing, only $165 for both after rebates.

My budget isn't that big so I was planning on getting a Intel core 2 duo E5200.

The E5200 front side bus speed is 800 MHz,
but the front side bus speed for the p5q motherboard is 1333 MHz.

Are these two compatible? Would the motherboard run at 800 MHz if I used it with the e5200?
If so, then wouldn't that be a waste of mobo speed so I should find a slower mobo or a faster cpu?

Yes. That P5Q should be able to overclock your e5200 at minimum 3.3 Ghz (1066 FSB) or up to 3.6 Ghz (1200 FSB). I wouldn't change the motherboard. I have 2 P5Q series motherboards that lets me overclock my e8400 to a 2000 Mhz FSB stable enough to run 3dMark06 on the GTX 260. A slightly overclocked e5200 CPU is well balanced with the 4850. Anything much faster and you'll make the 4850 the bottleneck.


You can always sell the e5200 a few months from now and upgrade to the e8000 series as their prices are steadily droppping. But when you do, be sure to upgrade the GPU also to balance out your system's performance.