Planning for another upgrade.

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Hey guys at OC, I'm looking to upgrade my PC again, I've already upped by Graphics Card, PSU and case, now I'm looking for another upgrade to do, my mobo, I currently have a San Francisco 2 fitted inside my Antec 300 ATX case.

Now, here is the big question, what things will I need to buy to upgrade my motherboard, as I know there is such things as thermal paste and things like that, I was wondering, will I need these things and how do I put them on?

I'm sure http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-058-DF will fit in with my Intel Q6600 2.4GHz, Sata Drives, PCI-E Graphics card and my 520W PSU.

Another thing I need to ask is, if I was to get another Powercolour Radeon HD4870 1GB, would my PSU be able to handle them both?

Also, I am unsure what my RAM details are, I need to know if I will need to upgrade my RAM.
 
Download CPU-Z, and see what it says about your RAM. If it says 2GB, I'd upgrade to 4.

Your PSU may be able to handle two 4870's, but I don't know.

The motherboard is fine. I'd go with a P5Q personally, but that DFI will do you just fine.

I would recommend overclocking your Q6600. What CPU cooler do you have? If it's the stock one, I'd advise getting a new one, and clocking that Q6600.
 
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Well a quick read shows he has

Antec 300 case
Q6600
Guessing a Powercolour Radeon HD4870 (cos he said "another")
and god knows what else haha

But as far as I can tell, that mobo would work with your setup, and would support crossfire if you did get another card. Not too sure about your PSU handling them both, what make/model is the PSU? Some makers tend to be a bit untrustyworthy with their power ratings

As for your RAM, download CPU-Z and go to the memory tab, should have enough info in there :)
 
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Download CPU-Z, and see what it says about your RAM. If it says 2GB, I'd upgrade to 4.

Your PSU may be able to handle two 4870's, but I don't know.

The motherboard is fine. I'd go with a P5Q personally, but that DFI will do you just fine.

I would recommend overclocking your Q6600. What CPU cooler do you have? If it's the stock one, I'd advise getting a new one, and clocking that Q6600.

I chose that mobo just purely because it doesn't cost the earth and it also has a lot of room for expansion that I may need.

Also, I've seen lots of stuff written about overclocking but I've never really seemed to want to do it for myself just in case the worst happens and I end up blowing my PC to kingdom come, right now I have the original CoolerMaster fan that came with my PC on the CPU, I know the CPU's like to run at about 60c but I've never really known if that is a safe temperature to be keeping them at.

Another thing stopping me is the BIOS, I've read up as my PC was from Packard Bell (All that's left of the original PC is the crappy mobo that doesn't exactly have all the connections I need, especially when I had to plug in the on button, total pain in the ass, the CPU, the HDD's and the DVD drives) supposedly the BIOS is locked out so you can't overclock your system if you want to.

I will download CPU-Z in a few minutes, no idea how big it is but on my 56KB/s speed it will take me a while to do anyway, I do know I have 3GB, I was just unsure on what clock speed the RAM is.

Well a quick read shows he has

Antec 300 case
Q6600
Guessing a Powercolour Radeon HD4870 (cos he said "another")
and god knows what else haha

But as far as I can tell, that mobo would work with your setup, and would support crossfire if you did get another card. Not too sure about your PSU handling them both, what make/model is the PSU? Some makers tend to be a bit untrustyworthy with their power ratings

Yes, I have -

Antec 300 Case
Q6600
Powercolour Radeon HD4870
CoolerMaster 520W PSU
Two 380GB HD's
Two DVD Drives

I know for sure I want a new mobo just because then I can upgrade in the future if I need/want to but it'd be nice to know what power I'd need to get another graphics card inside my PC
 
Well the mobo you linked to should be fine with that setup. And your PSU will do great with just the one card, but like hp7909 said, might be pushing it a bit with 2 4870's in there
 
Well the mobo you linked to should be fine with that setup. And your PSU will do great with just the one card, but like hp7909 said, might be pushing it a bit with 2 4870's in there

I thought that'd be the case. I'm sure the mobo would work, good to have clarification though. And I somehow thought I'd need a new PSU to get another in there, but no worries, I can sell the PSU to my dad who is needing one for a rig I need to set up for him, trying to make the best PC I can using his old PC and £200, he needs a new PSU, since his PC is like, 11 years old.

I've ran CPU-Z and I have 3GB of DDR2 and it says it's PC2-5300 (333MHz) now I'm thinking the power on my RAM is rather bad as I've seen RAM with 1066MHz. Upon knowing this I now know my RAM will not work with the new mobo I want to get, so I'll need to get some new RAM, which I should be able to handle in the way of knowing which will work and which wont.
 
Yes, I was looking at the Kingston RAM for when I actually get this upgrade going, first I'll need the money for the mobo and the RAM so at least then I can put it all in at the same time. For a 15 year old kid it's not exactly easy to get that kind of money, working at it though.

Also I'm right in saying I can ave 4GB+ on a 32Bit system, although it wont utilize the full amount of RAM, it'll only use the most it can?
 
I think on my old system it showed up as about 3.2GB. Like you said, you can install it, but it wont use it all. Need to get a 64bit OS for it to use more.
 
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