Spec Check my Upgrade

[HangTime]

Considering upgrading to a budget C2D system:

Asus P5N-E SLI
C2D E4300
2gig Corsair TwinX 5400 4-4-4-12

This would be paired with my existing 470W OCZ Powerstream, Chieftec Dragon case, 8800GTS-320, drives etc.

Would be looking to clock to 3ghz+ which would put the RAM at it's rated speed of DDR2-667. Should give me a decent boost from my singlecore [email protected] and comes in at a reasonable price of <£190 all in.

Anything I would need to be aware of in terms of PSU requirement? Memory compatibility? Is this board good for overclocking given the price?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Anything I would need to be aware of in terms of PSU requirement? Memory compatibility? Is this board good for overclocking given the price?

No, you should be fine. The memory is fine but you might wish to consider come Crucial 5300. Yes, it's excellent.

 

[semi-pro waster]

It is fine as BillytheImpaler says, you may also want to consider some aftermarket cooling such as the Noctua NH-U12F as not all CPUs will reach 3ghz on stock cooling.

 

[HangTime]

Yeah originally I was looking at the Crucial Cas3 as I know it is better than many PC6400 parts, however the main reason I'm considering the Corsair is that it's around £30 cheaper (a fair amount on a budget upgrade such as this).

Incidentally everytime I look at that Geil advert in the top right of the forum, the price seems to be rising!

As for aftermarket coolers, I decided that it probably wasn't worth it in a cheap system - if a cooler is gonna add maybe 50% to the price of the cpu, I may as well get eg an E6320 instead

 

[HangTime]

OK now I'm starting to wonder if I should be going for 4gigs of RAM instead of 2 given that prices are reasonable at the moment.

Any issues with running 4 sticks in the P5N-E? Will I need to slacken off some settings like you do with S939 setups?

 

[semi-pro waster]

There aren't any problems with running 4 sticks of Ram for socket 775 as far as I am aware, however if you are using a 32bit OS you will only see somewhere around 3.5gb of it, not a huge issue probably but one to be aware of.

 

[HangTime]

if you are using a 32bit OS you will only see somewhere around 3.5gb of it, not a huge issue probably but one to be aware of.

Yeah I'm aware of that - planning on getting Vista64 as well. Been holding off so far as I don't fancy paying Retail price and didn't want to get the OEM version until I upgraded due to all the hassle with activation etc following hardware change.

Probably will end up dual booting XP for some games, but 3.5gig RAM should be more than enough for that. Main reason for wanting 4gig would be for running Vista anyway.