Story cut short, I am getting a simple upgrade of motherboard/CPU/RAM, I have strictly £400 to spend on this upgrade and I know intel is better, and I dont know anything about intel...

So far I have this mobo;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=28341

Memory;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=32155

and finally CPU;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/( ... E8500-316GHz-1333FSB.aspx

Comes to just over £380 with delivery and VAT.

Its a peliminary shopping basket of course, whatever I can stretch for the best performance out of £400 is obviously key. I would normally do ok with picking the best hardware but Intel is virtually alien to me.

Appreciate any help!

Quote from spacedskunk :

Story cut short, I am getting a simple upgrade of motherboard/CPU/RAM, I have strictly £400 to spend on this upgrade and I know intel is better, and I dont know anything about intel...

So far I have this mobo;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=28341

Memory;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=32155

and finally CPU;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/( ... E8500-316GHz-1333FSB.aspx

Comes to just over £380 with delivery and VAT.

Its a peliminary shopping basket of course, whatever I can stretch for the best performance out of £400 is obviously key. I would normally do ok with picking the best hardware but Intel is virtually alien to me.

Appreciate any help!

That looks alright, though my only advice would come with the RAM choice. I use OCZ ram and while mine is great and i've had no problems with it, there are better brands out there that provide faster ram. Also, what operating system are you using? If its not 64-bit then it won't use all of the 4GB you've chosen, it will only use 3 and a bit.

4GB seems like a decent ammount, I am currently only on 32-bit XP home, but in future might get 64-bit Vista once it looks like a worthy upgrade. 2GB seems a bit pointless.

Now I have looked at the RAM choice and I see your point, so I have changed my RAM choice...although slightly gone over what I originally said I can stretch to £415

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/( ... 2-8500-C5-DDR2-55515.aspx

EDIT:
Actually in light of my overclocking, I have downgraded to an E8400 and with the difference added a good fan/heatsink into the mix

I am going 2GB after reading more about what you stated so thanks for the heads up actually.

I changed where I am ordering from completely after finding ocUK have a better selection of gamers hardware, and the cost of my current basket is £420 with delivery/VAT.

So after more extensive research;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... duct.php?prodid=CP-192-IN
E8400 (dual core 3GHz, new 45nm CPU). This is apparently better for gaming than the Q6600, and should overclock like a charm on air coolers, its just a shame they dont have OEM.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... duct.php?prodid=HS-017-AR
Thats the cooler I will be getting. I cant say anything bad about arctic cooling, been using em for a while now...cant fault them. This seems to be a favourite ammong the overclocking community too.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... duct.php?prodid=MB-260-AS
Have to get an Nvidia chipset mobo just to leave that SLi feature open, plus I have this strange theory that nvidia GFX cards perform better on nvidia chipset mobos, but thats me being hypothetical, but still feels better to go hand in hand.

Even though the 'Striker I' from reviews seems to perform better...the 6 series chipset (this is 780i) apparently has problems with the new 45mn intel processors.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... duct.php?prodid=MY-089-OC
Finally the memory which I am hoping will work with this motherboard, havent had problems with OCZ/ASUS in the past and this is the fastest DDR2/1150MHz ram I found on ocUK (5-5-5-18 timings). ASUS used to have a ram compatibility section on the support section, but I cant seem to find it anymore.


Anyway I am going to be ordering this in the next 3-4 days, so any last minute advice is appreciated.