Hardware Advice needed

[Aeron]

I'm looking into buying myself a new pc for around R 6000 or so, as some of you may know. However, I have a few questions.

I have an Intel E 2140 CPU at the moment and I've read a lot about it and that its very overclockable so I'm considering keeping my CPU and using it in the new rig.

Firstly, I would like to know how far will I be able to overclock the CPU safely on stock fan cooling on a non-high-end motherboard? 2 ghz, 3 ghz? And on par with which other contemporary/year-old non-overclocked CPU will it perform in games when overclocked? AMD or Intel.

Secondly, I've had the CPU for a year or so and I was wondering if there was a way to "check" whether it would be able to overclock or whether its still in decent enough condition to overclock? (since I don't want to count on that CPU if it won't overclock)

Any answers and suggestions are much appreciated.

 

[chickenbeef]

3ghz with that processor and stock cooler is easy provided you have the right mobo, i would suggest you get a asus p5q, they overclock very well from what ive heard

 

[cerebus]

Even if you overclock an e2140 it's going to be severely limited by the amount of L2 cache - 1mb on the Core Duos. You can get 3ghz yes, actually e2160 is a much better overclocker but you should still do well with a good motherboard. But I don't see the point of getting an overclocking mobo and sticking with a low end processor. Sell it for R350 and buy an e7200 maybe. Also a wonderful overclocker and 45nm means heat/wattage won't be such a problem. Plus a 9.5 multiplier.

 

[Grimspoon]

Just buy a new PC, seriously.

 

[Chevron]

3ghz with that processor and stock cooler is easy provided you have the right mobo, i would suggest you get a asus p5q, they overclock very well from what ive heard

Even if you overclock an e2140 it's going to be severely limited by the amount of L2 cache - 1mb on the Core Duos. You can get 3ghz yes, actually e2160 is a much better overclocker but you should still do well with a good motherboard. But I don't see the point of getting an overclocking mobo and sticking with a low end processor. Sell it for R350 and buy an e7200 maybe. Also a wonderful overclocker and 45nm means heat/wattage won't be such a problem. Plus a 9.5 multiplier.

Both of the above make good points. You could just oc to 3Ghz and get a new mobo or just sell the cpu and start fresh.

In which case:

R6000 AMD build

AMD Boxed Phenom II™ X3 710 2.6Ghz tri-core R 1,783

MSI AMD K9N Neo-F V3 Motherboard R633

HIS ATI Radeon HD4830 - 512MB - PCI-E R 1,872

Western Digital CAViAR SE WD3200JS 320gb, S-ata2 , 7200rpm , 8mb R652.59

Transcend® JetRam™ High-Performance 2GB DDR2-800 R323.60

Coolermaster eXtreme Power Plus 460W PSU R467.86

BenQ DW2000 20x Dual Layer DVD Writer - Black R304

Total: R6036.05

 

[EasyUp Web Hosting]

Nice build Qwikslver, +1 for that...

 

[Chevron]

Thanks. Would've preferred an Asus board, but budget was tight...

 

[chickenbeef]

reason why i suggested what i did was so that if in the future he wants to upgrade to a wolfdale or Penryn he can do so