Have a couple of questions after reading trough the forum, I hope they haven't been answered too many times (I couldn't find the answers):

Thinking about (especially after reading OC Guide part 3, 81% for $27 on TH):
- E6300 or E4300 CPU, not sure why everyone suggest the slower E4300 here - something to do with mulitplier and ease of OCing?
- Asus P965 WiFi or GA P965 - 2nd one being cheaper (don't care for WiFi on desktop) and easier to OC?
- Corsair RAM (1 or 2 GB) 800 DDR2
- nVidia 7900 or ATI 1950 - why is everyong suggesting 2nd here - easier to OC or just better for price?
Last but not least, don't see any posts here about OS -
go Vista for games or stay XP?

Thanks!!!

Go with a Gigabyte S3 or an Abit AB9 for motherboard. Both over-clock nicely and aren't too harsh on the wallet. The ABIT is better for the money though.

E4300 is better because it has a higher multiplier, meaning you can over-clock but still maintain a 1:1 ratio with DDR 667 ram. With the 6300 if you want to over-clock really high, you either have to loosen up the ram timings or get DDR800 ram to maintain a nice ratio. They both over-clock about the same and have the same cache.

The thing is, if you don't over-clock the 6300 noses ahead of the 4300 in every benchmark.

As far as 7900GS versus the 1950 Pro. While the 1950 Pro has less shaders and ROPs, it seems to bench-mark and perform better than the 7900GS. The 7900GS however is a nice over-clocker, while the 1950 Pro doesn't over-clock for crap. Even the Sapphire Ultimate 1950 Pro, which comes pre-over-clocked from the factory, has trouble pushing even a few mhz because it becomes unstable too fast.

I'd wait until the 2nd quarter of this year if you can. The E4300 is supposed to price drop to like $113. The clocking difference between the E4300 and E6300 is in the multiplication. The E6300 is 7x266, with a front side bus of 1066. the E4300 is 9x200, with a fsb of 800. With the E4300 having a higher multiplier, when you overclock the base clock, your end result is a higher CPU clock speed. I'm able to OC the clock to 400 mhz with stability. I've got an E6600 running @ 3.6 ghz from a stock 2.4 ghz. I have my memory running a 1:1 ratio, retaining the stock DDR2-800 speed. Now because the E4300 has a 9 multiplier like the E6600, it theoretically should be able to reach 3.6 ghz with the same hardware. It's all a matter of whether or not the E4300 can tolerate doubling it's clock. The sweet thing about this is getting the same overclock out of a $100 CPU that a $300 CPU has attained. This also gives a 1600 mhz fsb. I'm not sure how, but it has increased my memory bandwidth without overclocking the memory.
I've got A-Data 2x512 mb DDR2-800 memory. It was a little over $100. I've clocked it to DDR2-880 at times, no issues. I've got an A-bit AB9 Pro mobo, which gives me 9 sata ports, 6 of which are RAID capable, and all of the adjustment I really needed to reach 400 mhz clock. It was $145. The lesser AB9 is $125, and has no RAID and fewer SATA ports. Neither of these boards support crossfire or SLI, as there's only 1 PCI-E 16x slot. I've seen reviews where they used my board and got higher than 400 mhz clock stably, so there's still headroom. I like the P965 chipset, coming from nForce4. I've also got a microATX G965 mobo, for a Home Theatre PC. The onboard graphics scored comparatively to a 7600 GS vid card. I'm not crazy about the lack of voltage settings, so I cannot OC so high with stock voltage limitations.

As far as graphics cards go, no real comment. I started with an ATI card years ago, but was turned off by the fact that I couldn't remove the ATI drivers/software without the card in place. Kinda sucks when the vid card dies. Since then it's been nVidia's, so I can't commment on ATI's performance these days.

Keep reading reviews. The more the better. Do word searches on the parts you'd like to learn about......that's what I did.

Good Luck

Thanks for replies guys (this is Dejan, finally got my old password reset)...

I'm not going to wait for 3 months for price to drop $60 - I can spend more but I'm trying to spend less...

I would actually want to buy real soon, problem with most of the other posts is that they are somewhat old and out of date - like OC guildes from October, when E4300 was no available...

I'd really appreciate some more comments, don't get that because of that, and go with this because of this...

Considering that I want to OC to 2.6-2.8 - nothing creazy (preferably leave stock voltage, get aftermarket fan if I have to like Zelman for $30-50, not too expensive RAM...

- E4300?
- Gigabyte DS3 or SA3?
- Corsair DDR2 800 RAM? Do I need 800 or 567?
- nVidia 7900 because you can OC, instead of 1950 Pro? Is OCing nVidia easy - built in software? Should I buy SLI mobo so one day in two years when my GPU is slow again instead of buying new one buy one more for SLI? I hear DX10 cards are coming, but they will be $500, I want to spend only about $200 on GPU...
- I read all suggestions are CoolerMaster case but they look so boring - I wan't some lights and fun look? Any ATX case can work?
- Coolermaster 450W powersupply is good enough?
- Zelman and Artic silver?
- Last but not least, 20" Dell (not ultra) LCD?

Thanks!!!

At 2.6 to 2.8 Speeds, the E4300 is a good place to be.
In fact it should overclock to 3.0Ghz w/o a strain.

You will only need DDR2-667 memory.
This will allow for Overclocks up to 3.0Ghz.

Only get DD2-800 if the price is about the same.
By going with 667 you will likely save a couple dollars.

The 667 may even be faster with normal bios settings since 667 RAM generally has faster default timings.

There should be plenty of Coolers in the $30 price range that can handle the cooling. In fact the Stock cooler should be just fine. The add-on cooler would mostly be for noise reduction at the speeds you are talking.

For your GPU, I would actually just get something like a 7600GT which can now be had for under $100 after rebate. Then save the xtra $100 and but an 8600 for $150-$180 when they are released in the April time frame. This will seriously beat the current cards you are looking at for $200. Then sell your 7600GT on Ebay for $50 and you break even and have a better card that will last you a long time.

I would plan on spending at least $100 on a PSU rated at 550w or higher.
What you are looking for is a PSU that has atleast 18a on the 12v rails.
This is required for the 8800GTX and thus should safely run the 8600 GPUs when they come out.

Here is an example -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341001

My prefernce here is one with LOTs of good reviews.
Dont trust a PSU with few reviews even if the specs LOOK good. :>

If you have the money, SEASONIC cant be beat, but you will spend an extra $20-$40 over what I linked.

For an good inexpensive cooler, I suggest for you to look at the Cooler Master Hyper TX. As for the mobo, get the DS3 and go with 800mhz ram.
Overclocking nvidias are very easy. Do a search for coolbits and read up on it.
450watts should be sufficient for what you have chosen, but I suggest for you to take a look at this PSU.
Good times! 8)