Cheap Motherboard to Overclock an E5200.

[Lebowski]

Hi, me and my friend are building our first computer and we want to overclock our E5200 as high as we can for as little money as possible. We're looking to save on things like upgradeability (is that a word?) and quality. Basically we're just looking to learn how to oc, so we already got the e5200 but we need advice on a board with the overclocking features we need (vcore, ram timings, voltage) without overheating. Do we need a specific northbridge chipset? Or will any chipset be fine? Also we're probably just gonna buy a case and power supply combo for like $50. Any ideas and/or advice will be appreciated.

[jmurray]

Hi,

You may want to look into power supplies that are higher quality. Some of those combo deals have crappy power supplies. Anything from Antec, Silverstone, Thermaltake just to name a few will run good for overclocking. There are a ton of good power supplies out there, those are just three companies that come to mind.

As for motherboards, Asus and Gigabyte make some good boards that overclock well and do not cost a lot. A board with a P35 or P45 chipset would work fine.

[Lebowski]

I already bought this motherboard, this case, and this ram. Is this the wrong type of motherboard? I saw someone else who used it to overclock the e5200 up to like 3.25 or so.

CPU - e5200 Wolfdale 2.5Ghz 2MB L2 12.5xMultiplier 800FSB

Motherboard - GA-G31M-S2L Intel® G31 + ICH7 Chipset

Case - Rosewill R512

Ram - Corsair 4GB 2x2 Twin2X4096-6400C5

Can someone advise me on the CoolerMaster Elite 330, if it will work with my motherboard, because it says it's AC97 audio only and I believe my mother board is HD audio. It looks like it has a different layout for the audio jacks in the back.


Thanks