New
#1
New Build with some recycled parts... Questions/Advice! Please
current computer: HP PAVILION A6347C
It's specs are as follows
16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe SATA drive
Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit
AMD ATHLON64 X2 DUAL CORE 5600+ 2.8GHZ
3X2GB Kingston 667MHz DDR2
Asus EN9600GT TOP
Realtek High definition Audio
2X Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM
BFG Tech GS series 500 watts
HP Brand Nettle2 mobo #MCP61PM-HM
Chipset: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
I plan to reuse the hard drives, ram, power supply, graphics card and the cd/dvd rom
I have purchased the following items to replace the case, mobo and cpu
mobo.... Newegg.com - BIOSTAR A770E AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
cpu.... Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX450WFGMBOX
flashy case lol... Newegg.com - NZXT LEXA S LEXS - 001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
My concerns come into play at the cpu and mobo... they are both rated for 95W Thermal Design Power... Does this mean I would have no room to play with overclocking if I chose to actually learn how to do that in the future? I also intend to attempt at unlocking the fourth core on the cpu... It's said that if I'm successful I will incur added heat that was not accounted for when AMD selected the stock heat sink and fan that they include in the package... As such I would need to buy an aftermarket heatsink and fan package... I'm partial to either the "Arctic Cooler 7 Pro" or the "Cooler Master Hyper 212"... The thing is that the mobo was very cheap.... On sale for only $50 bucks shipped so I grabbed it without really taking everything into account... turns out the ram dimms are nestled right next to the cpu slot... Because of this any of the larger aftermarket heatsinks would overlap the dimm slots... so I wonder if the heatsink pipes will be long enough to make the heat sink fins themselves actually clear the ram.... I also plan to upgrade the psu to something in the 750W range as well as upgrade the gpu to an ati 5770 but that won't happen for a few months due to lack of funds at present.... I also want to thank anyone that is willing to offer their opinion or advice addressing my concerns, I'm certain you have better things to do with your time but my level of tech knowledge is very limited.. I have pretty much only ever replaced parts like psu or graphics cards along with a few cpu replacements but exact replacements so no real brains involved in such a trivial task... I know a lot of the folks that frequent this board are true pros so I figured the best place to throw out all this information and hope for expert responses would be at the Windows 7 forum!
Last edited by Ballistic; 17 Oct 2010 at 23:44.