Upgrading from an AthalonXP 2600 (2ghz) to:ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775 motherboardCPU will be Core2Duo 4300 or 4400. Taking cheapest upgrade path..$$..With this board I can keep my AGP ATI9800SE video card, the power supply, the PC3200 DDR memory and wait for DX10 PCIe and the opportunity to scrap everything and move on up. I plan to overclock the CPU to 2.4ghz (4300) or 2.8 ghz(4400).So, my question is - does anyone have any experience with something near this system? Any pitfalls? The possible pitfalls are the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775 motherboard and the value of an overclocked Core2Duo (lo-end) in FSX??Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yoke

Dick although I have not ever used the hardware you mention, I *have* built with ASRock motherboards in the past...and I liked them. I consider ASRock's to be good budget boards.Given that, you know that with budget builds sometimes they don't overclock as well as we would like.However with ASRock you should be ok. The ASRock builds I made, could overclock some. I do not know about the specific board you mention. If it were me I would do some research into the overclockability of the board before I shot for it.In my estimation, with a Core2 cpu, you will be SEVERELY gpu limited. Your 9800 card, while great in the past, would be your bottleneck. You won't get the most out of the cpu with that video card, I hate to say it. But if $$$ is the determining factor, then you must do what you must do.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Indeed the ASRock boards do not allow for overclocking more than a modest amount as noted in the message. Being video GPU limited will be a good thing since the next video card should be cheaper due to my ability to use AGP. As I see it I would scrap the video card and get a new DX10 card and add in the expense of Vista. The DX10/Vista combination would be costly (in my world) and possibly not worthwhile since DX10 only makes things look better, not fly better and even that will cost cpu/gpu cycles ($$$).I may just decide to stay in the DX9/XP realm and thus I can take advantage of probably lower prices for AGP DX9 cards and a faster CPU Core2Duo. I believe that this low cost foundation allows me the advantage of taking either route without having to toss the whole kit in the garbage.The drawbacks are minimum over-clocking, only 4x PCIe, 800mhz FSB. By the time I hit those limits I will get another <$100 board. The key element is seeing the amount of alleged improvement using a 2.4ghz Core2Duo 4300 versus my ancient Athalon XP at 2ghz.Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yoke

I have an AGP 6800gt video card and am planning on doing the same thing for the same reasons you stated. I'm waiting until the end of July when Intel prices are expected to drop and the e4500 with an 11x multiplier is supposed to be released. I have an AGP 6800gt video card. If this ends up being a bottle neck, I'll probabaly buy the best $200 video card available. This will be my setup until after the dust settles on the FSX DX10 patch, then I'll build an all new system.I discussed this setup with some very helpful folks a few weeks ago in the following Avsim Hardware Forum thread.http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=26561&page=3There are some links to hardware websites with good discussions on overclocking this board, specifically Anandtech.comShould be interesting and relatively inexpensive. This will be my first attempt at overclocking, so I feel a lot more comfortable at these prices than using top of the line hardware.Good Luck,Ted

There is a vast thread about good and bad experiences with this motherboard athttp://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17610938Hope it helps.--Bryn

I have that motherboard just got it a few days ago at my local compture show with the Intel E6600 with my corsair 1gig ddr400 ram, and my 6800gt and the rest off my old system. Everything was running great! for being a low cost motherboard it does its job, I had bad luck about yesterday when my 6800gt went dead, so Im waiting on the rma for that card, then will try to overclock the e6600 a bit when I get my video card back. but it is defeitly a good board if you have a very super limited buget. here a link for the motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Mode...Dual-VSTA&s=775Heres the cpu support list http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=775 and video card support list http://www.asrock.com/mb/vga.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=775the support list doesnt neaerly mean that it wont work with some video cards but there could be a problem.and heres one review for the motherboard evenutally I will upgrade the motherboard later on for a better one once I have the cash its all about the buget Im pretty sure everyone would get the best if they had the cash for it good luck guys hope this helps.http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/hardwarecan...sta-review.html

Thanks for the thread link. I spent almost two hours reading through the messages.Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yoke