[soloz2]

hey, my concern with just swapping out the mobo is that you probably won't have a powerful enough psu to run your new system. Dell often cuts corners to keep costs low for things like psu especially on their lower end systems or the small form factor rigs. A small case doesn't have the room for things to be added so it typically gets a smaller psu.

with this in mind... you need to take a good look at what you will be running and what the spcs on the psu are.

Also, will you be running a gfx card or integrated... if you will be using a gfx card there really isn't the need to buy a mobo that has integrated.

Your best bet would proably be to get a cheap mid tower case and a good psu... then you can get a atx mobo and have greater expandability and options

 

[soloz2]

well since you're overclocking you need a new psu. 18a on the 12v rail just will not cut it... especially since it is not a name brand. Rosewill while they make some good entry level psus... they are not near the quality or even in the same league as FSP, Antec, Enermax, Seasonic and others.

If you do not care about integrated graphics then you might want to look at Nvidia's 6150 chipset. I believe the graphics are a bit better... I'm not sure of the price difference though.

I just bought this psu earlier this week to put in a 3200+ system I built a couple days ago.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104954
dual 12v rails w/ 18a each. this is what I put in it.
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
3200+ venice
160gb Seagate SATA 300Mb/s hd
DVD-RW
Floppy
ATI HDTV tv tuner card (still coming)
the case came w/ an Antec smartpower 2 350w but I just wasn't comfortable w/ that small of a psu.

you should look for a psu that has a minimum of 24a on the 12v rail.

Also, since you will be getting a new mobo it will have a 24pin atx connector instead of the old 20pin. so you will need to buy a new psu regardless because most motherboard maunfactures state that you can use a 20pin psu in a 24pin mobo, but you have to have a minimum of a 500w 20pin psu. I had problems w/ my bro's Asus mobo (ATI Express 200 chipset) and he was running a 420w 20pin psu and Asus didn't even want to talk to me until I was able to get through to them that I knew the problem wasn't psu related bc I hooked my Seasoic up to his system to check.

 

[soloz2]

you can get the dfi lanparty nf4 ultra board for 130. their infinity board is just under 100

 

[soloz2]

actually it depends on what dell model you get. yeah, dell uses different motherboard headers... for like fans and stuff, but a lot of their mobos are standard atx or mini atx so you can swap the case... and some of them even have standard 20 or 24pin psus

 

[soloz2]

yeah, Dell uses regular RAM... sometimes they use ECC RAM though