Gradual Upgrade Help

Hey, I'm planning on upgrading my motherboard and case. I've decided on buying the GA-M720-US3 and the Antec 300 case. The motherboard is about £47 and the Case is about £40. I've chosen this particular motherboard because I'm not planning on going SLI and because I need a gradual upgrade option. I've also heard that this particular motherboard can unlock the fourth core in tri core phenoms, but I'm not planning to do that yet. My AM2 socket Athlon X2 64 4200+ should fit in the new motherboard until I can save up for a Phenom II.

My plan is to move everything from my current system, sans motherboard, into the new case. I've moved and replaced everything else before except a processor and I was wondering if people had any tips and useful advice. Will I need to buy a new HSF or can I use the current one? And will I need to buy some thermal paste or is it not needed? Is it also advisable to buy an anti-static matt if I'm moving the CPU over?

My current system is :
OS : Windows Vista SP2 32-Bit
CPU : Amd Athlon 64 X2 4200+
HDD 1 : Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB HD
RAM : 4GB OCZ 800Mhz RAM
Graphics Card : XFX Nvidia 9800 GTX+ Black Edition

I'll be installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 too because I heard Microsoft gets a bit funny about replacing motherboards. Luckily I can get a cheap copy through Microsoft's student discounts.

Thanks in advance for any tips and advice.
Nahumi

This post by Digerati should answer most your questions:

http://forums.whatthetech.com/Thermal_Inte…al_t103650.html

As you are moving your current CPU its current heatsink fan should be sufficient.

When you do upgrade the CPU I would consider an upgrade in the heatsink fan as well.

Just follow the ideas in the link as to the thermal paste cleanup and reapplication.



…

Great, thank you very much. Unfortunately it's not possible to get 91% Alcohol in the UK without a medical prescription, and Acetone is even harder to find. Would you suggest using something like Akasa Thermal Interface Cleaning Fluid? I assume it would do the same job, but I was wondering if you knew of any better products. Cheers Nahumi

For starters forget SLI, it's dead tech, I had it and benefited nothing, and there is so little support\drivers for it you are wasting money IMHO, you would get far greater benefit from spending the extra on a good card, this will walk all over SLI, if you did want to go for multiple cards I would suggest going XFire, but whatever you do get a good PSU, don't skimp, get the best most powerful one you can afford, and it will save you money long term and serve you well. As to cleaning fluid for the thermal compound that stuff is fantastic, I use it and wondered how I managed prior to finding it, they even do a 2 bottle kit that includes a purifier, so you will be fine getting that stuff, it's extremely good in what it does.