Hi All, I'm i the process of sorting out what I want to get new system wise, so I know how much I need to save and so far I have come up with this and I just need some advice on a few things. So to start with here is the preposed new system: 4gb Geil Ram: 240.86 – Overclockers.co.uk Vista Ultimate 64bit Oem: 115.02 – Scan.co.uk 2*500gb Deskstar 7K500: 125.37 – Scan.co.uk Gainward 8600 1GB: 112.79 – Scan.co.uk Abit IP35: 119.84 – Scan.co.uk Q6600 G0 Stepping: 171.85 – Ebuyer.co.uk Antec P190: 228.42 – Ebuyer.co.uk Arctic Freezer 7 Pro: 16.31 – Ebuyer.co.uk Total (inc VAT and shipping): 1168.08 Ideally In the first instance I want this to cost less than a grand (so the wife don't go mad) and to last me as long as possible. I'm not sure on a few things, I might put off buying the P190 (which I really don't want to compramise on) for a few months after buying the system and I was wondering roughly what sort of power supply I would need to keep this all ticking over untill I can get the case? Also, Memory. The board only supports at most 800mhz ram and I want to know is there any benifit to going for the faster 1066mhz ram with it? or could I save some money there by going for say 4gb (2x2gb) of Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 for £180 from Scan? And how would this work with the CPU's fsb being 1066 and the memory being 800mhz? Or would be going for a new motherboard a better idea? I'm not looking to SLI at all and I currently have a 17" monitor (hence the 8600) and can not plumb for a new monitor yet (wife would go nuts as I got this one for free for fixing her employers PC a few times.). Thanks in advance.
if your into gaming it might be best to drop to 2gig of ram and spend a bit extra on 8800gts graphics card, its just thought but the mobo,cpu and ram comes to £532.57 but if you got this http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MBB-P5NQ66 it would leave you an extra £170 towards a nice shiny new 22" monitor
You are wasting a hell of a lot of money with this setup. Tr something more like this: Gskill PC6400 2GB kit (x2)- approx £130 EVGA 8800GTS stock clocked - £190 Abit IP35 as you said, or you could go and get the much cheaper IP35-E, which would also work great with your setup: approx £80 Antec P182 case, and a Corsair HX520 PSU G0 Q6600 Tuniq Tower 120 -£35 or something like that 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives (very fast) £65 each. This setup will be exactly the same (virtually) but the graphics card is probably about 2x or more faster. And, it will work out much cheaper. Though, if you are playing your games on a 24 inch monitor, I would get an 8800 Ultra or GTX, to play at more comfortable settings. The 8600 graphics card is not good for gaming at all IMO.
Whether you've only got a 17" monitor or not... you really shouldn't be considering an 8600 if you game at all As already advised... it would be much better to settle for 'just' 2GB RAM just now, and put whatever money you save towards a 320MB 8800GTS
What actual difference would the 1gb 8600 and a 640mb 8800GTS be? The 8600 would be better for high def, which would be appealing in the future. I've had a juggle and I now have this which is slightly cheaper: Overclockers: 2x GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC) = £117.48 Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R - £84.59 ebuyer: EVGA 8800GTS 640MB DDR3 320bit Dual DVI PCI E = £234.95 Q6600 G0 Stepping = £171.85 Antec P190 = £228.42 Arctic Freezer 7 Pro = £16.31 Scan: 2 x500 Gb Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 7200.10 = £136.03 Vista Ultimate 64bit Oem = £115.02 All in with Shipping: £1122.46 Looks like it's gonna be hard to come in under that £1000 pound mark, so I may just stick to 2gb of ram and upgrade at a later date.
the 8800gts is a much much better card than the 8600 also the 320mb version is cheaper than the 640mb and i havent seen any diference in benchmarks yet
there were some links on another forum, cant rember where but in some games the 320mb perfomed better than the 640mb at lower res than a 24" monitor, i will try and find them
Try this link for a round up of all kinds of graphics cards. http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/601145/graphics-cards/products.html It covers some cards that you can't buy any more,which might seems a bit odd but the logic behind it is that its supposed to be a comaprison between past and present cards so if you have an older card its quite likely that you'll find it in here somewhere.
trust me the G.skill is over priced memory, go for this Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA804) <that code is important! its on overclockers now at £65! id buy more if i could! average speed is 1.12GHz vs its rated 800MHz, truly amazing memory!
The deal on the Crucial memory is "for this week only" according to the Overclockers website - now if I can just sneak this one past the wife.....
i think ur wasting ur money on the p190, fair enough it has 2 psu's in it, but buy a p182, 80 quid from scan, that takes 120 off, spend 50 quid on a cpu, say 450watt crossair, then uses the extra money to buy a 8800gts, as it will leave u with another 30 pounds or so, while ur 8600 is already cost 112, another 40, u can get a leadtek 8800 for 150! but then again its up to you cheif!
My questions would be are you going to overclock this a huge amount? Are you going to be playing games, or doing stuff like video processing? Burnout21 is right, the G.skill memory is over priced. I got some CorsairTwinX XMS2 PC2-6400 C4 DHX memory and it overclocks very well because of the extra fins. I would think you will be hitting heat problems first with the Q6600 if overclocking, money would be better spend on cooling. I am thinking of a new graphics card myself, and am looking at the 320MB XFX 8800GTS XT (£188 Scan) as it is clocked a little faster than the rest. I dont see myself needing a 640Mb card, 320 is more that enough for 1600x1200. Why are you thinking of the P190? A good 500W/600W PSU these days will be very good and reliable, and at the end of the day a case is really down to looks and USB ports. My case cost £25, its small and hidden under the desk, I use a USB hub on the desk to plug in my devices. My HTPC case is expensive as it looks like my amp and has a VFD+Remote, my sever case was expensive as I wanted a huge number of drive bays. Gigabyte GA P35C DS3R is a very good board, I have 2. Waiting for DD3 memory to get faster and drop in price. No fireware, but apart from that its great. I think the X38 chipsets are not worth the money unless you want 2 x 16PCIe slots for SLI. Unless you are doing video processing etc, I dont think you need 4Gb ram. I am using 2Gb without problems. Anyway, you could always buy 2Gb now, then get some very fast DDR3 next year if you need extra speed, or another 2Gb is you run out. Thats why I love this free delivery on Scan, can always add a bit later. At the end of the day, what ever you get now will be out of date in a few months time. i.e. faster graphics, mem, 45nm processors. I try to get very good stuff but not the best, the money I save I use to upgrade later. Have fun with you new setup.
Dude i agree with the gigabyte board as iv got one, and it handles a quad core overclock so well! Also waiting for some DDR3 to drop in price, so my quad can increase in speed due to the way the bandwidth works with DDR3. in the end i got the following for £500 Q6600 Crucial PC2-6400 C4 (clocks to 1.12GHz) Gigabyte GA P35C DS3R BFG 8800GTS OC the machine eats everything in its path!
so are you happy with the gigabyte motherboard? does it overclock well? what sort of gaming performance are you getting? (game name and FPS numbers would be great)
I really do want that P190, yes I know it is the most expensive thing out there, but it will give me room to "grow" into it, the whole idea is for me to have something that will last at least as long as my current setup (4 years or so). I will be looking to do some overclocking and I'm prolly going to go for the Swiftech H20 120 compact at some point to make this better. System usage is going to be for mainly gaming, encoding,a bit of compiling (gonna get back into Gentoo) and day to day web/email usage. I also find having more system ram does tend to make the computer run better imho, as it needs less swap space (which is so slow).
I can't see why your RAM is costing you £100+ Your last spec list you've listed this2x1Gb Geil but that costs £56.39 from overclockers. Why not go for the same brand 2x1Gb Geil with better latency timings. Its faster RAM for the same price. However, from what I've read you'll probably get best OCs in this range with this Crucial Ballistix kit. I intend to use it myself.
Dude the motherboard plays very little in 'game' performance, the difference between boards may be 1 to 2 FPS, really pointless numbers to care about. OC wise its great, the bios 'Auto' function is bang on, i mean serously great, i can clock to 3.6GHz (9x400) without touching the volts at all! My ram started to run out of speed i think, yet to really push it all TBH. for what i paided for the board its got great future proof tech, it will surport intels next chips and DDR3 ram, the only thing it lacks is the PCI-E v2, which hasn't appeared on mobos as far as i know even tho the P35 chipset supports it.
