Sorry for the eternally annoying question, but its been a while since a built a PC (last one used SDR RAM) and I haven't really kept up to date with what's good and what isn't! Was thinking of this from ebuyer: OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM LG L204WT 20" 5ms 1680 X 1050 16:10 Widescreen Tilt LCD Monitor Antec Black Fusion V2 MATX MediaCenter Case - Aluminium Front Bezel with 430W PSU Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 4MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R iG33 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard Sapphire HD 2600 Pro 256MB DDR2 Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card For a total of £567. Any good? I could go for the Q6600 instead of the E6550, but I read that quad-core is slower for most uses? I guess I'll mainly be using it for office/internet, some photoshop work and as a media centre.
Not bad but i would reccomend Seagate Barracuda HDD as they come with a 5 year warranty. Also will your budget spread to a 22 inch monitor. I have one and its sweet
quad core is slower in some games that are not multithreaded. for office work you will probably be doing a lot of multitasking and would see a benefit from quad cores. you say media center, but i don't see a video capture card listed. if you plan on doing video capture or conversion, get the q6600. if you don't, then you should be fine with the e6550. i've never been able to find one, but i hear that samsung HDD's are about the best that money can buy. stick with that, seagates are nothing special. video card is fine, as long as you don't plan on doing any heavy gaming, although if you are going to be using this as a media center maybe look for one with an HDMI port.
The Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series have a sound card inbuilt and they come with a DVI to HDMI adapter. They are really good media center graphics cards, but not good for heavy gaming as supertoad already mentioned.
A Scythe Ninja Mini is just perfect for that case. If you are looking for silence then get one of those and figure something for the graphics card (I'd go with passive cooled, if gaming is not too high on the priority list). With these choices and the original fans at minimum speed, you'll get a very quiet PC.
Don't get the OCZ RAM. I mentioned it in another thread--you're NOT going to get 4-4-4-15 out of them. I've got 2 GB of it sitting here, on my desk, outside my computer. I replaced it with $40 A-Data RAM, and even IT runs better. Basically, they advertise 4-4-4-15, but to get those timings you have to obscenely overvolt the stuff. Since you're having to overvolt to get what you assume is the baseline performance, your overclocking limits are much, much lower. Mine got 6-6-6-18 at stock voltage and speed, and I could never get the RAM stable above 900 mhz. Buy something, ANYTHING, else. EDIT: And the Q6600 is a fantastic processor. It's faster for just about everything, since it can distribute background tasks to alternate cores even when you're maxing out one of the others with extracting a file, ripping a CD, scanning for viruses, or whatever else. Basically, your computer will NEVER lock down because of processor use. Not to mention it overclocks like crazy. Also, photoshop is one of the strengths of multi-cored processors (with more coming as time goes on). There's significant speed gains when using extra cores in graphics programs. Anyway, if you heard general performance is worse, that's flat out wrong--perhaps worse than the E6850, since it has a higher clock speed, but the Q6600 OC's past that anyways--but the Q6600 leaves a E6550 in the dust.
I hope that you wont play games, becous 2600PRO at least 2600XT, MB is weak basis for OC generally speaking it is weak sp take some with P35 chipset. If you want to OC your computer take E6750 or E4500 and batter MB
i can't disagree more than your RAM opinion. i so love the first pair of OCZ 800Mhz 4-4-4-15 1.9v-2.1v Platinum rev2 RAM, i bought another pair to make 4GB don't know about you, but i was able to get 4-4-4-12 @ 800Mhz with just 1.95v in the BIOS for all 4 sticks. it's rated at 4-4-4-15 with 1.9v to 2.1v. i was also able to hit 3-4-4-10 with 2.2v at 800Mhz (OCZ lifetime insures up to 2.2v), but i backed down because i want stability instead of tiny speed increase. this RAM is the RAM to get if you planning to run in the region below 850Mhz, it's just got blazing fast latency. anyway, get the q6600, with a bit of OC (eg 400x8) you can leave even the most expensive e6850 in the dust. the only case a q6600 is slower than any other dual core is because q6600 is clocked a tiny bit slower, AND the application don't support multithread. all other cases like web browsing, watching video or office productivity, are all multithreaded and the q6600 will be at least 1.5x faster than ANY dual core processor. i personally would choose a more mainstream motherboard like one with P35 chipsets.
The memory thought is just stupid. It doesn't even depend on the brand of memory that you buy. It depends on the brand and model of the chips. You could buy generic memory that somehow had the Micron D9 chips (would never happen, just an example), which would mean that they would be amazing overclockers. I had my OCZ stuff running at 4-4-4-15 timings easy, let alone trying anything more. If you are going to be using the PC for no gaming whatsoever, just buy an HD2400 Silent from Sapphire. The best media centre card there is. Also, whether you should get a quad core or not depends on how intensive your use will be, and people saying that quad cores are slower is BS mostly. The current generation quad cores are kinda bad, in a few aspects, but the new Peryn chips, for example, get 4ghz with no effort, and 4.3 ghz with only a bit of effort, all on air. I would say that you wait until after Christmas to get your CPU, and if you find any good deals on the parts you want now, just go for it.
1) check the ram list: http://ramlist.infinityx.nl/ddr2/ - always useful, but Im not sure when it was last updated. 2) 2600 Pro is crap in a bag, what's your budget? Are you ATI/NV slanted? 3) G33 = onboard graphics. A cheap P35 should do, but I'm assuming it has to be mATX? How about nForce 7050PV - should be cheaper. 4) E6550 Should oc further and the higher FSB will give better gaming performance but Q66 is more futureproof.
