Parents are wanting a pc and i have been wanting to upgrade mine. Basically only thing i have left to get is the cpu/ram and graphics card. Heres the equipment i already have. Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Corsair 620HX WD 320gb aaks seagate 160gb lite on dvdrw Equipment im looking at getting. 4gb ddr2 1066 - not sure on which brand 40-60 dollars c2d e8400 or c2q q9400 - 1066 ram to make sure it will not hold overclock back 164.99 evga GTX260 216 around 170 after rebate. Im giving my current setup in sig to parents and building off my current case and psu. My balance is <500 and planning on ordering everything from www.newegg.com any advice is welcome.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146785 If you can swing the cost these might be nice. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231219 These are cheaper but only 800mhz. Should perform well all the same. I like your choices for CPU. I would go for quad core. The vanilla GTX 260 would be my choice as well.
actually the ram i was looking at was this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166 video card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434 and cpu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131 total with c2d is around 430 and with quad is around 490 both with free shipping for all of it. I have seen where the 8400 can be oced to around 4+ghz with no problems and where the 9400 can be overclocked. Have not seen any benches from bit on the subject but looked around and seems like theres a difference. I just dont know how the other 2 cores would benefit. I watch dvds on my pc, game and do other work in ms office for my school. Ill take your recommendation as +1 for the q9400. Anyone else? Thanks
Well, Id personally recommend the q6600 over the 9400 if youre on a budget, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017 it has a 8mb l2 cache where the 9400 has a 6mb one, its around $30 cheaper, and has a VERY nice overclocking overhead, commonly hear about it being taken to 3GHz+ with stock cooling. (EDIT: If you do decide to go with the q6600 remember to go for a G0 stepping one, its from a newer production line, they increased the operating temperature of the CPU so if youre overclocking it, it means you can take it to higher voltage levels. More about that here:http://intel.pcnalert.com/content/eolpcn/PCN107463-01.pdf) As far as the video card...well thats really up to taste preference, but Im partial to ATIs 4800 series, generally they outperform Nvidias cards when AA is enabled, and has DDR5 ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150352 Of course that card doesnt have a mail-in rebate so its going to run you $40 more, but with the money you saved on your CPU would be better spent on this in any case since most games are GPU capped rather than CPU capped. Althou the whole ATI vs Nvidia thing is very very close and both those cards are really good, it may come down to whether you have a SLI or a Crossfire board as to which would do you better. On the ram side I dont know the G.Skill brand but that doesnt say much as Ive not followed the smaller makers all that closely, the timing is nice and no bad reviews, if you want more of a "major" brand Ive heard good things about Kingstons HyperX series: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104098 Althou as I said I dont know that much about ram, google some reviews for them if you want to know more.
i have decided to go ahead and get the q9400 and gskill ddr2 1000 2x2gb and the gtx 260/ because after rebate it is 170. i got 23 off instantly to a promo code. Thanks to all that helped.
