First Build Advice

J

jay1012002

Geek Trainee
Hi All,

I have been working on a system that i would some advice on i will be using it for mainly gaming aswell as general use.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.67GHz Socket LGA775, 4MB, BOXED w/fan £345.02
Gainward GeForce 7950GT 512MB,1,4ns DDR3 ,PCI-Express £205
Asus p5n32-SLI SE Deluxe £131.72
OCZ Gold PC6400 DDR2 2048MB x 2 (2GB) £201
NEC DVD±recorder AD-5170 (Dual layer) £24
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM £65
Creative SB X-Fi Platinum PCI £119
Acer 19" LCD AL1951AS Multimedia Monitor, DVI, Silver/Black, 8ms £189

I Haven't decided on a case or psu yet so any suggestions would be appreciated also not sure what operating system to go for do i stick with XP or do i go for Vista???

Any comments welcome good or bad.

Thanx Jay1012002
 
Thats a nice system, but you are wasting your money by buying an E6700 (Core 2 Duo). The E6600 is far cheaper in most cases and can easily be overclocked to reach the same level as an E6700.
You are basically paying for a slightly higher clockspeed, which can be achieved anyway with the lower, E6600 model.

As for your operating system, Vista isn't out until the end of January 2007. Vista will replace XP. For now, try and get hold of an XP copy for cheap.
 
Thanx for the advice but i have never attempted overclocking before. so if its ok i have a couple of questions.

How easy is it to do?
What sort of speed will i get from the E6600?
Will i need extra cooling if so what?
The P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe has AI Overclocking will this make overclocking easier?

any advice would help

Thanx jay1012002
 
What power supply are you using for this thing?

The Core 2 Duo's scale nicely, so you probably can do E6700 speeds with the stock cooling.
 
The best method is to press DELETE or F1 after the startup *beep* from your PC. (DEL / F1 depends on your motherboard, but it will tell you which to press).
In here, you can change the CPU speed by increasing the bus speed - leading to an increase in your CPU's clock speed.

It's very simple to do. You should try it on your current system to get the hang of it. Be careful about increasing the speed too much, make sure you monitor the temperature of your CPU (if it's getting higher than 50* in the hardware monitor in BIOS after you turn the PC on, you should probably not go any further).
 
Big B - not sure what case or power supply to go with so open to suggestions.

Mut - Thanx for the advice i have an old system that i will have a play with. Have been doing some research on overclocking dont seem that bad to do just need to get my head round it all. The results i have found is 3GHz on the E6600 using stock cooling and 3.4GHz on the E6700 using stock cooling.

Thanx Jay1012002
 
I'd start out with something at least 500W from a reputable brand.

Here's a few:

Corsair 520W
Fortron 650W
OCZ 600W

Additionally anything you see from any of the following companies should do the job if you get a 500W or better unit:

-Antec
-Enermax
-Sparkle (same as Fortron)
-FSP (Same as Fortron)
-Hiper
-Seasonic
-Silverstone
-Tagan
-TTGI

Make sure to avoid:
-Q-tec/Q-tech/Q-technology
-Logisys
-Powmax
-Coolmax
-Apevia (formerly Aspire)
-Masscool
-MGE

I'd also avoid Ultra. Some can be good, but I'm not sure who they pick for their PSU's. They ran into trouble when they switched companies they were rebadging with their X-Connect line, and I don't know if that's still the case. The good ones still run today, but the bad, later units, were the ones that blew up in 2 reviews I'm aware of.
 
Best bang for the buck is the E6600.
I doubt you will notice a difference between an E6600 @ 3.0GHz and an E6700 @ 3.4GHz
And I don't think spending $100 more on 400MHz is worth it.
 
Thanx for all the advice think i will go with the E6600 like you said Mut £130 difference for not a lot of MHz so that means i can upgrade on something else any suggestions more RAM, better graphics??

Oh was playing with my old system yesterday overclocked it from (AMD Duron) 1600 to 2000 Suprised how easy it was CPU temp 48 and 50 to 51 at full load using stock cooling.

Thanx Jay1012002
 
Not really anything worth improving to be honest, that's a killer system and should be able to handle anything you throw at it with ease.

nVidia have just released their first DirectX 10 graphics cards. Able to play the next generation PC games. But they are hugely expensive, and DirectX 10 won't be used for a while longer. It may be worth checking them out, though they are around £400.
 
Thanx Mut Been looking at the new directx 10 card how does this look:

XFX PV-T80G-THF9 8800GTS 640MB DDR3 500/1600MHZ Directx 10 Dual DVI PCI-E Graphics Card - £346.93 - YOYOtech

Also ASUS have updated the MOBO i was going for it uses the 680i chipset it also £100 more exspensive is it worth going for?

P5N32-E SLI - £218.00 - ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

Thanx Jay1012002
 
Hi all,
just a update as i will be hopefully ordering parts next week so any final comments would be welcome.

Thermaltake VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black

Hiper HPU-4M670 Type R 670W ATX2.2 PSU - Black

Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

Gainward BLISS GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional Soundcard - Retail

Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail

Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM

Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Beige
(Will be black but out of stock at the moment.)

Asus VW192S 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00715)

Total Price = £1531.97 Including delivery.
 
Looks good. The only thing I would recommend is checking out any display you're considering before buying it, due to personal preferences people have.
 
thanx Big B,

I like the display seems to have good reviews so unless there is any other suggestions im happy to go with it?
 
That is an AWSOME pc.

Just i would advise going for a normal demensions screen. I say this as some games dont support the widescreen resolutions and that is very annoying. Its just that if you are irritated by things then having two lines down the sides of the screen or havng streched garphics will annoy you.

But this is only my personal opinion and i know two people with widescreens and they are very happy with them

Youre going to love that rig!!!!
 
Thanx spent so long planning it just wanna build it now cant wait:)

as for the screen gonna stick with the wide one but thanx for the advice.

Will let you all know how the build goes.

Thanx again jay1012002
 
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