How would you spend my £350?

Rantasam

Rantasam

Rantasam

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Joined
21 Sep 2008
Posts
10
Hi all,

I've been reading these forums for a little while now, and I'm hoping you may be able to help me out with a little advice. It's time to upgrade my flagging pc, and I've decided on a budget for motherboard, cpu and memory of around £350.

I've built a few pc's for friends etc in the past, but want to try my hand at overclocking for the first time - you could call me clueless, but eager. :) I enjoy games, but wouldn't class myself anywhere near hardcore, and would like to future proof myself as much as possible, as well as hopefully learn something new. I've been looking around this site and trying to find some articles on the web, but a lot of the stuff I've found seems a little out of date.

I've settled on the following combo..

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz
Asus P5E Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

I've read a lot about the chip, and it sounds like it has good oc potential. Opinions on memory seem quite varied, but this seems to be well thought of. The motherboard I struggled with a lot as there seems to be lots of conflicting views on various models.

So my questions are.. Is this a good choice for the money? Do you forsee any problems? Are there other options I should consider as better choices for the money?

Thanks for reading and I look forward to any advice you can offer. Cheers!
 
No, I'll be using a single graphics card. The pc will be used for a variety of things really.. photoshopping, video encoding and gaming.

I know gaming is a tricky one to define - I guess the best way of putting it is I would like to play the latest games, but I'm happy to crank the graphics down from max settings. :) I hope that is of some use..
 
If you are only going to use a single card then go for one of the P45 Asus P5Q motherboards. You also do not need PC2 8500 ram for a Q6600. You will never use it to it's potential. Better to go for a PC2 6400 kit. Even that would get you to 3.6Ghz and beyond. You will need a decent cooler too.
 
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pastymuncher said:
If you are only going to use a single card then go for one of the P45 Asus P5Q motherboards. You also do not need PC2 8500 ram for a Q6600. You will never use it to it's potential. Better to go for a PC2 6400 kit. Even that would get you to 3.6Ghz and beyond. You will need a decent cooler too.
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Thank you for the advice! Very helpful stuff. Wise words about the mobo, I'll have a look at that one. I see what you are saying about the memory too.. are there any brands that you would favour? Geil seems to have a lot of fans, but it's not a brand I've come across before like Crucial or Corsair.

Also, is there any advantage to upping the memory to 8gb, or would this again be overkill?

Thanks again and apologies for my newbish questions. :)
 
Great, thanks again for the input. One final question then I'll stop bugging you! :) Are ram timings something to bear in mind when selecting memory.. how would these affect performance/oc-ability?
 
Rantasam said:
Great, thanks again for the input. One final question then I'll stop bugging you! :) Are ram timings something to bear in mind when selecting memory.. how would these affect performance/oc-ability?
Click to expand...

Generally the tighter the better. You can always slacken them off if you need to (you won't with a Q6600) when clocking. The best you are going to get on DDR2 is 4-4-4-12. There is very little difference in performance between 4 and 8 GB. Best to stick with 4Gb. This kit seems to be very good stuff. I would have recommended the Gskill 4Gb kit but it's now out of stock.
 
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