Spec me a Core2Duo system

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 17:53

Hi all,

Been out of the loop for a little while (current rig is Opty 146, MSI Neo2 Plat, 1Gb Ballistix, 6600GT.)

I have £300 to spend in order to bring this up to date. I've already got an HDD (320GB 7200.10) and a decent-ish PSU (OCZ 420W) so I'm really just looking for a mobo and CPU, RAM and GFX.

What do people think of the below spec? I've had to skimp quite a bit on the graphics and RAM to get it within budget - my thinking is that by buying a single 1Gb stick of RAM now, I can buy another later when I have a bit more money. The GFX will probably also be replaced with an 8600GT(S) later in the year.

Gigabyte DS3 (£72)
E6300 retail (£111)
1Gb Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667), CAS 4-4-4-12 (£50)
256MB Palit 7600GT Sonic, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1500MHz, GPU 575MHz, 12Pipes, D-Sub/Dual Link DVI/HDTV SLI (£67)

Total £300

How well is this RAM likely to clock? What is the performance penalty for running a divider on a C2D system? Assuming I'm gonna need to use one to get the most out of the CPU.

Is running single channel memory going to hurt my performance significantly?

Also, views on the graphics card? I'm not a massive gamer but would like something which can handle most modern games on 1280 res with at least medium detail. Main uses of the system will be Folding, a bit of vid encoding, some gaming and general monkeying around.

Thanks guys.

furnace · 14 Mar 2007 at 18:29

If I were you I'd try and stretch for some 6400 RAM, you'll get better clocks without overclocking the RAM. I think a 50Mhz overclock is the most to expect from RAM, but you could be lucky and get more - or unlucky and get less!

As far as running a divider is concerned... it really depends what you're doing. If you're doing something that needs alotta access to ram, it'll be a bit slower. TBH I haven't tried both ram on a divider and ram off a divider, but if it's all you can afford then don't worry about the performance - just get it and use a divider. The perfomance hit is probably small, and you'd need to overclock to reach the rams FSB anyway!

Also, see if you can hunt down a Galaxy 7600GS Premium - they're as good as the GT

You wanna get it up to 2GB RAM asap, too - there is a good performance difference. But 1GB is still okay right now

Your rig will be easily upgradeable when you can afford it.

For £300 dude, I don't think you can do better! It's a good setup.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 18:51

Thanks mate. With any luck I'll have some overclocking room on the RAM - I was looking at this article which suggested that DDR2-667 is pretty overclockable, though I dunno if the RAM I chose above will do that well.

Edward01 · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:20

ok very slightly over but hows this strike you

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT Superclocked SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £101.99
(£119.84) £101.99
(£119.84)
Abit AB9 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400DC) £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)

Sub Total : £268.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
Vat : £48.51
Total : £325.72

The GPU is a lttle slower but you've got decent ram and you should be able to over clock to a decent spec.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:30

Thanks for the help, Edward. The 7300GT might be worth looking into as I'm planning to upgrade later and I doubt it'll be much worse than my current 6600.

What makes you recommend the AB9 over the DS3? I don't really know much about C2D motherboards, the DS3 was just the name I'd heard.

As for the RAM - I'd like 800MHz RAM but the problem with the 1GB kit is that it's 2 sticks, making it harder to upgrade to 2GB later. If it were available as one stick I'd definitely have a look at it.

Energize · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:49

Mattus said:
As for the RAM - I'd like 800MHz RAM but the problem with the 1GB kit is that it's 2 sticks, making it harder to upgrade to 2GB later. If it were available as one stick I'd definitely have a look at it.

Surely the mobo has 3 or 4 slots?

My cheapo asrock mobo has 4 slots.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:51

Energize said:
Surely the mobo has 3 or 4 slots?

My cheapo asrock mobo has 4 slots.

True. I'm still living in the A64 era where having four sticks of RAM had quite a large performance penalty. Is there no penalty at all with C2D? What about in terms of OCing? I have much to learn

(lol at multiple ninja-editing!)

skanky · 14 Mar 2007 at 21:50

Energize said:
Surely the mobo has 3 or 4 slots?

My cheapo asrock mobo has 4 slots.

arent the asrock's 2 ddr1 and 2 ddr2 slots or something silly like that?

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 22:58

Have updated my spec as I've discovered a Palit 7600GT at £67 - nicely overclocked from reference speeds too

masslac · 14 Mar 2007 at 23:10

Mattus said:
Have updated my spec as I've discovered a Palit 7600GT at £67 - nicely overclocked from reference speeds too

Change the RAM to http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-057-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

The rest looks nice.

Edward01 · 15 Mar 2007 at 02:10

The AB9 is a good board and the only reason i recomended it over the DS3 is that it is on this week only and is cheaper, apart from that they are fairly interchangeable. The DS is a good board but so is the AB9.

Running four sticks of 512 ram shouldn't matter in that board. The only problem is if you run out of expanding space in future. I'm sure you could probably find a one stick if you looked tho.

The 7300gt on that system should knock the crap out of the 6600 on your present system!

Edit, isn't that the same RAM I recomended?

masslac · 15 Mar 2007 at 02:50

Edward01 said:
Edit, isn't that the same RAM I recomended?

no

melbourne720 · 15 Mar 2007 at 10:00

Mattus said:
Thanks for the help, Edward. The 7300GT might be worth looking into as I'm planning to upgrade later and I doubt it'll be much worse than my current 6600.

It will be faster, as the GDDR3 version will clock up to 7600 GT speeds.

Edward01 · 15 Mar 2007 at 12:51

sorry masslac your absolutly right, didn'y notcie it was ultra low stuff, my bad.

Pug · 15 Mar 2007 at 14:15

take it from a former DS4 owner with a e6300 and PC5400 RAM:

Get faster RAM! You'll just end up being annoyed when your ram limits you. TRUST ME.

My solution was to sell the DS4, and get a P5NE-SLI with the money i made, and this allow the mem to run async, meaning i can run my E6300 @ ~470MHz FSB, and memory at 375MHz, giving me a clock of 3.3 on 5400MHz memory.

VeNT · 15 Mar 2007 at 22:56

better off with faster ram
the DS4 is a beast of a board (got one)
currently limited to about 440 or somthing with my ram

Mattus · 15 Mar 2007 at 23:44

Kk, looks like the message is pretty clear about the RAM! With the low multi on the 6300 you guys are all right. Looks like it's gonna be some Geil 6400. Get the feeling I should buy ASAP, as the prices on RAM always change so much...

luminous · 16 Mar 2007 at 10:41

Grab the 2 gig geil and get a gfx card when you`re more flush

furnace · 16 Mar 2007 at 10:48

I'd go for the E6300 and 6400 RAM (hell that IS what I went for), but if money's a worry there's alwyas the E4300 which has a x9 multiplier, so you can get faster clock speeds without a divider. 333Mhz FSB (5300 RAM) with a x9 Multi = 3Ghz...