1st build for 3yrs

jma

jma

jma

Associate
Joined
16 Dec 2007
Posts
16
Location
Sheffield U.K.
Hi all,

My 1st post, although iv been hanging around for years.
The last time i built was around 3yrs ago, AMD64/asus A8V etc,etc basically that system is about dead.
Iv been reading here for a couple of days and have specced myself a new rig, i have found myself to be way behind the times and have some serious catching up to do.
Rig to be used for gaming and normal useage, a possibilty i may want to venture into overclocking but not straight away, i would really like to keep it around £700 but am open to suggestions for worthwhile improvements.I have monitor(samsung 2232bw) mouse,keyboard and O/S xp
i origanally specced the intel core2 quad pro q6600 and mobo abit ip35, but in an effort to keep costs down i replaced those with whats in the full spec below.
I am open to any suggestions and improvements that i could make.
So i leave myself in your capable hands and thanks in advance for looking.

my spec...


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sony Floppy Drive - Black £4.99
(£5.86) £4.99
(£5.86)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3320620AS) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36) £144.99
(£170.36)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
Sub Total : £563.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £100.95
Total : £677.79

regards
jma
 
Looks good. However I wouldn't get any AS5 as the thermal paste on the Arctic freezer is meant to actually be better!
 
Great case for overclocking and cooling, doesn't look half bad either. 'tis a bit noisy though if you have the fans on medium or high and it's right next to you.

The only thing I can suggest is if you did want to save a tiny bit more money is to switch the E6550 for an E2180, and clock it up to 3Ghz+ (it has a great reputation for overclocking, evidence in spec :)) The only thing you'd be losing if you did do that would be the 3Mb of cache, I suppose it depends how much that means to you. However I've heard the E6XXX aren't bad for overclocking anyway, so I mean you're on a winner there.

Great gfx card btw, and I've heard lots of good things about that PSU as well (highly recommended from lots of people)
 
Thanks for the replies lads,

As it happens the case will be sitting quite close to me, so thats a very good point.I like the look of it although i have read of the wiring probs associated with it.I think its cooling reputation probally offsets that though, plus it does look the part.

fobose, thanks for the heads up on the AS5 i didnt know that.

Is the overclocking of a e2180 an easy task as iv never done it before but gotta admit to fancying a go at it.

Thanks for the replies lads, appreciated one and all, gotta hit the sack as i am up at 4.45 for work (yuk)

regards

jma
 
jma said:
Is the overclocking of a e2180 an easy task as iv never done it before but gotta admit to fancying a go at it
Click to expand...

Overclocking in general is very easy now compared to what I heard you had to do back maybe 5 years ago (messing around with jumpers and stuff). The E2180 in particular is a very overclockable chip, which you should be able to hit 3.5Ghz quite easily provided you don't do anythin wrong.

There's some great guides in the overclocking section of this forum which I read before I clocked my cpu, and they really help. In its simplest form, all you do to overclock the cpu is incease the front side bus (fsb) speed, increase the voltage if you have to, and then change the memory multiplier/divider if you have to, all done through the BIOS.

As I said though the guide in the overclocking section of this forum tells you all you need to know anyway. And there's always gonna be someone on here willing to help you if you do happen to run into any sort of problems. But like i said it's very unlikely provided you don't do anything silly.

Btw that cooler's ace for overclocking the E2180 :)
 
OK,

On the cases front the p182 does look good, i also like the akasa eclipse 62.If i swap out the e6550 for the e2180 i am saving a fair bit there,also floppy drive and AS5 to go.

What are your thoughts on my mother board choice?

As the two new case choices are within 5quid of each other quote now looks like this...

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3320620AS) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36) £144.99
(£170.36)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Sub Total : £523.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £93.95
Total : £630.81

Are there any other items i should think about getting for the build, and how futureproof do you guys think this rig will be?

Sorry for all the n00by type questions and once again many thanks for your replies and help so far.

mucho appreciated.

regards

jma
 
What about something like http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-008-SY&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=38 for the floppy drive. I have one similar and even in this day and age on the odd occasion a floppy drive can prove useful. Granted USB pens can be bootable etc but if you get a floppy drive/card reader combo you are on a winner :-) The antec 900 is a very nice case and the cable management can be sorted out. If noise is a big concern then you don't have to plug all of the fans in. On low speed though they aren't that bad IMO (the 360 fans can be heard over them) but then I have come from having 4x80mm fans going full pelt
 
closeratio said:
E2180 in particular is a very overclockable chip, which you should be able to hit 3.5Ghz quite easily provided you don't do anythin wrong.
Click to expand...

I agree it's a very clockable chip but to say it will hit 3.5Ghz easily is stretching things a bit far. 3-3.2 easily yes, but above that and things can get a bit spicy.
 
Hi,

I cant decide between the p182 and the 900 they both look so nice.Is one any better than the other or it just a personal preference job?

I think i will probally stick with my original cpu choice for the time being.

Once again thanks for your replies, i appreciate it:)

I am working myself up to press the "buy" button, once iv decided on the case issue.

regards

jma
 
Ok,

I swaped out the seagate 320mb HD as they are out of stock, gone for a western digital-- any probs with this?
Still cant make my mind up on the case, the gfx card is "pre order" does this ever cause any probs?
Everything else is in stock with good stock numbers, except the 900 case which is showing 4 left the p182 is 10+


So the list is now thus...
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36) £144.99
(£170.36)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKS) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Sub Total : £546.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £97.98
Total : £657.84

Are there any other parts that i have forgotton or may find advantageous in my build.

regards

jma
 
Ok,
Iv made a final change, decided to stretch to the q6600 and made a decision on the p182.

Thing thats bothering me is this pre-order on the gfx card, what exactly does it mean? is it that i cant order till due in date (19th)?

new spec..
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36) £144.99
(£170.36)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKS) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Sub Total : £599.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £107.25
Total : £720.11

What do you think?

regards

jma
 
I'd phone the shop to confirm everything is in stock to avoid any disappointment, nothing worse than for the sake of one item having to wait.
 
Aye that means you won't get it till it comes back in stock :( If you want it badly you could get it from somewhere else (which you might have toruble doing seen as everybody wnats these cards), or alternatively you could stretch and go for the cheapest 8800GTS (the new one, obviously :)), or maybe save a bit and get the Ati HD3870, prefereably a high spec one. Although the 3870's aren't quite as good as the 8800GT's, they do do pretty well in most applications
 
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