£760 inc. VAT + Shipping, This Worth It?

Breaks

Breaks

Breaks

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Hello all.

Planning to purchase a new workstation from Overclockers once my cash comes through (next few days) and I was wondering (as my budget is £760 on the dot), is this workstation worth it? Would you change anything for other components etc? This budget is basically for the base unit only (the case, mobo, cpu etc) and does not include peripherals. Do you think I could get anything better for the same price? If so, would you be so kind as to post here what you would get with this amount of money if not the setup I have in mind?

Below is a list of what I have spec'd together:

Samsung SH-W183 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU
Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case
Western Digital Caviar RE 250GB 2500YS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler

Total Inc. VAT + Shipping: £741.27

If you could spec a machine around of the same as the one above for less (as I would like to make room for a decent UPS) that would be great.

Best regards,

Breaks.
 
Would I notice much difference if I downgraded to the Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM instead of the 6400 Retail? Also, will the "Enermax Noisetaker 535W EG565AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU" be sufficient to power the machine specified above with the E6300 / E6400? Depending on what processor I go for?

:: Edit ::

Balls, my bad for the double post. Meant to click edit on the first post but clicked quote instead, then I couldn't delete this post :\.
 
You would need to buy a CPU cooler if you bought the OEM 6300, not a problem though, just get an Arctic Freezer 7 for ~£15 and you could then drop the Zalman as well to save a bit of cash.

The Noisetaker 535w will be more than capable of powering that system.

The only other real area to maybe save money is on the Ram, I don't know too much about it but the Geil PC6400 has the same specifications and costs less (it used to be pretty good I beleive but some later revisions might not be?) or you could get the generic OcUK PC6400 which doesn't have such good specifications but it is a fair bit cheaper. :)
 
To be honest, if I were to downgrade the CPU, motherboard and the PSU to what I specified in the second post, the overall price would be more than adequate to fit in a decent UPS as well.

The overall machine (after trying to downgrade parts to save cash), would be the following:

Samsung SH-W183 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
Enermax Noisetaker 535W EG565AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case
Western Digital Caviar RE 250GB 2500YS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler

Which would total: £660.43 (give or take a few pence)

Leaving me at most £100 extra for a decent UPS. I've already shopped around for UPS' and found a very good one for just under £100. So all this would meet my budget nicely, I'm just a little uncertain on downgrading to these three following items:

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - Not sure if I would notice a performance decrease between the DS3 to the DS4?

Enermax Noisetaker 535W EG565AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU - Wasn't entirely sure if this would be sufficient to power the specified workstation, but as you stated it would be, this is no longer a worry

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM - Again I wasn't certain if I would notice a big loss in performance from downgrading to this E6300 from the E6400
 
I would do the "budget" system. Will overclock the same, but gets you a UPS as well
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Breaks said:
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - Not sure if I would notice a performance decrease between the DS3 to the DS4?
Click to expand...

The DS3 is basically the same motherboard except it doesn't support Crossfire, doesn't have firewire onboard, has slightly worse sound (5.1 compared to 7.1) and the cooling isn't quite as good. The performance should be exactly the same as it is based on the same chipset (965) and none of the changes I've noted above will make a real difference to overclocking.

Any decent PSU over 500w will offer more than enough power for your system as specified and allows potential for overclocking/expansion.

The 6300 and 6400 ought to be able to get to roughly the same levels when overclocking but the 6400 has an 8x multiplier which means that the Ram wouldn't have to hit such high speeds to get beyond 3ghz with an overclock, however you should still be able to run dividers anyway if needed. :)
 
I'm not sure about your sig waster. It suggests the person receiving the advice has the sense to decide whether to take it or not. Sometimes that's not the case, and they need "persuading" :p
 
joeyjojo said:
I'm not sure about your sig waster. It suggests the person receiving the advice has the sense to decide whether to take it or not. Sometimes that's not the case, and they need "persuading" :p
Click to expand...

I just liked it at the time, if people want to take my advice then fair enough but it does also help to remind me not to worry if they don't, they might have good reasons not to, like it being a load of mince. ;) :) I'll probably change it within a few days anyway as I'm getting a bit bored of it.

And d'oh I feel stupid for not noticing a lack of a graphics card before.
 
semi-pro waster said:
I just liked it at the time, if people want to take my advice then fair enough but it does also help to remind me not to worry if they don't, they might have good reasons not to, like it being a load of mince. ;) :)
Click to expand...
Who in their right mind would turn down a load of mince? :D
 
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