building new system

[chrisash]

Hi there, I have about £1400 to spend on a new system might buy pre built system but was wondering what I could get if I built it myself? Could someone spec up a system for me bearing in mind the £1400 needs to include the monitor as well.

Thanks in advance

Chris

 

[BENdage]

This should work, although you could get better value for money if you swap out the GTX for a GT, it performs almost the same for a lot less money, just depends how muh you want value for money. 4gb of RAM and a fast 1Tb raid, only thing you need to add it an OS, KB, mouse and some speakers, or if you need them included just scale down the monitor a bit until it fits the budget

 

[Yiuca]

Why that memory? I hear Crucial is a little tempermental but 1066Mhz CAS5 memory, Is that really needed? It seems a little overkill to me especially when 800Mhz memory at CAS4 is less than half the price for the same amount yet will still work as well as he needs it too. (With very little if any performance difference at all.)

Two lots of http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL = £80 same amount of memory, less money aswell, which would leave you with enough to buy the O/S.

I personally think the case is upto the OP because I mean we all have different tastes to what we want to look at & so on, I'd say Antec 900 cause it's got good airflow but others may not like the case...

The Tuniq Tower is only needed if A) You are going to overclock, or B) Regardless of if you overclock or not you want the CPU to be as cool in temperature as possible. If neither is the case then you can probably get along on stock heatsink but would need to buy the "Retail" version for a few more £.

 

[BENdage]

The budget is big enough to get the faster RAM so why not, it'll give better performance and higher oerclocking potential, with nearly a grand and a half to play with, why cut corners... Same with the cooling, it'll allow a faster overclock, who wants a Q6600 at stock speed when it could be at +3GHz with minimal effort given the right kit.

Also OS isnt always needed, since everyone who has a PC already has one, people normally specify if they need it, so if not mentioned its normally assumed it isnt required

 

[Yiuca]

The budget is big enough to get the faster RAM so why not, it'll give better performance and higher oerclocking potential, with nearly a grand and a half to play with, why cut corners...

It'll hardly offer much difference unless he goes over 400Mhz FSB, to which if he goes with 400Mhz FSB with 1:1 RAM = 800Mhz (Which is all he needs) 400x8 = 3.2Ghz, or 3.6Ghz if you up the Multiplier to 9 but on Air that'd require some stability testing & would likely get much hotter than is needed, Why precisely does he need 1066Mhz? It won't offer much difference, he can get what he needs out of 800Mhz RAM.

Perhaps he'll want to upgrade to Vista? Perhaps he'll want to Dual Boot, he didn't mention that neither, so really we don't have a clue what he wants to do with it.

 

[BENdage]

It'll hardly offer much difference unless he goes over 400Mhz FSB, to which if he goes with 400Mhz FSB with 1:1 RAM = 800Mhz (Which is all he needs) 400x8 = 3.2Ghz, or 3.6Ghz if you up the Multiplier to 9 but on Air that'd require some stability testing & would likely get much hotter than is needed, Why precisely does he need 1066Mhz? It won't offer much difference, he can get what he needs out of 800Mhz RAM.

Perhaps he'll want to upgrade to Vista? Perhaps he'll want to Dual Boot, he didn't mention that neither, so really we don't have a clue what he wants to do with it.

whatever... with a grand and a half to spend why cut corners, theres no need for a premium mobo, or a quad core, or a terabyte of storage space, or a quality case either, but its all about small improvements in performance coming together to give a better system.

1066Mhz RAM will allow the Q6600 to run at 3.2GHz no problems at 1:1 266fsb*12, it'll perform much better than 800mhz ram

 

[Yiuca]

whatever... with a grand and a half to spend why cut corners, theres no need for a premium mobo, or a quad core, or a terabyte of storage space, or a quality case either, but its all about small improvements in performance coming together to give a better system.

1066Mhz RAM will allow the Q6600 to run at 3.2GHz no problems at 1:1 266fsb*12, it'll perform much better than 800mhz ram

You'll have a difficult job, Q6600 Multiplier is unlocked only from 6-9, 12 isn't an option. 800Mhz does the job he needs it too, & Quad core helps it last a little longer in future, A TB of storage well If he doesn't need it he can do way with 1 of the HDDs, but it's unnecessary spending of £100 or so if he's not going to be able to use the performance gain it can give him. Even people with money to burn look for bargains & value for performance, It's just the odd ones that don't that get noticed for burning their money.

Edit: I didn't mention before but at 1:1 with the FSB at 266 the RAM would be at 533Mhz, Underclocked to near half it's speed, now if the FSB is set at 533Mhz then at 1:1 The RAM will run at the 1066Mhz it's supposed too... Any less an FSB than that the RAM will be underclocked.

 

[BENdage]

You'll have a difficult job, Q6600 Multiplier is unlocked only from 6-10, 12 isn't an option. 800Mhz does the job he needs it too, & Quad core helps it last a little longer in future, A TB of storage well If he doesn't need it he can do way with 1 of the HDDs, but it's unnecessary spending of £100 or so if he's not going to be able to use the performance gain it can give him. Even people with money to burn look for bargains & value for performance, It's just the odd ones that don't that get noticed for burning their money.

Edit: I didn't mention before but at 1:1 with the FSB at 266 the RAM would be at 533Mhz, Underclocked to near half it's speed, now if the FSB is set at 533Mhz then at 1:1 The RAM will run at the 1066Mhz it's supposed too... Any less an FSB than that the RAM will be underclocked.

lol fair point, I'm a little tired and cranky today so my maths isnt up to much, which is worrying considering I'm an IFA and I'm gonna flog a half million quid mortgage this afternoon I still reckon 1066 mem would perform better, Core2 loves bandwidth and 1066 would give more to play with. I'm getting most info from here http://www.ocinside.de/assets/memory/memory_compare.gif

 

[BillytheImpaler]

1055 MHz ram is overkill here. Running Intels on a divider doesn't yield much increase in performance so 800 MHz RAM is MORE than enough by a significant margin.