Cannibal build

Snograt · 13 Sep 2008 at 21:36

There, that got your attention. Here's what I mean...

Rig as in sig - except that I've totally given up trying to run all four 2GB RAM modules in EPP. It's a 780i; it doesn't work. The two 8800GTXs? Pointless really - to cap it all, I just bought the Rockstar complete works from Steam - GTA I II III VC SA Manhunt Max Payne I and II - most of it will not work in SLI. Stupid, I know, but it was the final straw.

Scenario 2: 11-year-old son has my old cast-off. An Athlon 1800XP, X800, half a gig of DDR. Running Vista ><

My idea: I have a spare 680i mobo, those two unused sticks of Ballistix Tracer and a BFG 8800GTX. Plus a CM Stacker to lump it in. Oh, and a 22" Iiyama TFT.

All I need is a CPU, HDD and PSU.

I'm thinking a 500GB F1, probablt a budget Antec 500W and maybe a E7200 Wolfie. Working with a limited budget, is that likely a good bang for my buck?

Likely to save up for the next revision GTX260 for meself

Ben M · 13 Sep 2008 at 21:52

the 320 or 640 gb versions of the F1 are faster than the 500.

Snograt · 14 Sep 2008 at 01:58

Oh, thanks for that - that's step one, then ^^

Hmm, OP is missing something now I look at it again. I'm ripping out the unwanted/superfluous parts from my rig to build my son a new one, leaving me with the QX6700, one 8800GTX and 4GB of Ballistix.

Berserker · 14 Sep 2008 at 02:10

Optical drive? Though I'd assume if there's one in the old Athlon that'd probably do.

HangTime · 14 Sep 2008 at 09:13

I say go for it, since you're actually going to get some use out of it (big upgrade for your son). I've cannibalised bits and pieces before to build secondary rigs but they normally just sit around not getting booted up for months and I wonder why I bothered buying that cheapass case/psu/ramstick to get it up and running.

Maybe take a look at secondhand gear as you can probably pickup a Core2 cpu cheaply from people upgrading to Wolfdale. If you'd rather buy new then maybe consider the new E5200

Snograt · 15 Sep 2008 at 16:23

Berserker said:
Optical drive? Though I'd assume if there's one in the old Athlon that'd probably do.

Forgot to mention that - got a pair of good drives that I replaced purely because they were PATA

HangTime said:
I say go for it, since you're actually going to get some use out of it (big upgrade for your son). I've cannibalised bits and pieces before to build secondary rigs but they normally just sit around not getting booted up for months and I wonder why I bothered buying that cheapass case/psu/ramstick to get it up and running.

Maybe take a look at secondhand gear as you can probably pickup a Core2 cpu cheaply from people upgrading to Wolfdale. If you'd rather buy new then maybe consider the new E5200

Have to be new - I don't trust the second-hand market in general and I'm only on 96 posts here (currently) so the member's market is out.

This E5200 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-251-IN ? Is that a better option purely due to value for money? I know the difference between that and the E7200 is only .02GHz but the 7200 has 3GB L2 as opposed to the 1GB on the 5200. Can you give me a brief pros and cons on the two - it's only a £30 difference but is it worth £30?

Thank you for your time

HangTime · 15 Sep 2008 at 21:11

I think that's a mistake on the ocuk site, the E5200 has 2meg cache, not 1meg.

Main difference aside from the extra meg of cache is the E7200 runs on a 1066 FSB rather than 800. Obviously this means that it is faster than the E5200 but personally I don't think it's worth the extra cash (50% increase in price). If you are planning on overclocking the high multiplier on the E5200 can also be of benefit since it gives you a bit more headroom without having to go too high on the FSB.