Conroe me

Zogger · 10 Aug 2006 at 16:19

Okey, I'm looking at upgrading to conroe now my comp is starting to feel rather outdated. Lets assume I already have a 7900GT so I don't need a gfx card. I'm really looking for a processor, mobo, ddr2 and hdd. I'd like to keep this as close to £300 as possible, but I know that's an unrealistic goal so it can be pushed quite a bit.

Ideally I'd be looking at a conroe, given my budget it's likely to be an E6300. I don't know if it will be cheaper to go retail or oem w\ seperate cooler. I'm not too interested in overclocking but it's a possibility.

Will be used for gaming and general.. stuff. Again, given the budget, the ram will be 1GB for now. I'm hoping to keep the whole thing open for upgrading in a year or two. Maybe SLi but I'm not too bothered atm.

Not sure if I need a psu. If I do I'm willing to consider it a collateral cost. Can someone tell me what minimum power I should be aiming for and possibly recommend one?

Hard drive should be 80GB or greater. I currently have an IDE hdd and I'd like to swap to using SATA2 as my primary (unsurprisingly), possibly temporarly using the ide one to copy stuff over if possible...

Finally, my current spec is an xp 2800+ (oem), 9800 pro 128, 1GB DDR1, A798X-E mobo. Any idea what I could get selling this (never overclocked). I'm sure not a lot but it's worth offsetting some of the costs.

Won't be buying till I'm back at uni in a month anyway.

Thanks

.

j00ni · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:05

Zogger said:
I'm hoping to keep the whole thing open for upgrading in a year or two. Maybe SLi but I'm not too bothered atm.

There aren't actually any SLi conroe motherboards available yet unfortunately, but if you aren't buying for a month that's not a problem. In fact I'd advise that you wait until then to spec up and allow the market to settle and any issues to be ironed out - also prices may have dropped considerably in that time

Zogger said:
Not sure if I need a psu. If I do I'm willing to consider it a collateral cost. Can someone tell me what minimum power I should be aiming for and possibly recommend one?

What psu do you have at the moment?

Zogger · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:08

j00ni said:
What psu do you have at the moment?

uh yeh actually I'm pretty sure I'll need to change the psu now. I can't even work out the brand. it's 450W but given the genericness I've always been a little unsure about it and i should probably change it anyway.

you're right I should probably wait for spec'ing, I'm just need something to read, bored of sitting here doing nothing...

j00ni · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:15

At the moment, a conroe system (even using the cheapest components) with cpu, ram, mobo, hdd and psu would come in at least £50 over budget

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£109.95 £109.95

MY-057-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400UDC) (MY-057-GL)
£59.95 £59.95

HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£14.95 £14.95

MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£44.95 £44.95

CA-004-SK FSP Sparkle FSP400-60 Blue Storm 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-004-SK)
£36.95 £36.95

HD-051-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-051-SE)
£29.50 £29.50

Subtotal £296.25
VAT £51.85
Total £348.10

hp7909 · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:26

Definately need to up your budget! But if you have access to here it might help raise your hopes up

& E6300 isn't 'Conroe' but 'Allendale' (see)

Zogger · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:29

ah that's news to me, I just lumped them together.. somewhat like this bit of incredibly sticky blu-tac I'm fiddling with which really needs throwing away.. guess I should pay more attention.

Yeh like I say the budget was capable of pushing a long way. But if I had have said £400 budget then I would have ended up spending 500. Just helps keep it in line.. lol

I don't have access to 'here'. Is it the members market or something?
edit: if so I might just about have access to that by the time I want to buy but I dunno if I'll make the post requirement

. I've been lurking for ages before signing up, should have been more active eh..

edit again: err... actually I seem to have forgotten how long a month is. no chance.. lol.

j00ni · 10 Aug 2006 at 17:33

conroe seems to be used to describe all core2 cpus (both by component manufacturers and users), for example if a mobo is 'conroe ready' it will take all core2duo chips

hp7909 · 11 Aug 2006 at 07:32

Zogger said:
{snip}I don't have access to 'here'. Is it the members market or something?{snip}

'Price Check', so that you can have a rough figure of how much your stuff could sell for (elsewhere). Doubt you have access to MM yet :confused:

/ignore me. just trying to be 'politically' correct (Conroe/Allendale) :rolleyes: