Conroe spec - first build

[Demoniser]

Well its about time that i got a new pc. Main uses will be for gaming and general media use.

Im a complete novice so i won't be overclocking or anything like that. But will this spec do? My main concern is the motherboard, as i notice most people have been selecting Gigabyte mb's.

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
HD-051-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-051-SE)
£29.50 £29.50
MB-003-AK Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-003-AK)
£53.95 £53.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
CA-012-TT Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-012-TT)
£59.95 £59.95
CA-028-AN Antec TruePower 2.0 550W PSU (CA-028-AN)
£64.95 £64.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£174.95 £174.95
Subtotal £728.15
VAT £127.43
Total £855.58

Help is much appreciated

 

[SiriusB]

I would probably go for the .10 generation of Seagate drives. You have a .9. While very good, the .10s are better! You could probably do with a large capacity drive too but that's entirely up to you and your wallet damage limit!

The mobo looks fine to me, you're not the first I have seen this evening to have chosen that board.

I would probably change the PSU to something better. Antec do nice PSUs but I would feel more comfortable with an Enermax or Seasonic PSU. Might cost a little more but well worth the extra.

SiriusB

 

[martianrobot]

Well its about time that i got a new pc. Main uses will be for gaming and general media use.

Im a complete novice so i won't be overclocking or anything like that. But will this spec do? My main concern is the motherboard, as i notice most people have been selecting Gigabyte mb's.

In some respects the Gigabyte DS4 I got has been more trouble than its worth (memory compatibility, BIOS issues and SATA/IDE problems), but in other respects its pretty damn fine (very easy overclock of E6300 cpu by noobish me from 1.86 to 2.8 using the same memory you are getting - I can tell you how if you want)

In fact, you might want to consider getting a E6300 instead as they are so easily overclockable to faster speeds than the E6600 stock at half the price! I think the extra 2mb of cache the E6600 has onboard that warrants its higher price has yet to prove itself - don't take my word though, look around, I'm pretty new to this stuff too and this info is just based on what I read here and elsewhere! See The Asgards efforts at OCing the E6300 to double it's stock speed from 1.8 to 3.6ghz though - amazing!

If you did want to try overclocking you would need to spend more cash on the mobo as the Asrock is more limited in OC'ing potential. Still, the ConroeXfire is probably a good board - I considered getting it as I've always found Asrock boards to be cheap and cheerful but well made and rock solid - I'm running an Asrock Dual939SATA2 in an AMD system I've been messing with recently.

You don't need to worry about spending loads on cooling if overclocking these Core 2 Duo CPUs - my overclocked system runs at very respectable temps with just a quiet 120mm case fan blowing out and the ridiculosly large but highly effective (and quiet) ThermalTake Big Typhoon CPU heatsink and fan.

As regards graphics you might want to consider spending about 25 quid more and getting the HIS X1900XT as they (allegedly) have a much quieter fan than the Connect3D, though you can get better control of fan speeds and run it a bit quieter using 'atitool' like I do with my X1800XT which has the same fairly noisy fan on it (I think).

And spending an extra £20 to get three times the hard drive storage capacity would be well worth it, especially for games and media! You might want to consider getting two drives though - an 80gb for system and perhaps a 250gb for files and media. It does add extra noise to your system though - I find that with modern 7200rpm hard disks two in a system together causes weird rolling vibrations that get very annoying very quickly!

I think the TruePower PSU would be fine, though I do like their Neo ones too. Nice and quiet and reliable modular PSUs.

Have fun!