Core2 Experts - Spec Check Please

[PhilipM]

Hi,

About to take the plunge with a new Core2 rig. Any comments on the spec below? The most intensive things I do are games (BF2142 mostly) and some video editing. It needs to be a fairly quiet beast too. Budget is £700ish.


Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 PSU - Black Nickel £34.99

120mm fan looks like a good idea, are these really quiet? Is this PSU powerful enough to run everything and overclock to 450FSB/3.2GHz+? If not, how do I spec a correct one?

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £94.99

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £99.99

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400UDC) £79.99

I know 2GB would be better, but I will add more later. This has timings of 4-4-4-12 which is pretty quick. Any issues with this and the mobo? Does this memory overclock well on tight timings?

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £114.99

Is this the sub £150 daddy? Also, is it quiet?

Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £36.49

I have one of these already, so intend to use raid 0 to improve performance.

Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail £19.99

Most drives seem similar, so might as well get the light scribe one, right?

Thermaltake Sonic Tower 4-in-1 Noiseless Heatpipe (Socket 939/754/775/478) CPU Cooler (CL-P0071) £19.95

Papst 4412 F/2 GLL Silent 120mm Fan - 3 Pin £11.95

For use with the above CPU cooler. Will this be both silent and efficient enough to keep my precious Core2 within acceptable temps when overclocked and loaded? (I have Artic Silver 5 already to seat the cooler properly too.)

Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case £63.99

Looks like a sweet case with lots of airflow and little noise. Is there anything quieter out there for similar money?

Will a sound card make any difference to game performance? I don't mean the sound quality, just getting those extra frames per second!

Thanks
Philip

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'd not call myself an expert but my advice for what it is worth is: Change the PSU to at least the 460w version of the Akasa as you will be taxing it with a fairly substantial overclock. If necessary get the DS3 to save funds, it doesn't differ that much from the DS4 other than it doesn't have firewire or Crossfire potential. The Ram is fine and there are no problems with adding in another 2 sticks of Ram later.

DVDRW drives are probably all much of a muchness although I'd pick an NEC or Pioneer but this is pretty much personal preference.

As for the heatsink I'd either go with the Arctic Freezer 7 which is cheaper or the Tuniq Tower which is more expensive, I don't know much about the Thermaltake.

//edit and as to your soundcard question, not hugely, it might make a minor difference in FPS terms but onboard sound is very good now and on such a fast CPU the amount of CPU cycles saved by going for an add-in soundcard is minimal.

 

[PhilipM]

Thanks for the info. I've found a nice power calculator, but it's on a competitor's site, so I can't post here. A 500w PSU is the way to go!

The heatsink I'm not sure of. I wanted to keep everything as quiet as possible, hence using a 12cm papst fan with the cpu cooler. Must look up some more reviews.

Thanks again,
Philip