Dammit, rig too slow now - time for upgrade.

[spireite]

Hi gurus! (have I sucked up enough??)


After requesting a spec back in August, sadly events prevented me upgrading (needed a laptop shortly after then which took precedence).

Since then things have changed hugely on the h/w front, so here I am again. I'd been struggling along, but BioShock et al just aint going to work on the current rig acceptably (in sig).

Need everything bar Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, and OS. I may overclock too. All of debate for me is whether to go Quad. Need 4GB memory too. Budget is 700 Max, but lower better.

Cheers lads!!

 

[caithomas44]

do you need need a quad as that maybe pushing it for 700, what graphics are you looking for?

 

[tomanders91]

do you need need a quad as that maybe pushing it for 700, what graphics are you looking for?

you could easily get a quad in 700

 

[spireite]

I'm assuming that at 8800GT is as high as I need for 1680x1050. On the quad question I dunno. I'm guessing it'll be overkill and that can always be done later. I doubt many games will make use of a quad!

 

[semi-pro waster]

Squeaking in under the budget but a very powerful system and offers overclocking options.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £34.99
(£41.11) £69.98
(£82.22)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £135.99
(£159.79) £135.99
(£159.79)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.99
(£18.79) £15.99
(£18.79)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Sub Total : £579.90
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £103.40
Total : £694.25

 

[spireite]

SPW - I noticed a few people having 2nd thoughts about the Gigabyte boards. On the other hand, that spec should leave my existing Shuttle choking in its wake!

 

[rulocal]

I would not bother with Quad at this stage personally. The e2180 will clock to 3Ghz, no problem, and you really won't be CPU limited in anything at the moment. In 6-12 months time when Quad cores may be more useful, they will also be a lot cheaper, and you will be able to upgrade for a lot less than the 100 extra it will cost you now.

 

[ByteJuggler]

SPW - I noticed a few people having 2nd thoughts about the Gigabyte boards. On the other hand, that spec should leave my existing Shuttle choking in its wake!

Personally I would avoid the P35C DS3R, for several reasons.

Firstly as you rightly point out, some people have had problems with them wrt compatibility with some sticks of RAM. Some versions of that board also (I gather) overvolt the RAM, which isn't ideal obviously and doesn't help with the compatibility issue either.

Secondly, while they have DDR3 support, the DD3 cannot be used in conjunction with DDR2, so in order to make use of the DDR3 feature, you'll have to completely replace your DDR2 RAM at some future point. I'd guess that for most people when that future time rolls by, they'll be replacing the motherboard anyway, so it's somewhat of a useless feature IMO.

Thirdly, the DS3R doesn't have a few other rather more useful features, including a second PCI x8 slot (for dual gfx card crossfire setup or presumably any other high bandwidth PCI-E card), Firewire ports and e-Sata ports, all 3 features of which is missing from the DS3R but present on the P35 DS3P. I can also vouch for the DS3P and DS4 from experience, having specced and built several systems with these boards.

 

[spireite]

I would not bother with Quad at this stage personally. The e2180 will clock to 3Ghz, no problem, and you really won't be CPU limited in anything at the moment. In 6-12 months time when Quad cores may be more useful, they will also be a lot cheaper, and you will be able to upgrade for a lot less than the 100 extra it will cost you now.

Dropping to the 2180 would give me leverage on better components elsewhere I guess.

 

[spireite]

features of which is missing from the DS3R but present on the P35 DS3P. I can also vouch for the DS3P and DS4 from experience, having specced and built several systems with these boards.

I have noted that people seem to go for the DS3R, or an ABit IP35 board of some description. Are they 'much of a muchness'?

I I were to drop to an OC'd E2180, then the budget can go into slightly better MB I guess!

 

[rulocal]

Dropping to the 2180 would give me leverage on better components elsewhere I guess.

Yes, but I would personally keep the money for a future CPU upgrade.

 

[closeratio]

I'm using a p35c ds3r at the moment to overclock my e2180, and I'm running into some problems when changing the voltages. Not sure if this is an isolated case though. From what I hear from other people it's not a bad board though

 

[rulocal]

I'm using a p35c ds3r at the moment to overclock my e2180, and I'm running into some problems when changing the voltages. Not sure if this is an isolated case though. From what I hear from other people it's not a bad board though

I don't want to hijack the thread, but what problems are you having. I may be able to help.

 

[balls]

I've had a DS3p and DS3r in different rigs, found the ds3p to be more stable at higher clocks with 4 gb ram.. hope that helps

 

[fail at the internets]

I have a P35C-DS3R works fine for me.

 

[ByteJuggler]

I have noted that people seem to go for the DS3R, or an ABit IP35 board of some description. Are they 'much of a muchness'?

The DS3P is about the same as the Abit IP35 Pro. The DS3R is about the same as the "Standard" IP35 (cept for DDR support IIRC.) I don't really know why people are so fond of the P35C DS3R generally, presumably due to the DDR3 support, but to me that's a bit of a white elephant feature... as I've said the DS3P seems stabler and has more features. On paper the Abit's are the best clockers of the 2 brands (but not by much), so in practice (in terms of clocking) they are roughly a muchness.

For reference and comparison purposes, here is the mentioned motherboard specs:
Gigabyte's Abit IP35 Abit IP35 Pro

 

[closeratio]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but what problems are you having. I may be able to help.

I've got a thread somewhere else asking people for help. I've tried all the suggestions (so far) but none of them have worked. It's to do with the voltages not bein kept when you save them to the BIOS and exit. Link here, don't wanna hijack this thread. From post #7, earlier problems don't exist anymore. Thanks

 

[semi-pro waster]

The DS3P is about the same as the Abit IP35 Pro. The DS3R is about the same as the "Standard" IP35 (cept for DDR support IIRC.) I don't really know why people are so fond of the P35C DS3R generally, presumably due to the DDR3 support, but to me that's a bit of a white elephant feature...

The DS3R was about £10 cheaper than the DS3P for quite a while which on a tight budget can be fairly significant if all the other parts are pared down to the minimum. But since the prices are now very similar and the DS3P offers more (I'm generally in agreement about the DDR3 being a bit useless but it is still a different feature) then I'd definitely go with the DS3P.

 

[spireite]

Thanks everyone... thats immensely useful....

I feel the CC quaking in its wallet!!

 

[Cr0fty]

Do you need a case?

I've probably missed something. This was already in my basket from another spec