Final spec check and advice please

antc

antc

antc

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Nottinghamshire
Good evening everyone,

Just want to run this final spec past you all and get your opinion on a couple of things if i may before i hit the buy button :cool: The pc will mainly be used for some light gaming, video encoding, photoshop work and so on. My current gfx card is an ati x850 xt platinum which im not currently upgrading but just for your info.

Here is the spec as follows

Cpu - Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail with and arctic cooler 7 pro

Mobo- (one of three, not 100% which one is best)
asus p5k (p35 chipset) premium wifi
asus p5e (x38 chipset)
asus p5k3 (p35 chipset)

Ram - (one of 2 kits, again not sure which is best)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit
or
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit

Right, the things im not sure on, first of all is the chipset. p35 or x38, far as i can see from researching the x38 is brand new, not long out, the p35 has been out a short while. P35 boards seem to be good overclockers whereas the x38 is still a little unknown. I have so far read great reviews on this board asus p5k (p35 chipset) premium wifi and it also happens to be on this week only which is cool.
The ram situation, well thats a little harder, i have picked 2 kits that i believe are virtually identical, same speed and so on, i cant see much difference between the two myself but maybe someone else can? Again both ram kits are on this week only. Im planning on getting 2 of these kits so i have 4 gig ram. Will be running vista on this new machine so it will recognise and utilize the full 4 gigs :)

Also what power supply would you suggest going with this.

Any thoughs and suggestions are most welcome.

Here is the shopping basket of what im looking at.....

pcspecbx8.jpg
 
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Well you've picked a DDR3 motherboard in the form of the P5K3 and DDR2 Ram, not going to work.

In fact I probably wouldn't pick any of those motherboards apart from perhaps the P5K Premium because they all seem slightly overpriced for what they offer.

I'd buy PC6400 Ram since it would be good for approx 3.6ghz with that CPU assuming the chip and cooling is up to it. So in essence what I'm suggesting is something like the Abit IP35 motherboard for ~£80, Geil PC6400 C4 for ~£35 and the Q6600 and you've saved a lot of money there. :)
 
Thanks for the reply semi pro waster, this is exactly the advice im looking for. I was under the asumption that i need to match some fast ram to the cpu (same fsb speed). My plan is to aim for a mild overclock to 3ghz then the cpu will basically be the same as the quad extreme at 600 odd quid. What i dont fully understand is why the pc 6400 ram that you mention is better than the pc 8500 ram i suggested. With ragard to the ram as i said above im aiming to get 4 gig so will this still be ok for overclocking or will this effect things?

Thanks
 
the PC6400 is ok if you plan to clock the cpu upto about 3.6Ghz, which you only plan to clock to the 3Ghz so it will be fine
Really the PC8500 is only ifyou plan on going over 3.6Ghz and to do that you need watercooling or phase cooling

so no point wasting money on that ram
 
Quick expansion of what danman2k says, the FSB on Core2Duo/Quads is 'quad-pumped' so to reach 1066mhz you need 4x 266.5mhz which is PC4200 speeds. Now I wouldn't advise getting Ram that is the bare minimum but as said PC6400 is good for about 3.6ghz with that CPU since it is 400mhz and the CPU has a 9x multiplier.

PC8500 is better in the sense that it can go faster but the timings are often a bit slacker to achieve this and it isn't necessary unless you are going for serious overclocking which you aren't. :)
 
Ok so you would go with pc6400 ram, you mentioned above some geil ram. which particular ram would you choose.

Also on the motherboard front i think i have decided to go for the asus p5k (p35 chipset) premium wifi from the reviews i have read seems a very capable overclocker and is very good quality with lots of features. Would you agree with this?
 
Geil PC6400 2gb Black Dragon, Geil PC6400 C4 or OCZ PC2-6400 C4 are all under the £40 mark with good timings and should be very overclockable.

The motherboard is good I'm sure but since I don't need Wifi all that much (and have a separate PCI card or USB dongle) I personally wouldn't pick the motherboard. However Asus motherboards have always been rock-solid for me and so if that has the features you need/want then I'd say go for it with no reservations. :)
 
semi-pro waster said:
Geil PC6400 2gb Black Dragon, Geil PC6400 C4 or OCZ PC2-6400 C4 are all under the £40 mark with good timings and should be very overclockable.

The motherboard is good I'm sure but since I don't need Wifi all that much (and have a separate PCI card or USB dongle) I personally wouldn't pick the motherboard. However Asus motherboards have always been rock-solid for me and so if that has the features you need/want then I'd say go for it with no reservations. :)
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Well i dont really need the wifi as this pc will be cabled into my router. I picked the board purely on the other specs it offers. Which board would you go for semi pro waster?

I too have had asus boards before and also have found them to be really good. Im open on this one though as there are so many good boards around its hard to choose.
 
Abit IP35 is my board of choice for the moment but Asus are always worth considering, the bog standard Asus P5K seems pretty decent as well. Maybe have a quick search of the Motherboards sub-forum because they know rather more than I do about any issues.
 
I have now thought a little bit more about overclocking and am going to get a dual 120 rad and a swiftech waterblock to cool the cpu only.

Would i be better if im going to overclock more to get faster ram? And if so what ram would you go for guys? Im still wanting 4 gig ram but how much of an effect will this have on the overclock?
 
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