Heart transplant

Vertigo · 5 Jul 2007 at 08:37

Right, ditching my aging AMD system at the end of the month and going back to the dark side

To this end I've been trying to gen up on the current state of affairs in the Intel world as I need to replace the cpu, mobo, memory & cooler.

I've decided to go dual rather than quad core as there's not much I do that will benefit from quad. Not interested in huge overclocking anymore as I've had my fill of that lately and don't really want the hassle of cooling a manically overclocked processor.

So here's my proposed purchases come the end of the month when Intel drops its prices:

Core 2 Duo E6850
Abit IP35
Corsair 2GB XMS2-6400C4 TwinX
Tuniq Tower

Opinions?

The E6850 has all the performance I'd need but I might whack the FSB up to 400Mhz to fully utilise the memory and drop the multiplier to 8 giving me a mild 3.2Ghz overclock of the processor.

toosepin · 5 Jul 2007 at 08:58

I'd go for Crucial/Cellshock RAM, and I'd get the Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R.

I'd also swap the tuniq tower for this

Deluxe1 · 5 Jul 2007 at 09:01

You should beable to keep the default multi and run it at 3600Ghz.

paradigm · 5 Jul 2007 at 09:03

toosepin said:
I'd go for Crucial/Cellshock RAM, and I'd get the Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R.

I'd also swap the tuniq tower for this

Personally I'd go for the G.Skill HZ, going off what I've read on XtremeSystems.

Other than that, this is the exact setup I'm buying come end of July

Vertigo · 5 Jul 2007 at 09:07

Any particular reason to go for Crucial/Cellshock memory? Used Corsair all my life and never had any bad experiences with it so inclined to stick with what I know.

(I presume PC2-6400 CL4 is the right stuff to go for generally?)

Cooler-wise, do you have any links to reviews of coolers such as the Tuniq versus the one you mentioned? Open to suggestions here, just heard good things about the Tuniq.

Why do you recommend the Gigabyte over the Abit, out of interest? Not bothered about DDR3 support as, by the time that becomes a factor, Intel will have changed their sockets and it'll be new mobo time anyway.

Overclocking-wise, I'm basically speccing up on the assumption that I'll go 400x8 for 3.2Ghz - when the time comes I'll probably try for 400x9 and if I can achieve it without excess voltage, heat & cooling then fine.