Help building a machine.

[Scope]

Not sure which Gigabyte board you're referring to but both the 945P-S3 and 965P-S3 have three PCI slots. They only have one PCIe x16 but that's all you need for graphics.

Jonathan

Hmm, so it has.. I dont know where I got the 1 PCI from.

Thats OK then. Means I can get a PCI card for the missing firewire ports.

 

[HangTime]

Dont mind overclocking as long as I dont need to mess around with extra fans, etc.

I wouldnt want to spend too much..

Thanks.

Might be worth considering the E6400 as this comes in around £70 cheaper than the E6600 and when both overclocked the difference in clockspeed will likely be a lot less. OK so the E6600 has twice the cache, but it also costs 50% more.

If I was building a new system today, I'd probably get a E6400, 2gig of PC6400 (Gskill/Geil) and a decent, compatible overclocking motherboard recommended by others.

 

[Scope]

Right, Im nearly ready to order. I have to get a new PSU (Thinking Corsair 520W), but was wondering if the DS3/DS4 is worth getting over the S3 if I intend to do some overclocking.. Not decided on whether to get 6300/6400 or 6600 yet, but might as well overclock whatever I get.

 

[Scope]

Order has now been placed, too late to suggest anything, but here goes:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM 1 £177.99
Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard 1 £74.99
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit 1 £124.99
BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail 1 £84.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM 1 £56.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) 1 £13.99
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) 1 £59.99

Do I need to look for a particular week/month build date for the CPU (for overclocking), or is it not like that any more?

What could I expect to OC to for the above?