Help me with a new PC build, please.

Hunders

Hunders

Hunders

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A friend of mine has asked me to build him a new PC as his A64 SD3700+ based system is getting on a bit now. He wants a nice new quad core based PC that will be mainly used for gaming.

I have made a little list of what I am thinking of getting but I need a little guidance on weather or not the parts that I have chosen are good and compatible with one another.

Here is what I am thinking:

Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard --- £88.11

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz Guaranteed to run at 3.30GHZ (1466FSB) - Retail --- £187.99

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 DHX PC2-6400C4DHX TwinX (2x1GB) X2(Total 4GB) --- £82.22

Seasonic M12 Modular 700W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply --- £103.39

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66I-02059) --- £70.49

Postage --- £8.95

TOTAL = £542.72

He already has an Antec P180 tower, DVD drives and hard drives and, from what I hear, Nvidia are going to be releasing their new graphics cards next month so I have advised him to hold off for a while and carry on using his 8800GTS 320MB for the time being.

I have a few questions regarding a few of the above items, the first being about the processor. It says that this processor is guaranteed to overclock to 3.3GHz, is this going to be possible on an air cooler or does this only apply to the more extreme water/phase cooling solutions? Also, is the motherboard a capable overclocker and is the RAM any good?

If anyone wants to go over what I have chosen and suggest alternatives I should look into or anything else that you might suggest I would be grateful.

Cheers.:)
 
Does your friend have a budget? My suggestion for a similar price to in your quote would be (but there's no definite solution):

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail - £132.76

Seasonic M12 Modular 700W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply - £103.39

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) - £17.61

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) - £63.44

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PK PC2-8500C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK) - £105.74

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £111.61

TOTAL (inc. VAT + Shipping) - £545.07

I know the one thing you stated was quad core, but the majority of games do not know how to utilise all four cores so you'll probably get better performance from the E8400 (and this is a good overclocker as well, I believe - hence the Arctic Cooling Freezer). If your friend is absolutely desparate for quad core, get a standard Q6600 (the premium you pay for "guaranteed to run at 3.3GHZ isn't worth it) or the more expensive Q9300 (although this is still cheaper than the cpu you were oriignally looking at).

The motherboard/PSU/RAM decision is harder because there's a lot of good products around - you could probably knock £100 off the total price compared to what I've suggested with little/no performance hit. The motherboard I've suggested is one of the new Asus boards using the P45 chipset, which haven't been released quite yet, but if he's waiting for the new Nvidia Graphics cards he may as well wait for everything else as prices will come down.

Also, I've put 64-bit Vista in there because you won't see all the RAM in 32-bit.
 
Thanks for your input. He didn't state a total price that he is willing to pay but knowing him I would have a guess that it would be around the £600-£650 mark as this should get something quite suitable. Obviously if I can get him something that offers great performance for less then that would be better.

I will tell him about the dual vs quad core situation and could probably persuade him into settling for a dual if you are right in saying that a quad will offer no real benefits for gaming.

I didn't realise that I would need Vista 64bit in order the get the most out of 4GB so thanks for clearing that one up.

Cheers.
 
i'd drop the psu to the corsair 520/620w.

mobo wise for the q6600, unless he's considering using sli i'd for a p35 mobo like the asus p5k or abit ip35, sushi mentioned the p45 but i wouldn't look at them for a bit after release to make sure the little kinks get ironed out.

as mentioned if you're moving to vista go 64 bit not 32.

memory wise have a look at the 2x2gb setups rather than 4x1gb.
 
Thanks.

Regarding the PSU; would the cables be long enough to reach everything in an Antec P180, especially the 4-pin wire that goes near the CPU. If you didn't know, the PSU area in a P180 is at the bottom in its own chamber so the cables need to run along the bottom then up through a hole into the mobo chamber so the cables need to be longer than for most other, normal, tower cases.
 
If that £650 includes the Graphics Card, you might want to look at something more like this (the Graphics Card just being a place holder for an estimate of how much it might cost):

EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (E871) - £211.49
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail - £132.76
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) - £17.61
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) - £63.44
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £76.36
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU - £64.61
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) - £70.49

Total (inc. VAT + delivery): £648.46

I don't know about the PSU, but I would think you'll be alright.
 
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