Help need spec check etc

jonomacg

jonomacg

jonomacg

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Joined
28 Jul 2006
Posts
40
Ok so my budget of £1100 got cramped to around £700.

My brother keeps telling me that to save money i need to drop an e6600 and to compete get an AMD, he and my father both agree that AMD's are better but with the new conroe's i don't know.

So i made 2 specs, 1 for AMD and 1 for Intel. I need your input in what to change (if needed) and also why i should go for intel over amd.

AMD Spec:

CP-168-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-168-AM) 1
£109.95 £109.95
MB-142-AS Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-142-AS) 1
£114.95 £114.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG) 1
£74.95 £74.95
CA-010-TT Thermaltake VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-010-TT) 1
£63.95 £63.95
HD-000-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 80GB 800JB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-000-WD) 1
£27.95 £27.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) 1
£21.95 £21.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG) 1
£46.95 £46.95
SP-026-LG Logitech Precision Gaming Headset (SP-026-LG) 1
£17.95 £17.95
MY-077-CR Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ballistix Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT6464AA804) (MY-077-CR) 1
£104.95 £104.95
Subtotal £583.55
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £104.39
Total £700.89

Intel Spec:

MY-057-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400UDC) (MY-057-GL) 1
£74.95 £74.95
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI) 1
£104.95 £104.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG) 1
£74.95 £74.95
HD-000-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 80GB 800JB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-000-WD) 1
£27.95 £27.95
CA-010-TT Thermaltake VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-010-TT) 1
£63.95 £63.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG) 1
£46.95 £46.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) 1
£21.95 £21.95
SP-026-LG Logitech Precision Gaming Headset (SP-026-LG) 1
£17.95 £17.95
CP-127-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-127-IN) 1
£144.95 £144.95
Subtotal £578.55
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £103.52
Total £695.02

Any ideas? Please feel free to build a spec for me and i'll happily read through it to see the changes i can make :)
 
I'd go for this in preference to both, I'd buy a bigger hard drive as well if possible but Conroe is better than the X2s at the moment in general so I'd have to say that your brother and dad are wrong. You should also be able to overclock nicely even though it should be faster at stock speeds.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.49 £107.49
MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - Retail (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£126.95 £126.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£65.95 £65.95
HS-020-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA)
£28.95 £28.95
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
SP-026-LG Logitech Precision Gaming Headset (SP-026-LG)
£17.95 £17.95
Subtotal £593.09
VAT £103.80
Total £696.89
 
Only problem with that is that i have no idea how to overclock :(

Nice setup tho, looking into that mobo as i personally do fancy the DS4 over it.
 
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) 1
£21.95 £21.95
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN) 1
£107.49 £107.49
HS-020-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA) 1
£28.95 £28.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL) 1
£124.95 £124.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN) 1
£65.95 £65.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) 1
£126.95 £126.95
SP-026-LG Logitech Precision Gaming Headset (SP-026-LG) 1
£17.95 £17.95
MB-152-AS Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-152-AS) 1
£134.95 £134.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA) 1
£33.95 £33.95
Subtotal £663.09
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £117.96
Total £792.00

How does this look? Things which have changed are motherboard/hard drive.
 
I think the general advice is that a DS3 or DS4 is better with the 6300 or 6400 Conroe chips and the Asus for the 6600 so I'd change the motherboard to a Gigabyte as you originally intended.

If you want to know about overclocking then take a look through the Overclocking & Cooling sub-forum on here, there will also be little bits of advice in the Motherboards forum and the CPU forum.

The hard drive is fine, it offers double the capacity for not much more cash so a good choice.
 
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN) 1
£107.49 £107.49
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI) 1
£104.95 £104.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL) 1
£124.95 £124.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) 1
£126.95 £126.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA) 1
£33.95 £33.95
HS-020-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA) 1
£28.95 £28.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN) 1
£65.95 £65.95
HD-095-MD Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 80GB 6V080E0 SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-095-MD) 2
£26.95 £53.90
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) 1
£21.95 £21.95
Subtotal £669.04
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £119.00
Total £798.99

So this would be an ok setup to build with? I'm toying with idea of overclocking by looking at a similar set up which Oldman has, but wait til i've got the rig first before thinking about it ;)
 
For a £700 budget you appear to be taking the mickey slightly :p The system looks fine but can I ask why the 2x80gb Maxtors? If it is for Raid0 I'd suggest you don't bother, it increases the risk of data loss and for most uses doesn't offer much of a performance increase.
 
I realised that i didnt have a enough system storage and also was thinking of trying raid 0, but if im right in you saying. Would i be perfectly happy not running any drives in Raid 0 and buying a single 160gb drive?
 
Raid0 does have its uses but unless you are working with large data files(e.g. graphics/video/sound) then you probably aren't among the users who would really benefit. I'd suggest just getting the 160gb hard drive and saving the cash initially then seeing if you need it later.
 
Sleepless said:
Is Raid worth it for gaming?
Click to expand...

Some people say yes it does help them, for me personally it isn't worth it although I have experimented in the past because I use my PC for more than just gaming and reliability comes ahead of the outright fastest possible performance. I'd suggest most people still won't see a huge benefit for gaming either but if you have the spare cash to do it and don't have anything vital stored then I wouldn't stop someone from doing it :)
 
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