help need with upgrade

flexo786

flexo786

flexo786

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9 May 2007
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1,100
hi looking to upgrade my dads pc soon. at the moment he has
a 74gig raptor
asus a8 sli
amd athlon 3700
6600gt.
hanspree 19 widescreen

will be using the monitor and the 74gig raptor plus ill be giving him a 250gig western digital hard drive that i have.
the computer will be used for general office work plus other things. wont be used for things like gaming, photoshop etc.
he two some requirement which are
-it has to power 2 monitors one is going to be the 19 wide screen he's already got and the other one is either gonna be a 32-37lcd or a 22-24 inch pc monitor as he hasn't yet decided what hes getting.
-power supply cannot be that noisy.

looking at other peoples threads on these forums i have come up with a spec but am not sure on a couple of things

Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4L nForce 650i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £66.96
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £25.84
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £54.04 Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £44.64


-the chip is gonna be overclocked. hoping to get it to 2.8-3ghz. now when i ordered my pc last year i chose a 650i motherboard because it was easier to overclock due to the ram and processor running separately not linked like Intel chipsets. is this still the same or would i be better off with a p35 board?

-as it is going to be powering 2 monitors i was looking for a hdcp compliant card and one with 2 dvi ports. the best one seems to be the ati h2600 pro. is this true or is are the nvidia 85/8600 better?

-chip wise is there any difference between the e2160/e2180 and do they both overclock as well as each other?

-is the corsair power supply noisy and is the taggan better as im leaning towards that as it modular
Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU

thanks for any help
flexo786
 
The P35 chipset is very good for overclocking but if you are used to 650i based motherboards then I see no reason not to get another one and save on the time learning how to get the best out of it, either motherboard ought to be more than capable of what you require.

I think the H2600pro is probably your best option here since games aren't really an issue.

The E2160 has a 9x multiplier and the E2180 has a 10x multiplier, it isn't likely to make a huge amount of difference to the overclock you will get because the Ram is guaranteed capable of 400mhz which puts you at 3.6ghz and 4ghz respectively and to reach those speeds you will probably need better cooling than you have.

Not entirely sure on the last one, the Corsairs have a general reputation for being pretty quiet but I've noticed a couple of people say that the VX isn't quite as quiet as the HX range so the Tagan might be a better option.
 
thanks for that. got a couple of more questions:

-is the gigabyte the best 650i board in that price range and does it support wolfdale and quadcore chips as i seem to remember the p5n-e having problems.
-how different is over clocking on a p35 board then a 650i board as Ive been reading up on it and p3h baords seem to be more future proof.
-can you recommend a decent heatsink for less than around £20
 
The Gigabyte should be as good as any, the user reviews sound encouraging. It supports 1333mhz CPUs so I see no reason why it wouldn't work with Wolfdale or the 45nm quad cores but you might want to wait for further confirmation.

The basic options will be the same more or less. Though you might be getting confused with the X38 as being more future proof because it supports PCI-E 2.0 and about half use DDR3 which is very expensive for the performance.

The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro fits into your budget and is a very good cooler for the price.
 
can i ask what is the best value for money p35 board for under £70 that supports the wolfdale and quadcores while also being a good overclocker.
 
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dont need to answer above question. my dad just ordered

Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £37.99 1 £37.99
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £21.99 2 £43.98
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £30.00 1 £30.00

plus a e2180 and a gigabyte p35-ds3 board that takes both ddr2 and ddr3.

thanks for your help semi pro waster.
got one last question for you. the x1950pro is hdcp compliant right???
 
Looks good then, the X1950pro is HDCP compliant but as I understand it (and my knowledge of HD is pretty limited) you might also need other HDCP compliant parts since it is just a transfer standard to prevent non-encrypted high definition content being transmitted between parts.

It certainly is HDCP compliant though according to the ATI/AMD website.
 
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