Help needed picking a mobo and GFX

jigger

jigger

jigger

Soldato
Joined
28 May 2007
Posts
19,247
I plan to build a SFF system from some parts ive got left from an upgrade.

Ive got,

E6600 that's happy at 3.5GHz ish
2x1Gb Crucial Ballistix Cas3 5300 happy at 390MHz cas3 with 2.19 volts
320GB Seagate SATA 2
Samsung dvdrw
Antec Aria case. Standard Antec 300watt PSU (18amp on the 12volt rail)


So im looking for suggestions for,

A motherboard that can get the best form the E6600.

GFX card thats not to much for the Antec PSU but has enough welly for gamming at 1366x720 and 1440x900

The option of upgrading to a Kentsfield quad would be nice. And enything else would be a bonus.
 
Last edited:
Well my second Asus P5E-VM HDMI has just gone kaput so Im going to advise you to steer well clear of them. Im gonna look at what P45's are kicking around.
 
Somthing for around the £50 mark would be good.

Most of the time i flip a coin between CCS and BF2, but id want a DX10 card for the odd game.

The Antec case has it own PSU, but from what ive seen it quite a good quality one.
I have thought about a new case, but i like the Antec and have to spend quite a lot of money to get somthing better.


Edit:

Would this be pushing it on the power front ?

8800gt
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
 
Last edited:
Thumbs up for the gigabyte one! its possably the only board iv ever bought and had no problems with at all (ctrl+F1 brings up the extra memory options on the bios if you've never had a gigabyte board before which took me a little time to find in the manual...)
 
What sort of FSB have you managed with the Gigabyte ?

It looks like a very good board but, it seems hit and miss in regards to overclocking.
 
300 Watts it pretty low for any gaming graphics card in the last 3 years really. Maybe grab hold of a Volt meter and have a look what wattage you are using now. I know with my E6600 setup and 8800GTX i was using over 300 watts just with 1 hard drive. (OK the 8800GT isn't as powerful as the GTX and Q6600 is more power hungry than E6600 but you get the point.)

I don't want to advise you that it would be enough to hear a few weeks later that its blown. Maybe think about a cheap but reliable one like: OCZ StealthXStream 500W
 
A standard ATX PSU wont fit inside the Antec case.

Ive had the tape measure out and i might be able to get somthing else in, but it going to be tight.

Ive been looking around and found this chart

http://techreport.com/articles.x/11211/16

300 watt may be enough for this system if the PSU is efficient enough and i can keep things cool.
 
Humm you've jsut reminded me i havnt clocked it yet (sg03 build and wanted to get it set up first) ill have a bash over the evening and see how it compaired to the ip35 (shoudl eb similar hopefully and that took my e8200 to 3.95ghz before i needed to sleep)
 
Bum bum bummmmm (lame drum roll) i managed to tear my self of mario kart ds for 20 mins (can not belive i only just got this game) and gave overclocking a bash!

400mhz fsb is fine off the bat with stock volts :) (so thats 3.6 for the q6600, and 3.2 on my e8200) which is wouldnt be too disapointed with.

Couldnt for the life of me get it to 450 though :( (annoyingly as the proc is good for 4ghz easy as i got it on my ip35 which as a new loving owner)

Anyway, its not a bad clocker (for your chip anyway) but your paying to be matx opposed to being the best clocker in the world (i like my sg03 and it all at stock so dont mind too much)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom