Help with buying new CPU + MOBO + RAM £400 - £500 MAX

kevy1986 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:21

Hey Guys,

I'm in the market for a new pc but very unsure what to be spending my money on. I have already purchased a ANTEC 902 + 700w PSU and have a 8800 GTS gfx card ( Which to be honest i'm happy with )

i'm currently running a 3200 AMD 64 ( OC to 3700 ) and 1.5 gig DDR Ram. As you can imagine it's not really what'd you'd call a balanced mix and would like help choosing a new CPU + MOBO + RAM

My budget is £400 - £500 ( Max )

I would like to have a Quad Core system for use in gaming and the usual stuff, encoding AVI's and just day to day tasks.

I have been looking at the new i7's and also the Q6600 + range. I'm not really sure if it's worth spending the extra and going all out on the I7 or if i'd be better getting a Q6600 and clocking the hell out of it. I'm also unsure if i'd be better getting DDR3 or DDR2 ? I would ideally like to have something clocked to 3.3 or 3.6. Also if I went DDR2 and got 8gig would this hamper OCing at all ?

Any suggestions would be appreciated a lot

geowal19 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:25

How about this a great board and RAM:

Your basket

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £166.74
(£144.99) £166.74
(£144.99)

Abit IP35 Pro XE Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £65.54
(£56.99) £65.54
(£56.99)

2 of these: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500 Gold Edition 4GB Dual Channel (OCZ2G10664GK) £51.74
(£44.99) £103.48
(£89.98)

Sub Total : £291.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.49
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £45.07
Total : £345.52

kevy1986 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:39

Cooler ?

That CPU + RAM were exactly what I was looking at. I'm really not sure what motherboard would be best as there are so many differn't kinds. If I got that + a 120 CPU Cooler do you think I could hit 3.3 along with the 8Gig of Ram ? If so that seems like a pretty good idea. Liking the price a lot better than the I7 idea also

Trunks9486 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:39

I wouldnt get the Q6600 today. Pretty old really.

The Phenom II 940 at 191 is great value. overclocks a lot too and is better 45nm technology, probably consumes less power too.

kevy1986 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:43

i've allways like AMD better but just read Intel have taken over recently. I was interested in the AMD but read sometimes the motherboards won't take the new chips unless they have a bios flash and I wouldn't have another chip to do that. The AMD option does like nice tho. What would you recommend ?

shinester184 · 22 Feb 2009 at 00:24

You can't go wrong with Phenom II, but as you said getting motherboards which work with them straight from the box - you don't get much choice!! What is this rig going to used for btw?

Paul2506 · 22 Feb 2009 at 01:33

I used to swear by AMD but since i moved over to intel i have not looked back since.

The Q6600 is a very good cpu for multitasking,

But for gaming cpu, I would go with:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £149.49inc VAT

or

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £172.49inc VAT

And both are great for oc'ing.

For the mobo i would choose:

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £114.99 inc VAT

And for memory i would choose:

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Supplied with Airflow Fan (TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF) £91.99 inc VAT

I would say this memory because i have the upgrade to it the Corsair DDR3 and they are amazing ram sticks

Total : £366.23 inc VAT