How does this look?

SyiAniDe · 27 Mar 2008 at 19:28

Been awhile (3+ years :eek:

) since I built my last PC. Only ever built a handful, so no expert here

. Time to build a newer, more up to date system with a bit of oomph!. Now, looking at the parts these days, all seems a bit daunting and scary

.

I'm trying to get a good solid board, that will give me as few problems as possible during build, yet runs well enough to keep up with the bigger boys. Something that will last a few years.

Choosing a MB has been the hardest part really, with many having issues with certain types of RAM or PSUs. Can you helpful guys take a look over what I've thrown together and see if you can spot any potential problems from the spec? RAM suitability, MB reliability, alternatives that fit/work better/cheaper yet provide best bang for the quid?

System will be used for occasional gaming and some video encoding. I'll be sticking with XP pro for now knowing the full 4GB RAM wont be seen/utilized till I switch to a 64bit OS. Holding off on Vista for as long as I can

Thanks

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Sparkle GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Sparkle GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 PK PC2-6400C4 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400 G.Skill 2GB DDR2 PK PC2-6400C4 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400 £27.99
(£32.89) £55.98
(£65.78)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Sub Total : £410.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £73.65
Total : £494.53

semi-pro waster · 27 Mar 2008 at 20:42

Looks basically fine but is there any reason why you are buying two sets of 2gb Ram and using up all the Ram slots when something like this G.Skill 4gb kit is cheaper and would be fine?

mishima · 27 Mar 2008 at 21:15

I might be tempted to change the HDD to Samsung or Seagate. I prefer these brands, Samsung slightly faster and Seagate offer a bigger warranty which is always a good thing. SPW has a good point, I'd get a 4GB kit instead of 4 sticks of 1GB!

SyiAniDe · 27 Mar 2008 at 21:54

Would there be much difference performance wise, between the 4GB 2x2 kit and the 4 1GB sticks? I was really just looking at the timings of the sets and going on the assumption that the 1GB sticks would be more beneficial to system performance? 4GB is plenty enough these days or is my lack of experience showing again?

Also, would using winxp with 2x2GB sticks have any problem using one of the sticks keeping in mind it only sees/utilizes 3 or 3.5GB in total?

Initially I was gonna go with the Seagate HD of the 32MB cache variety, but read somewhere there have been problems of some sort with the latest version? Was it regarding cache size? I've had a few Seagate HDs and have always been pleased with their performance and reliability.

semi-pro waster · 28 Mar 2008 at 07:32

Using 4x1gb doesn't limit you as much as it did on A64s, however for neatness and possibly reliability (less components equals less links to fail) I'd go for 2x2gb and I don't think the timings are massively important for socket 775. However I could be wrong here.

Using more than 4gb isn't a problem in Windows except that it won't see it all, a 32bit OS has an inherant limit of 4gb total system Ram addressable which means that a 512mb graphics card (for instance) will take up .5gb of that so you are left with somewhere approaching 3.5gb usuable Ram for tasks the computer stores in memory. It doesn't really matter the configuration of the Ram to Windows for that 3.Xgb.

Not sure about problems with Seagate, Samsung did have a bit of a problem with their F1 series where only half the cache was enabled on some drives for some obscure reason but I think it was a simple fix and should be well sorted by now.