Is this spec ok?

fredo

fredo

fredo

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24 Jul 2006
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12
I have a budget of 800-900 pounds to put together the most powerful possible gaming system for a friend. He says I can skimp on everything other than raw power; he already has peripherals (monitor, mouse, speakers, etc).

Here is what I came up with;

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB) £212.99
(£250.26) £212.99
(£250.26)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ULTIMATE SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £114.99
(£135.11) £114.99
(£135.11)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620A ATA-100 16MB Cache - OEM £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £173.99
(£204.44) £173.99
(£204.44)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower (Silver) - No PSU £21.99
(£25.84) £21.99
(£25.84)
AMD Athlon Case Badge £0.49
(£0.58) £0.49
(£0.58)
Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Sub Total : £719.41
Shipping : £12.95
Vat : £128.16
Total : £860.52

Is there anything here that is obviously not going to work, fail, or otherwise not be as good as I hope? Any easy to make upgrades? Thanks in advance for any help!
 
It will all work but the Ram is rather expensive when PC6400 ought to be fine for a good overclock. If you get the Asus P5N-E 650 SLi you can unlink the Ram from the FSB anyway so it would work well for overclocking.

I'd change the hard drive to a SATA version as they are (marginally) faster and the cabling is neater.

I'd buy an aftermarket cooler such as the Scythe Ninja or Tuniq Tower, particularly if overclocking is an aim.

With the money saved on the Ram I'd buy a 320mb 8800GTS and possibly a different case but that is just because I don't particularly like the looks. :)
 
the PC8500 RAM is just waste of money, you will be better off putting the money in a better graphics card. In particular why not go for the Connect3D X1950XT for the same price!?

Also it is worth spending a little extra for SATA 2 hard drive, you will be able to notice the difference over ATA100.

What's with the case badge??
 
Thanks for the hard drive tip, completely failed to notice that!

On the ram front; honestly, I don't want to risk overclocking at first (we're a bit hardware inept this end), so with that in mind is the ram the best I could be getting?

The case badge is a vital component, I don't see how this computer will function without one.

So I'm getting a "trade in the ram for a better graphics card message";

What would be the optimum swap in your opinion?
 
Something like this uses either the same or comparable parts and costs around the same but comes with a better graphics card, arguably a better case (although currently out of stock) and a good aftermarket CPU cooler. I'll let you add the case badge though, note you aren't running an Athlon mind. ;)

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £173.99
(£204.44) £173.99
(£204.44)
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £163.99
(£192.69) £163.99
(£192.69)
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler (478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA755) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Sub Total : £718.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
Vat : £127.73
Total : £857.59
 
fredo said:
On the ram front; honestly, I don't want to risk overclocking at first (we're a bit hardware inept this end), so with that in mind is the ram the best I could be getting?
Click to expand...

Yeah but that's exactly what this RAM is designed for - overclocking; it won't be running PC8500 straight out of the box, you need to overclock your system or run a mem divider to run its native PC8500 speed. That's why it's wasted if you don't overclock.

At stock any RAM will default to PC4200 DDR2 533 speed. A decent 2Gb PC6400 kit would be suffecient.
 
Point taken about the ram; if I wished to order today (he's impatient >.<) would our current case be perfectly ok?

I am considering ordering 10 badges and making an interesting geometrical arrangement... I'm not sure if he'll appreciate it though.
 
steve258 said:
Yeah but that's exactly what this RAM is designed for - overclocking; it won't be running PC8500 straight out of the box, you need to overclock your system or run a mem divider to run its native PC8500 speed. That's why it's wasted if you don't overclock.

At stock any RAM will default to PC4200 DDR2 533 speed. A decent 2Gb PC6400 kit would be suffecient.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the explanation :)

NVM, brain not working.
 
Last edited:
You want a AMD badge for a Intel based system ? and you want 10 of them :eek: you sir and your friend are very odd. What is the current case you have ?
 
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £173.99
(£204.44) £173.99
(£204.44)
Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower (Silver) - No PSU £21.99
(£25.84) £21.99
(£25.84)
AMD Athlon Case Badge £0.49
(£0.58) £3.43
(£4.06)
Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £219.99
(£258.49) £219.99
(£258.49)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)

This would be system I'm looking at now then. Main changes are swapped RAM, the slightly better graphics card, and an increased badge quota.

Any final comments?
 
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