Its been a while. Need Advice

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Soldato
Joined
7 Nov 2006
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Stockton on Tees
Hello everyone.
Its been a while since i built my own rig. To be exact its been nearly 2 years. In the past year i have not been updated on the developments of the hardware industry so im a little out of touch due to work committments.

Im hoping to build myself a new rig using some parts from my old rig. The parts im hoping to reuse are:-

Akasa Eclipse 62 Case
M-Audio Revolution 5.1 Soundcard
Samsung Spinpoint 40Gb ATA (due to it being very very quiet)
Maxtor 300Gb SATA (due to it being very quiet and a good drive)

My BUDGET IS £1,000

Im hoping for an all round system which is capable of multi-tasking, gaming, good for multimedia use and the general run of the mill stuff.
Also i want a system that is QUIET.

Im hoping to go down the Intel Dual Core Conroe route because from what i've read on this forum is that they dont run too hot and overclock well.

Im hoping to go widescreen and would like a 20" plus (possibly a Dell)

I have been looking at a new Zalman watercooler (their latest one) to cool both the CPU and the GPU to keep noise down (its not cheap - £255).

So what i would like advice/recommendations on is:

What Mobo?
What dual core Conroe?
What WS TFT?
What GPU?
What DDR2?
What Quiet PSU?
What DVD-RW?

I've noticed that most of the mobos that are available only have 1X ATA connection. Would this mean that my ATA100 samsung and my CDRW/DVDRW would be on the same port and would this not slow my system down?

just for info my current rig spec is:

Intel P4 [email protected]
Geil 1Gb DDR500
Zalman Reserator 1
LG 1980 19" TFT
Tagan 400W
 
Last edited:
What Mobo?- gigabyte ds3 (as long as you not going SLI or xfire)
What dual core Conroe? - e6600
What WS TFT? - viewsonic, samsung, dell all good makes (is this to be included in the 1,000 budget) ......if budget for this is seperate, i suggest to go to the monitor section theres a dude in there whose an expert and will tell you exactly what to expect for your money - if u have a budget that is :)
What GPU? - for now get something cheap as in the next few months dx10 will be out so no point in spending 200 - 300 on a gfx card now....you can get a 6600, or 6800 for as little as £40 - £50 to keep you going for a few months...
What DDR2? - geil, corsair 2g sets, preferably 6400
What Quiet PSU? - enermax 620w, seasonic 600w
What DVD-RW? - asus £18.99 jobbie, which writes dual layer blank dvd media at 18x i believe...


I've noticed that most of the mobos that are available only have 1X ATA connection. Would this mean that my ATA100 samsung and my CDRW/DVDRW would be on the same port and would this not slow my system down?
Click to expand...
yes, your samsung and cdrw/dvdrw will be using the same IDE cable, it wont slow down your system, IDE is slower than SATA I believe....but overall you wont notice it....
 
What dual core Conroe? E6600 on offer this week

What DDR2? eIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel on offer this week

Ends tomorrow the offers
 
xirokx said:
What Mobo?- gigabyte ds3 (as long as you not going SLI or xfire)
Click to expand...

Not going to be going SLI or xfire. Does this board provide for good or moderate overclocking potential?

xirokx said:
What GPU? - for now get something cheap as in the next few months dx10 will be out so no point in spending 200 - 300 on a gfx card now....you can get a 6600, or 6800 for as little as £40 - £50 to keep you going for a few months
Click to expand...

dx10 = directX 10? or some new gaming card? If its a new card then how much would one fo these retail at?

Im sold on the E6600 and Geil. Order will be placed as soon as i get home :) thanks
 
xirokx said:
What WS TFT? - viewsonic, samsung, dell all good makes (is this to be included in the 1,000 budget) ......if budget for this is seperate, i suggest to go to the monitor section theres a dude in there whose an expert and will tell you exactly what to expect for your money - if u have a budget that is :)
Click to expand...

at the moment it wil come out of the £1,000 budget but that might change
 
DS3 mobo is one of the best overclocking boards for conroe cpus

yes direct x 10....basically at the moment everything is dx9.....a new dx10 card is out today or tomorrow I believe its the nvidia 8800...and it will sell for around or under £500...but u dont need this yet, because dx10 will not be released for another few months so by the time it is the 8800 for example would have dropped in price...so therefore there is no point you spending a lot of money on a new gfx card at this particular time as the change in technology....will mean in a few months you will be behind a complete generation...

regarding monitor, u need to calculate how much cash u have left over so therefore know what the budget is, then go to the monitor section and they will be able to advise you on what u can get for that amount of cash :)
 
damn, these days a £1,000 cant buy you much hardware. I was looking at the new dell 24" but didnt realise they are like £700 :eek:

I think i'll have to sell a lot of my existing hardware (cpu/ddr/tft etc) to increase the budget.

Looking at the DS3 reviews it looks like a fantastic mobo. SOLD!

thats cpu/ddr/mobo/psu/dvdrw/cdrw taken care of which just leaves the zalman watercooling and gpu.......
 
This is what ive spec'ed so far:

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
£182.11

NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black)
£23.49

Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply
£79.89

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB)
£117.49

Gigabyte GA 965P DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£105.74

Prices incl. VAT. Total so far £508

What you wreckon?
 
arent the enermax 620w cheaper then the seasonic 500w? i dont see how but just checking...

check out the new benq 24" widescreen , its meant to be as good as the dell ones but cheaper.. a little cheaper

re; watercooling, i thought apex swifttech ultra was one of the best packaged watercooling kits around....

you could always get leave the watercooling kit till later and settle for aircooling for now, checkout the tuniq tower or scynthe ninja...
 
i i think im going to have to phase the construction of this rig as altogther its going to cost an arm and an leg. The only benefit in getting it all as one would be saving on delivary costs. Not to mension get the headcahe out the way quickly.

i suppose i can get the TFT and watercooling next month (just have to put some extra hours in at work and cut down on spending for the women)


EDIT: Cant cut down on spending on the women as its XMAS soon...just remembered that :(
money spending always goes up during december. Might have to put *** pc on hold :mad:
 
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