Long time Browser - Spec me up

chaders

chaders

chaders

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178
Hi All,

As a long time browser here I thought this would be the best place to 'Gen' up on a new computer. I bought the components for my last build from OCUK and it's now time to start again. I'm not an overclocker as such and the main purpose of my PC's is to run Flight sim (Don't giggle at the back). With the new FSX coming out soon and because of the death of one of my OCZ memory sticks reducing my current ram to 256!! I've thought it best to rebuild from scratch. My current specs are:-

P4 3.06Ghz (northwood)
Gigabyte GA-SINXP1394
ATI 9700pro
OCZ 256MB PC3700 (Was 512)
WD Caviar 80GB (8MB Cache)
LiteOn LTR-52246S CD-RW
Chieftech Scorpio case
19" CRT monitor

I've put off just replacing the Ram as to be fair I think this systems well past it's best. I'm planning to budget around £1000-£1500 and am thinking I should be able to use the case if I replace the PSU. My thoughts so far are for either a 6600 or a 6700 Conroe with 2 gig of ram. My usual Resolution for games is 1280x1078 so I'm gussing I could get a cheeper GFX card than top end and save the difference for DX10 when it arrives. Since most HDD's seem to be SATA these day's would I be better off retiring the Caviar and setting a couple of new drives in Raid 0?? The motherboard is where I get lost at the minute, It'll need onboard sound since there's no point spending on sound (My missus thinks my PC's too loud as it is).

Any Tips, pointers or sugestions? If I can build a capable system at the lower end of my buget I'll probably do that and save the extra for future upgrades.

Thanks in advance.
 
go for a similar set up to mine. Should fall right into your budget, especailly as you don't need a case.

Something like this perhaps:

CD-076-SA Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-076-SA)
£23.95 £23.95
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.95 £107.95
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI)
£104.95 £104.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£126.95 £126.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£48.95 £97.90
HS-003-SY Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY)
£31.95 £31.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£61.95 £61.95
Subtotal £680.55
VAT £119.10
Total £799.65


Everything bar case, monitor, mouse and keyboard. gives you plenty to play around with for those, if you want them. maybe add aftermarket cooling for the graphics card, maybe some replacement fans. but taht should be more than enough, especially as with that CPU, cooling and mobo, you should be able to hit 3.0GHz+ with ease.
 
I think if your just going to play flight sims then you dont really need 6600 you may as well save your self £100 odd pound there straght away and get 6300 which is an awesome chip .
My wife was always complaining about how lound my pc was but i just ignored her.But to my surprise my new system is so quite that until my raptors start woking you would never no it was on.When my wife commented on this i told her how i'd spent hours researching a silent system just for her,Loads of brownie points and an early night ;)
Any ways i would recommend my set up would cost less than £800 even less if you opt for cheaper GFX card
He a link to my new build benches and stuff
clicky clicky (all bought @ OcUk)
 
Hi Socaddict,

Thats a great starting point thanks. Would it be worth me swapping the 6300 for the 6600 especialy as I'm not planning on clocking it at this stage (That might change if the new FSX chugs at all).
 
if you're going with the 6600, pick a 975X board. but frankly, with something like the E6300, you might as well clock it, as tehy all seem to be doing so well. They are absolutely great chips, whether at stock or overclocked. I would recommend the E6300, but if you want the extra cache and higher stock speed, its your choice.
 
EKsparky said:
I think if your just going to play flight sims then you dont really need 6600 you may as well save your self £100 odd pound there straght away and get 6300 which is an awesome chip .
Click to expand...

Hi EKsparky,

Cheers for the link, certainly something else to look at. My reasoning for getting the 6600 was flightsim is notoriously CPU intensive and from the look of the new FSX demo nothing has changed on that count. It's also one of those games that is designed with at least a 3 year shelf life so it tends to be very harsh on the hardware thats available at launch.
 
I Played all my games for a few nights running cpu @ 700mhz Bf2 css quake fear etc they all ran fine setting's maxed out only reason i noticed i was running @ 700mhz was when i ran super-pi
So thats just an example of how great this cpu really is :D
 
EKsparky said:
I think if your just going to play flight sims then you dont really need 6600 you may as well save your self £100 odd pound there straght away and get 6300 which is an awesome chip .
Click to expand...

He has the budget to get 0.514Ghz higher so he may as well do it. FSX is a more demanding game than you think.

Have you thought about waiting chaders for DX10 because FSX is getting a DX10 patch once its out (but I assume you already know).
 
EKsparky said:
I Played all my games for a few nights running cpu @ 700mhz Bf2 css quake fear etc they all ran fine setting's maxed out only reason i noticed i was running @ 700mhz was when i ran super-pi
So thats just an example of how great this cpu really is :D
Click to expand...

See now I'm tempted to save the cash. One question I'm currently running XP home, I've only seen the X64 version of windows as XP pro will I need to get this? I was planning to just transfer my licence to the new build seeing as the old sytem will be dismantled.
 
UKTopGun said:
He has the budget to get 0.514Ghz higher so he may as well do it. FSX is a more demanding game than you think.

Have you thought about waiting chaders for DX10 because FSX is getting a DX10 patch once its out (but I assume you already know).
Click to expand...

hi topgun,

I had planned on waiting but since losing a stick of Ram (Dropping me down to 256) FS9 chugs. My plan is to only spend £1000ish of the budget now and get a DX10 card later.
 
EKsparky said:
Downloading demo now Ill let u no how it plays :D
Click to expand...

Nice one EK,

Thanks for all the help. Thats the thing about PC's stop looking for a minute and the tech has left me behind.

This is my Inital plan (With the 6600)

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
MB-152-AS Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-152-AS)
£134.95 £134.95
HD-095-WD Western Digital Raptor 36GB WD360ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-095-WD)
£68.50 £137.00
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.95 £45.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£126.95 £126.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£61.95 £61.95
CD-076-SA Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-076-SA)
£23.95 £23.95
Subtotal £870.65
VAT £152.37
Total £1,023.02

Not sure what the delivery cost will be at the minute but I'm gussing £50 ish.
 
I'd peronally get some more HD space as for £3 more you can get 50GB more.

Apparently the NEC ND something or other DVD-RW is very good as well. Other than that your spec looks pretty good to me. You might want to spend an extra £40 too on getting an Artic freezer + vf900 so either keep your gfx and cpu quiet or gives you the ability to OC either.
 
don't bother with the 36GB raptor. just get the 7200.10, 250GB or higher. yopu really won't notice the difference, except in pure bandwidth tests. and the core 2 duo CPUs runs xp home fine.
 
Just to let you no
Played FSX had the game on max setting with no probs
Drop my E6300 back to 1.8 and game ran fine temps stayed very low so don t think was much of effort for 6300 to run @ stock speed
Don t no how much of the work load my GFX card was taking
 
Socaddict said:
don't bother with the 36GB raptor. just get the 7200.10, 250GB or higher. yopu really won't notice the difference, except in pure bandwidth tests. and the core 2 duo CPUs runs xp home fine.
Click to expand...

Cheers Socaddict,

I was gonna run the pair of raptors Raid 0 for windows and games and just use the 7200.10 for storage but if I won't notice a real difference I may drop that plan. Cheers for the info on XP, maybe I'll just use that for now.
 
Hi All,

Ok I've ditched the raptors and am going too run two 7200.10's in Raid 0 That should give me more than enough space/ speed for a long time to come. With what I've saved I've upped the GFX to a 1900xt and gone for a new case.

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
MB-152-AS Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-152-AS)
£134.95 £134.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£129.95 £129.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£61.95 £61.95
CD-076-SA Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-076-SA)
£23.95 £23.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£179.95 £179.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£48.95 £48.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£48.95 £97.90
Subtotal £892.55
VAT £156.20
Total £1,048.75

Anyone spot any glaring errors with this set up. I'm planning to order tonight.
 
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