My first real build.

Acid90

Acid90

Acid90

Associate
Joined
3 Apr 2008
Posts
11
Location
Darlington, UK
Ok, so I've upgraded some older computers and classed them as mine..buying new parts etc so I know a little bit about what I need to do. But this was when I was 13, so...its going back awhile.

Its my 18th Birthday in 7 days and I am after building myself a new system.

I'm interested in an E8400 but unfortunately low stock at the moment so if there isn't any stock by the time 11th-12th April rolls round, I need to decide what the hell I'm gunna get instead!

Its a mix up between E8200 or the Q6600. My system is going to mainly used for gaming and I haven't OC'd before but I am interested so I'll be buying myself a Tuniq Tower to cool my CPU down.

My budget is around £600 no more than this at all and here is what I currently have (this is gunna be vague without brands etc, just approx!):-

E8400
8800GT 512mb
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Tuniq Tower 120mm
Western Digital 250gb HD 16MB Cache
2x OCZ 2GB (2x1gb) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator / Coolermaster Real Power 520w Modular Power Supply - Bundle

Probably missed something off but thats all I can remember haha! If anyone can give me some advice etc specially on CPUs, that'd be awesome.

Thanks in advance, my first post so be gentle.

EDIT: Possibly to bring the price down abit more, I could change the Tuniq to an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro.
 
Last edited:
Welcome to the forums, you don't seem to have an optical drive in there but other than that it looks like a pretty decent setup. I won't give any specific advice as to brands because the prices will probably change a bit but if you bump it nearer the time then it will be easier to get a better idea.
 
looks pretty good to me dont know much about that mobo though but im sure others will comment on that :)

my thoughts

dont get an e8400 its overprices in my opinion . either get at e8200 wich is £135 like £52cheaper than the 8400 or get the q6600 quad wich is on speciall offer till wednesday next week at £140

also unless you want a to really push your overclocking to the limit then an acrtic pro 7 will do perfectly. i have onemyslef. thatw ill also save you about £15 i think and comes pre applied with thermal paste wich some people may diss but its working a treat on my overclocked c2d.
 
Thank you very much for the replys and the welcome. I have an optical drive here at home, so thats no problem!

But yeah, I am hoping a good graphics card will join the sale around my birthday! :)

I am pushing more towards the E8200 atm and overclock it (hopefully success because I havn't done it before!)

So far, Its under my budget and did a quick change of the PSU and Case to that bundle (due to better PSU and nicer looking case!). I can push it even more with the Arctic Pro.

Anymore positive things about the Arctic Pro??

Thank you for the advice so far and I will definitely bump it nearer the time.
 
The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro is a pretty good cooler and it comes with either MX-1 or MX-2 thermal paste pre-applied (I think it should only be MX-2 by now) which is actually good stuff, the only possible issues are that there might be too much applied or alternatively if you make a real hash of seating the cooler that you need more paste.

I might consider getting 4gb Ram as 2x2gb since you've got a bit of cash to spare, perhaps look to the G.Skill PC8000+ kit to give you a bit more headroom for the E8200.
 
Would I get the same performance out of having 2x2gb sticks? At the moment, its just getting the price down so it costs me less!

Haha, I get the bargaining hunting off of my mother.

That G.Skill PC8000 would raise me over my budget..lowest is £44.64 for 2x1gb or £58.74 for 2x2gb but the same speed as the OCZ.
 
I wasn't going to bother doing this yet but since you've asked, I still make it a few quid under the budget even with the changed Ram. :)

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator / Coolermaster Real Power 520w Modular Power Supply - Bundle £93.98
(£110.43) £93.98
(£110.43)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £114.99
(£135.11) £114.99
(£135.11)
Sub Total : £493.92
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 is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £88.35
Total : £593.22
 
Thank you very much for doing that...I was looking at the EVGA or the BFG 8800 'cause they were slightly faster than OcUK I think?

Would I honestly see the difference, its been awhile since I ever played FPS on a PC...I'm a fan of MMOs really!

Hence where an extra £20 went and I went over budget! :p

I appreciate that mate, thank you.
 
I don't think you'd see much of a difference between the clocked cards and the stock one, you could do it yoursefl anyway if you felt like you wanted to. I've got mine running at 650 core and 1900 (effective) memory, and I can't really tell the difference comparing it with the stock speeds.

Although this is when playing Cod4 and Crysis, so I'm not sure what effect it'll have on MMOs.

Oh and I've got the Freezer 7 Pro on my cpu now and I've clocked it way further than you could with the stock HSF (see my sig). It really is a fantastic cooler for the price.
 
Thank you for the replys.

Just noticed in another thread that someone mentioned this:-

Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU

Anyone know anything about this case and PSU and if its better than the Coolmaster PSU and Case mentioned in my original post. Possibly £30 savings for a better graphics card ! :)
 
It is a solid enough case and PSU, I don't know that I would describe it as better, it isn't modular (although careful routing of cables would mean it isn't much of an issue) but it is probably roughly on a par.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom