MY intended spec - Insights appreciated :)

newbe5

newbe5

newbe5

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14 Oct 2008
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EDIT: The final setup is here incase anyone is interested on what was settled on due to this thread. Thanks to everyone that helped!

I finally got this entire rig for just under £800 with OC's current 666 offer and it's running fantastically!

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Hi guys, I'm new to the forums but I have been buying components from OC for a little while now. I was mainly after some advice. I am building a whole new rig, and I have a fairly strict budget of £850 (give or take the odd pound). I'm after a complete machine, including case, PSU etc, and although I'm settled on the case I want, I thought I'd post the main components to see if anyone could shout out any obvious issues with my intended setup.

The rig is intended for everything from gaming, to media playback/encoding and other stuff most people would do with their machines. I need it to last me a good while, as I can't afford to be shelling out this kind of cash yearly.

I realise that the addition of the Q6600 might seem odd, but it's there for 2 main reasons. Firstly, the price, which is extremely reasonable for a chip that performs that well, and also that with the specified motherboard, I have a tried and tested overclock for the Q6600 taking each core to 3.2GHz 100% stable (not exactly a difficult feat, but it does work perfectly), my brother has been running this overclock for a few weeks now with no problems.

I already have a 24" monitor and will be running my games at 1920x1200 (the native monitor res).

So here is the rig:
Abit IX38 QuadGT Intel X38
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition"
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU
Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
Some HDD
Some DVD-R

I already own a copy of Vista x64 to put on this system, so that'll be my OS of choice.

If anyone has any comments or obvious reasons why I should re-think this setup, or anywhere I'm spending more than I need to be, please let me know, any input is appreciated!

newbe5
 
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I've reviewed the spec, removed the HDD (I already have a 1000rpm drive I can use) to keep the price within budget. I realise that I could save money by going with a cheaper brand for the GFX card, but the sapphire one seems to have had the best responses from what I have seen, a lot of money for a card but hopefully it will help futureproof the rig!

Anyone got any other suggestions?
 
Unless you will be getting a second X2 at some point swap the X38 board for one of Asus's excellent P5Q series boards. At the price OCUK are charging for the Freezer 7 Pro i cannot recommend getting it from here anymore. The Akasa AK 965CU is cheaper and just as good.
 
Thanks for the response! Is it worth saving a fiver on the heatsync? Thanks for the info on the motherboard! My only issue there is, I have a set of settings for overclocking the q6600 on the board I originally posted, how easy would it be to find overclocking settings for the board you suggested to take the q6600 up to around 3.2GHz per core?
 
newbe5 said:
Thanks for the response! Is it worth saving a fiver on the heatsync? Thanks for the info on the motherboard! My only issue there is, I have a set of settings for overclocking the q6600 on the board I originally posted, how easy would it be to find overclocking settings for the board you suggested to take the q6600 up to around 3.2GHz per core?
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Just as easy. The Asus P5Q series has an excellent bios and is easy to find your way around in. The P45 boards are more power efficient too. As for the heatsink, the Freezer 7 Pro is very overpriced from here. It should be the same price as the Akasa which is why i cannot recommend it from here.


bledd. said:
any reason you want an X38 over a P45?
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We are getting to that. ;)
 
AS stated above, it's only that I have the bios settings all written down on paper for overclocking the q6600 on that board, but if I can do the same on the p45 then I'm happy to change it out!

Edit: We're synchronised replying :P OK, which of the P45 boards would you reccomend?
 


OK, edited the spec to include the other motherboard, and added a HDD since I had extra money.

Also, after reading up about the GFX cards I've discovered that they are all basically stock cards and there's very little difference between them. SO I switched out the Sapphire card for the cheaper HIS one.

Although I have kept the Freezer 7 :P

Any other ideas?

Edit: My only headscratcher now is the chip. Is it worth sticking with the q6600 or going for a faster standard-clocked dual core, like the E8400 or faster?
 
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Spend £16 more and get a Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache HD...?

EDIT: Just spotted you're not fussed about another/bigger drive, so ignore!
 
Very good suggestion guys, thanks a lot :) I'll change it over in my spec :)

Only thing I'm outstanding on now then:

Q6600 or E8500?
 
I personally would go with the newer 45nm E8500, however you might benefit more from the Q6600 if your doing video encoding (especially if you overclock it to 3GHz or so).
 
I will be playing more games than encoding video's, but I do see your point. Mainly I am after games performance, I'm willing to sacrifice a few minutes of an encode to make sure I can still play new games in 2 years.

Edit: By the looks of it I have to decide between immediate advantage, and futureproofing. Yes, with the dual-core I might get a significant boost in performance right now, but as time goes by, and new games come out, what will I need? Either a faster chip, or more cores to take the load. In my head, more cores now, means less issues later as developers start adapting to using the extra power. So by this reckoning, a Q6600 with a nice safe 3.2GHz overclock is probably the safest bet, both for immediate power, and future gaming.

If anyone can fault that logic, let me know!
 
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Personally, for an extra £6 i would go with the Pro for the better cooling.

As for Quad vs Dual. Dual cores came out a good couple of years ago and we are not much further on now with developers making the use of multi-cores in games. I can't see anything changing soon. I had a Q6600 clocked at 3.8Ghz. I also got rid of it as 99% of the time it had three power hungry, hot running cores sitting there doing nothing. A dual core is the best option for gaming.

In your case there is an exception though. You are getting a 4870x2 which has been shown to need a quad core to realise it's full potential. Scaling with a quad is better than with a dual core. Have a read here.
 
The final result!

OK! The results are in, and it looks very much like my final config will be:



I will be buying everything very soon, and I'll let you all know how it goes.

Thankyou VERY much to everyone who has helped!

Edit: More conversation happened below this post, and this setup got outdated in about 15 minutes... I'll post the new one soon! :P
 
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newbe5 said:
Final point: Is this motherboard the right one to get?
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I've been hassling people for information on a system I want to build, which is similar to yours. The P5Q Pro was what I've ended up on! I've even ended up on the same ram, hard drive, DVD drive and processor as you :)

I'm just going for the Powercolor 4870 1024mb though (different case and noctua cooler) :)

BTW - Get the OEM version of that CPU? You don't need the retail heatsink/fan? So save yourself a few pounds?
 
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