New Build .. advice welcome

Defendo

Defendo

Defendo

Associate
Joined
6 Oct 2007
Posts
2
Hi

Im new to the forum, but it looks like theres a fair amount of knowledgeable advice to be found on here, so im thinking of buying this lot:

Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 G0 SLACR, 95W
Asus P5K3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP, iP35, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR3 1066/667/800
Samsung SH-S202N/BEBN 20x DVD±R
2GB CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) 4-4-4-12, DHX
Antec P182
2 X 500 Gb Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 7200.10, SATA300
320MB 8800 GTS
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
620W Corsair HX Series Modular SLi PSU,
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
22" LG L226WTQ ,Silver/Black , Widescreen ,2 ms , DVI/VGA ,1680x1050 ,3000:1

This lots comes to £1200 ish.


Couple of points:

a) I dont know anything about overclocking so therefore doubt i will be over clocking anything so stability is the preference.

b) I picked the mobo to be as future proof as possible (so i can buy some DDR3 ram at some point in the future)

c) Need a monitor i can plug an XBox360 into as well as the PC.

Any modifications / suggestions are welcome.

Cheers
 
Hey Defendo, welcome to the forum :-)

The system you have picked out looks a good one, although I do have some comments on some of the items. The motherboard is the first one and it's a very expensive (albeit good) motherboard where you probably aren't going to use a lot of the features on it. If you wanted something future proofed with DDR2 and DDR3 on the same board and also a good board, then check out the Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (note the "C" after "P35"). It's a lot cheaper but still a very good board and has native support for Penryn CPUs and of course DDR2 and DDR3.

I would also point out that you are overpaying on the RAM really. The "DHX" model includes a nice little heatsink that might cool your RAM a VERY minor bit better but you pay an unreasonable premium on the price. So either get the DHX model or just pick up something else, maybe some OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400.

The hard drives are excellent, but people say that the AAKS model line of the Western Digitals perform a little better so you might want to look at those and see which you fancy. There won't be a massive difference in performance so I guess if you prefer Seagate then I would stick with the 7200.10's, but if you were only getting them for the performance of them and actually don't like Seagate then you can always look at the Western Digitals "AAKS" hard drives for an alternative.

The graphics card is good but I would also look at the 512MB 2900 Pro models which are basically just underclocked 2900 XT cards. So really you get a downclocked 2900 XT for the same price as an 8800 GTS 320MB as the 2900 Pro's are around £170. Food for thought at least. Would definetly help as well with some extra RAM on the Pro given the resolution you'll be playing games at.

The power supply is too much for your system, and if you wanted too skimp on price a bit you can pick up the HX520 model and that'll power your system no problem at all. Although if you want future proofing and knowing that you'll have a power supply that'll power pretty much any single graphics card setup for a good while then stick with the HX620.

c) Need a monitor i can plug an XBox360 into as well as the PC.
Click to expand...
If you wanted to go for a single input monitor for getting the price down then you can always invest in a KVM switch to control the Xbox 360 and the PC from the same input cable by clicking one button. I use that on mine at the moment as my monitor only has 1x VGA input.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I will take a look at that Giga mothoerboard.
I will also look for some reviews of the radeon cards to see what the performance vs the 8800 gts is like.
I have tired a KVM's before but the one i had added some nasty on screen ghosting so was bascailly unusable.
What KVM do you use and hoiw much did it cost as it may be that the one i had was cheap rubbish.
 
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