New build questions

Associate
Joined
16 Sep 2005
Posts
86
Hey guys~

Im in the early stages of planning a new build ( looking at what fits into my budget now, and then hopefully getting the next one up in the january sales)

My budget is roughly £1300 - £1500 as is something like this

Coolermaster Cosmos case-
Asus X38 motherboard
Intel Q6700pro
2x2gb OCZ 1000mhz ram
ATI HD 3870 X2 (if it turns out to be good)

the thing im confused with at the moment is, the processor is £340, but for £170 there is the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 with a 3.0ghz clock speed. im not much of an overclocker, so stock speeds matter with me. and with the lack of multi core support, would i be better off getting the E6850 and having 2 of the 3870 x2 ( so 4 graphics cores ) or if the card turns out to be naff, getting a top of the line Nvidia card.

I always come to overclockers when building my rigs, 2 long years ago advice from you guys built this current pc :D

i look forward to reading your replies, and learning from your information

-junpei-
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Abit IX38 QuadGT Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £132.99
(£156.26) £132.99
(£156.26)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - Retail £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £6.99
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £131.99
(£155.09) £131.99
(£155.09)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £214.99
(£252.61) £214.99
(£252.61)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Sub Total : £798.90
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £141.55
Total : £950.40


needs a case.
i put in a 620W PSU incase the newer cards require more power.
if you will OC, the Q6600, will OC to 3+ GHz.
i picked a x38 chipset to give you 2 16x pcie slots.
a 8800GTX was chosen as that is what i thought would be best for the budget, however you could get a 8800GT for now and get a new graphics card when they come out. the 8800GT should last until then.
for RAM, i picked 800MHz stuff as that is enough to take a q6600 up to over 3GHz.
finally the spec above leaves you with about £300-500+ (minus case) for upgrades at a later date
 
imo don't bother with crossfire, get a good system now, but allow space in your budget to get a new 9 series card when they come out in march.

so you could get an 8800GT now, and then when the 9800 GT comes out, sell the 8800, and get one of them ;)
 
im still unsure about the graphics though guys, 2 HD3870's in crossfire are giving gains of 70-100% as seen in the thread in the graphics card section. is the HD3870 x2 matchs this and for a price of around £250 ( as 2x hd3870 costs about 340, one would expect price would be their selling point ) a pair of the X2's would be tremendous power

aside from that the saving of £200 on that processor is brilliant i will be changing to that! i think i'll push up to a 1kw power supply if i do get 2 cards. and im gonna put 2x 500gb storage in a raid array.
 
you wont beable to run 2 * HD3870 x2 on an X38 as it only supports crossfire and not the other *4 version which I forget the name of but is what you need
 
just had a look around and the intel p45 should be coming out around january/febuary and supports crossfire x.

and i know that really a single 3870 x2 is enough, but its not enough for crysis XD! i'd just like the option to get one later ya know? i dont like the idea of moving onto a new pc without the current one being maxed out.

my current pc has an ati x1900xtx with a HR-03 cooler on it,which has a 92mm on it, leaving only enough room in my case for my wireless card!

but it is clocked nicely! and at low low temps too :)
 
Back
Top Bottom