New Conroe Spec... Recommendations/Alterations?

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 11:56

Going to flog my Shuttle SN25P (running an x2 4400+) and move back into the land of upgradable PCs. Conroe seems to be the way forward, so after looking at some of the incredible overclocks peeps are getting on the E6300, I'm thinking of jumping on one of them.

Here's the system I'm thinking of ordering any day now, with approx prices from ocuk:-

Intel Core Duo 6300 OEM - £135
Gigabyte DS4 Mobo - £129
Lian Li PC7+ Case + CD-Rom Bezel + Window - £89
2GB G.Skill HZ PC6400 Ram - £174
Scythe Ninja Fan - £32
Akasa Amber: 120mm + 80mm Case Fans - £15
Creative Xi-Fi OEM - £57
Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 PSU - £99

Will the Scythe Ninja fit okay in a Lian-Li PC7? I'm umming and ahh-ing over whether to hold off for a E6600 still, but like everybody have no idea how long we're going to have to wait. Also, the oc'ed 6300 looks very impressive for the price, so am thinking I could always upgrade to a faster CPU later (was going to plump for a E6700, until I realised it would be cheaper to buy an E6300 AND E6600 together! :eek:

).

One last thing I'm unsure of is the motherboard... How useful is the 12 phase power design of some of the more expensive Intel 965 boards? Are Intel's four core CPUs on the foreseeable horizon? It would only cost me £20 odd more to pick up a Gigabyte DQ6 or slightly more for the Asus equivalent, but am I right in thinking these don't o/c so well?

Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers!

Monstermunch · 30 Jul 2006 at 12:02

All looks good to me.....I wouldn't worry about the forward compatibility for quad-core, by the time it's released motherboards will be better and anyone thinking of upgrading will buy a new mobo anyway so why worry!

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 12:03

One other Q... Does anybody have recommendations for coloured lighting in a PC7? Coloured case fans appear to be out of the question as they're all far too noisy

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 12:07

Monstermunch said:
All looks good to me.....I wouldn't worry about the forward compatibility for quad-core, by the time it's released motherboards will be better and anyone thinking of upgrading will buy a new mobo anyway so why worry!

Cool... cheers bud. I was hoping that might be the case, whilst also thinking that a 600W PSU should last a few years (perhaps?).

BTW, going to be putting an ATI X1900XTX and a couple of maxtor drives in this box. I may look into replacing the cooling solution on the former as it so *****g noisy! Am holding off on RAID0 atm as there appears to RAID issues with the DS4 right now

t31os · 30 Jul 2006 at 12:07

daddyorchips said:
One other Q... Does anybody have recommendations for coloured lighting in a PC7? Coloured case fans appear to be out of the question as they're all far too noisy

Cathodes?......

Personally i love UV, 1 or 2 UV cathodes, then just buy UV reactive cables, never having to worry about the LED's dying, because there is none, just the UV, which is cheaper to replace then multiple fans.

There's a few places that sell UV paint for PC's to, but i can't mention the names here, PM me if you're interested.

Monstermunch · 30 Jul 2006 at 14:11

daddyorchips said:
Cool... cheers bud. I was hoping that might be the case, whilst also thinking that a 600W PSU should last a few years (perhaps?).

BTW, going to be putting an ATI X1900XTX and a couple of maxtor drives in this box. I may look into replacing the cooling solution on the former as it so *****g noisy! Am holding off on RAID0 atm as there appears to RAID issues with the DS4 right now

Firstly 600w is more than enough, 380w will easily power up any single carded system.

Secondly....Maxtor.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Just avoid, they're the most unrelaible drives on the market... Either use a Hitachi Deskstar, Samsung or the new Seagate drives.

& who mentioned "tubes 'o' gayness" (cathodes). What most people fail to realise is that most cathodes draw 500w+ on startup and are so likely to blow your PSU it really isn't worth it. Steer clear!

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 15:17

Cheers MMunch, will check out some different disks... What do you recommend for lighting instead of cathodes?

Anybody think I may be better off getting a Conroe with 4mb cache instead of 2mb? It does look like the mega o/c afforded by choosing the E6300 outweighs the more expensive, extra cache options when benchmarking, but will I miss out when it comes to game performance? :confused:

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 15:27

One other thing... Is that fan included with the Scythe Ninja very noisy? Should I look at replacing it with something else?

Monstermunch · 30 Jul 2006 at 16:33

daddyorchips said:
Cheers MMunch, will check out some different disks... What do you recommend for lighting instead of cathodes?

LED fans are a much better option as LED's draw very little power.

daddyorchips said:
Anybody think I may be better off getting a Conroe with 4mb cache instead of 2mb? It does look like the mega o/c afforded by choosing the E6300 outweighs the more expensive, extra cache options when benchmarking, but will I miss out when it comes to game performance?

Obviously the 4mb cache option will be better than the 2mb version but you could always upgrade that in a few months. In terms of gaming performance you will probably notice very little difference between the 2 chips. I would gues maybe 5-9% advantage at the same clockspeed.

Monstermunch · 30 Jul 2006 at 16:35

daddyorchips said:
One other thing... Is that fan included with the Scythe Ninja very noisy? Should I look at replacing it with something else?

Not especially, but depends on how quiet everything else in your system is.... If you have a silent PSU, GFX Card & Case fans then you'll probably hear it otherwise no....

Also beware that some mobo's have very noisy chipset fans

clv101 · 30 Jul 2006 at 16:40

£100 for a 600W PSU is that really needed?! Why not just get a case like the Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case with 450W Smart Power PSU for just £77.49 inc?

Monstermunch · 30 Jul 2006 at 16:46

Something like this would be good.....

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£114.95 £114.95
MY-092-CS Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-092-CS)
£124.95 £124.95
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£94.95 £94.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£199.95 £199.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£62.95 £62.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
CA-048-AN Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£54.95 £54.95
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
Subtotal £690.60
VAT £120.86
Total £811.46

The Ninja is great, but depends how seriously you are into overclocking. The AF is half the price!

daddyorchips · 30 Jul 2006 at 19:58

clv101 said:
£100 for a 600W PSU is that really needed?! Why not just get a case like the Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case with 450W Smart Power PSU for just £77.49 inc?

Everyone appears to promote the Lian Li Case as one of the best available. I'm thinking of getting the 600W PSU for future proofing - if it isn't anywhere needed yet, it may be in a few years.

The Gigabyte DS4 has a heavy duty heatpipe covering its NB chipset, so fortunately it isn't noisy. I am quite keen on buying the best CPU fan I can get though, as then I can o/c the Conroe to 3ghz+ at least and gain the performance granted by the extra cache.

I'd go for the Corsair but the general consensus in the memory forum seems to be that the G.Skill ram is the best for overclocking in its league. Also, I was considering LED fans, but they all seem super noisy compared to the amber Akasa ones...

SiriusB · 30 Jul 2006 at 20:08

Who says you need LED fans to light your case with LEDs?

Knock up your own system using LED kits [can get these from most high street electronics stores]. I am also pretty sure you can get LED lighting that runs off the PSU - have a look in the shop under Case mods.

SiriusB