New Gaming System

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion

Associate
Joined
30 Jan 2007
Posts
932
Location
West Sussex
Budget: £700
Purpose: Gaming and home computing

Heres what I was thinking of purchasing....

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)(£72.84) £61.99

Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail / Asus P5B / 2GB GeIL PC2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (£421.79) £358.97

BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (£199.74) £169.99

Sub Total : £590.95
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £104.98 ]

Now I dont know whether to go with this hardware setup, or wait to see what ATI bring. The problem i forsee is i cant really afford a graphics card over £200 and i sincerely doubt when the R600 is released any of the cards will be at that price point, but then my 9800 Pro has lasted well (it even runs Supreme Commander demo okay).

Help make my mind up please
 
I'd go with it, from the GTS thread in Graphics section it looks like a damn nice card, especially when you consider the price. You could be waiting forever if you want to see what new products are like, you'll have ATI's release then there will be the Nvidia refresh, by then probably some new CPU models on the horizon, and so on...
 
Yes the perpetual problem of trying to stay ahead of the game when the game is continously moving forward. I dont think we'll see the Mid range ATI offering (R610) until probably May and i dont think i want to wait that long i may well order this, this week. Considering the memory is on This Week Only which handily drops the price of the bundles too :D

A few other questions....

Will the PSU be enough to power the system ?
I plan on building this myself does the retail E6600 come with a thermal pad or do you have to apply it yourself :( ?
Will the GTS fit in my case ?
 
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The PSU offers easily enough power for the system.

The 6600 comes with a thermal pad on the bottom of the retail heatsink, you will have to fit it yourself because it couldn't be attached to the motherboard for transport and you are just buying a bundle of parts, not a pre-built PC anyway.

The 8800GTS should fit into a Chieftec Dragon although I haven't checked for definite on the sizes, I've got the same case and they are pretty big. :)

//edit just checked some info, apparantly the 8800GTS cards are normally around 9" with double height cooling which is no problem in the Dragon, my 6800GT is about that size anyway and it still has an inch or two before it obstructs the hard drive bays. :)
 
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Cold Fusion said:
A few other questions....

Will the PSU be enough to power the system ?
I plan on building this myself does the retail E6600 come with a thermal pad or do you have to apply it yourself :( ?
Will the GTS fit in my case ?
Click to expand...

The Corsair you've chosen is excellent so I wouldn't worry, the retail E6600 comes with a heatsink/fan so it should have thermal pad on it AFAIK.

As for the 8800gts fitting not sure, any ideas anybody?
 
A better name would have been Panzer, considering they're german and are built like a tank, but they are good cases, I have a Golden Brown, what colour is yours ?

As for the thermal pad. I know getting a good thermal connection is critical. Using thermal paste, is for someone with little experience in self builds, a risky enterprise. I know you can get Heatsinks with thermal pads applied at the factory and this is what my question was about.

Am i correct in saying that underneath the retail heatsink is a thermal pad covered in a plastic film, once the CPU has been placed in the socket (Core 2 have LGA so they dont have 'pins' just contacts ?) you take the plastic film off and seat the heatsink on top of the CPU and attach it as normal. Negating the worry of getting a poor thermal paste contact or smearing it all over your £170 chip.
 
Just got a standard black one myself, see above for the edit about sizes. :)

Yes a retail cooler comes with the thermal pad pre-applied, you need to peel off the film and place the cooler onto the chip then attach the fastening mechanism to hold it in place.
 
Rather than create new threads, i thought id resurrect my old one

I plan to order my hardware in the next few hours. so im definatly going ahead with it now (cant wait for ATI and the R600, a shame considering how well my 9800 pro has done me)

but i have a few questions and pointers before proceeding:

I have an OEM copy of windows XP activated to my current system, now obviously with Vista id need a new licence...maybe, but with XP i know the licence rules are more relaxed. Once i upgrade will i be able to re-activate my old product key or will i need to contact microsoft, and has anyone had any problems doing this with an OEM version.

Secondly, is it recommended that after backing up my essential files should i then format the disk and when complete and prompted to install the OS should I shut down and install the new hardware or install the new hardware, then format the hard drive.
 
As far as I'm aware you can just install XP OEM and use the same product key as like you say the licence rules aren't as stringent however I don't know if you'd need to contact Microsoft to re-activate.

I'd install the new hardware then format the drive although it probably matters little. :)
 
Ive ordered the corsair anyway, although they say there is currently no eta im sure they will get some in asap as they are such good sellers. the order will be dispatched when it comes in, which suits me as i wont be able to build it for 2 weeks.
 
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