new machine! Please comment

davethe11

davethe11

davethe11

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ok, here goes:

Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 conroe (800 FSB)

Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler

Corsair HX 620W modular SLI PSU

Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz

Gainward Bliss GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

[edit] 2 x samsung spinpoint SATA II 160GB HDD

Ok, I know the cpu might be a little under par, but I intend to upgrade in the future but just want a budget cpu to put in and wait and see what develops with the wolfdales and quad cores (ive been out of the game for a bit so gonna read up some).

Also, I'm keen to get a couple of SATA II drives (not for raid, I like to put paging file on different drive to OS) but have read that not all SATA II drives actually give you the 3gbs bandwidth (I know this is theoretical max) so any suggestions? Not interested in raptors btw, too expensive for me.

Ive got a Lian Li PC-7 plus II in the post, so does anyone forsee any probs getting an 8800 in there? (just thought I would check)

Ive got an optical dvdrw to put in there for now, so dont need one of those either.

Please let me know what you think, cheers!

dave
 
Last edited:
davethe11 said:
Ok, I know the cpu might be a little under par, but I intend to upgrade in the future but just want a budget cpu to put in and wait and see what develops with the wolfdales and quad cores (ive been out of the game for a bit so gonna read up some).

Ive got a Lian Li PC-7 plus II in the post, so does anyone forsee any probs getting an 8800 in there? (just thought I would check)
Click to expand...

I'm in a similar boat. I bought a budget 2180 to have a play with overclocking until meatier quadcores come out and are actually some use to my gaming.

The 8800 will fit into that case fine, you may have to have a shuffle with your HDD cage and cables depending on where the SATA ports are on your motherboard (I knoow it was a struggle with my IP35-Pro.)
 
thanks for the help, think im just about there, samsung spinpoint drives look just the ticket! Any other thoughts on this build?
 
The Samsung spinpoints are good quiet hard drives.

Alternatively there are Western Digital AAKS and Seagate Barracudas all within the same(ish) price bracket.

Personally I went with the WD drives as they suited my needs.

Someone suggested to me that:

Sammy Spinpoint = Quiet + pretty reliable
WD AAKS = Reliable + pretty quiet
Seagate Barracuda = Very reliable + pretty loud

I could be wrong though.
 
Looks good, I went for a 2180, O/C'd it to 3Ghz straight out of the box. Seems plenty fast enough for me at the moment. Glad I didn't pay the extra for a quad tbh as I don't think it would have been used to nearly its full potential. Might be worth looking into an extra 2GB of RAM esp. is you are going to be running vista.
 
thats handy info about the hdds, many thanks, ive had western digitals, maxtors and others but never samsung, so will give them a go.

Munkeh said:
Looks good, I went for a 2180, O/C'd it to 3Ghz straight out of the box...Might be worth looking into an extra 2GB of RAM esp. is you are going to be running vista.
Click to expand...

thats a nice o/c! (on air i presume with stock cooler?). I'm not convinced by vista yet, old dogs and all that. Ive still got my xp home key (that i hope i can use on new hardware) and would prefer to stick with 2GB (wouldnt get 4GB anyways on xp 32bit) - unless you can convince me that vista gives substantial gaming performance benefits over xp ;)
 
toosepin said:
The Samsung spinpoints are good quiet hard drives.

Alternatively there are Western Digital AAKS and Seagate Barracudas all within the same(ish) price bracket.

Personally I went with the WD drives as they suited my needs.

Someone suggested to me that:

Sammy Spinpoint = Quiet + pretty reliable
WD AAKS = Reliable + pretty quiet
Seagate Barracuda = Very reliable + pretty loud

I could be wrong though.
Click to expand...

The Seagate 250Gb single platter drive is the quietest I've had in 5 years and is very fast :P

Also, you probably wont need the 620W PSU, the 520 will be fine.
 
thanks for the advice yeggstry, I dont mind paying that bit extra for the 620W, my last (current) machine had the psu fry on me, so I'm willing to pay the extra for some peace of mind (call it insurance by overkill). What you say about the seagates is also interesting, will have a think about it and look around for some more info. Many thanks

dave
 
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