New SFF Rig for University (SN21G5?)

[Air Marshal]

That card is rubbish, gets 'licked' by the X1800XT! The GT bit is its achilles heel!

I want to hang on to my other PCI slot.

Also, did you have a look at the link I gave earlier, http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/14/intel_core_2_duo_processors/1.html? Because you would have noticed that the 5000+ is no match for the E6600

Supposedly no decent Core 2 boards are out, plus at the moment I'd have to either run a SG01, which I'd rather avoid, or a V300, which supposedly limits me to a X1600/7600 or worse. If somebody could spec me a decent E6600 rig without resorting to the SG01 I'd be sold, but I need to get this running by the end of September, so it's up in the air whether I can wait for the SG02, Q965 boards, etc. The best I can come up with is this:

CA-077-LL Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black (CA-077-LL)
£67.95 £67.95
MB-176-AS Asus P5B-VM Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-176-AS)
£79.99 £79.99
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£204.99 £204.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-114-SP Sapphire X1600 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-114-SP)
£67.99 £67.99
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £41.90
HS-022-ZA Zalman CNPS8000 Ultra Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler (HS-022-ZA)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£43.99 £43.99
Subtotal £777.61
VAT £136.09
Total £913.70

Ignoring the Core 2 dilemma for the moment, is the Via chipset of the SK22G2 going to drastically bottleneck my system or destabilize it?

 

[Raikiri]

That card is rubbish, gets 'licked' by the X1800XT! The GT bit is its achilles heel!

About 10% slower in current games and will be faster in future shader intensive games (oblivion for example)...

 

[Air Marshal]

Are there any changes to the most recent spec that could improve performance without going over budget, such as the video card, etc.? In addition to this I need to get a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and a copy of x64 I believe. And maybe some different thermal compound.

 

[hp7909]

{snip}and a copy of x64 I believe. {snip}

Still a few issues with Win XP x64. Home should do unless.

Thermal compound you can not go wrong with AS5 (instructions here)

Going back through the thread, will you be using the rig for any gaming? Because graphics work/rendering/etc, a X1900GT or better will not make much of a difference because they are designed for gaming & not that kind of work. Unless you can afford a ATI FireGL or NVIDIA Quadro card, a X1600XT or 7300GT or 7600GS or 7600GT will do. What you'll really need is more RAM (2GB in spec is fine) & a faster processor (also the E6600 is excellent).