Newbie System Advice Please!

CaseyChaos said:
the games he will most likely play will be limited by his gfx card before his cpu, since he said he wanted to keep all this for a few years i thought a slightly lower clocked quad would be the answer, i cant think of any game that requires more than 3ghz on a dual core so why not have four cores and escape the upgrade slightly longer
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Right guys, must say this put a spanner in the works! Having browsed around the forums I can see I've unwittingly stumbled onto one of the most heated ever debates i.e. dual v quad!!

I think the answer for me comes back to price - I can get a Q6600 for less than £140 whereas the E8600 are nearly £200. With that in mind, I suppose the Q6600 is going to give best value??

I'm still tempted by the Q9XXX but they seem to have mixed reviews. Shouldn't the 45nm and larger cache make some difference??
 
robwalks said:
I think the answer for me comes back to price - I can get a Q6600 for less than £140 whereas the E8600 are nearly £200. With that in mind, I suppose the Q6600 is going to give best value??
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The E8400 is £137 and you will notice little difference between an E8400 and a E8600. The E8600 is certainly not worth the extra over the E8400. Not only that, the E8400s can usually overclock very nicely with most being able to hit 4Ghz and beyond with the right hardware.
 
Final advice needed!

Thanks for all your comments. My basket at present looks like this:

- E8400 3.0GHz
- Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Cooler
- Arctic Silver Thermal Compound
- GeForce GTX 260
- OCZ 4GB DDR3 1333MHz (2x2)
- Samsung F1 Spinpoint 1TB
- LG Blu Ray H20L

Which will be combined with my existing Gigabyte mobo (EP45C-DSR3) and Corsair HX650W, running Vista 64bit Ultimate.

I've got a last couple of Qs before I take the plunge:

1) What sort of performance can I expect from this set-up?
2) Will it be equally good for gaming / blu-ray?
3) Should I be able to get the 4+GHz out of the E8400 as mentioned above on this set-up, or will I need any additional components?

Cheers guys!
 
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robwalks said:
Thanks for all your comments. My basket at present looks like this:

- E8400 3.0GHz
- Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Cooler
- Arctic Silver Thermal Compound
- GeForce GTX 260
- OCZ 4GB DDR3 1333MHz (2x2)
- Samsung F1 Spinpoint 1TB
- LG Blu Ray H20L

Which will be combined with my existing Gigabyte mobo (EP45C-DSR3) and Corsair HX650W, running Vista 64bit Ultimate.
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It looks good but you really don't need DDR3 RAM. Stick with some decent DDR2 PC8500 RAM.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=8&sortby=nameAsc&subid=817&mfrid=
Look at OCZ, Corsair and G-Skill.

That will save you enough money to buy a better CPU cooler if you're wanting to really OC your E8400.
This is a bargain right now in this week only; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...ight Ultra-120A CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775)
You will need to buy a 120mm fan to go with it.


robwalks said:
I've got a last couple of Qs before I take the plunge:

1) What sort of performance can I expect from this set-up?
2) Will it be equally good for gaming / blu-ray?
3) Should I be able to get the 4+GHz out of the E8400 as mentioned above on this set-up, or will I need any additional components?

Cheers guys!
Click to expand...

1) Performance will be excellent both in gaming and blu-ray.
2) Yes
3) It's impossible to say whether you will get 4Ghz+ out of the E8400 as it depends on so many things. I have read that most chips can hit 4Ghz and beyond, but it will obviously depend on whether you have good enough cooling, the right RAM, the right motherboard, etc.
With some decent PC-8500 RAM and a good CPU cooler you should hopefully get to 4Ghz.
There is a great overclocking guide for the E8400 here; http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=717
 
Zildjian said:
It looks good but you really don't need DDR3 RAM. Stick with some decent DDR2 PC8500 RAM.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=8&sortby=nameAsc&subid=817&mfrid=
Look at OCZ, Corsair and G-Skill.

That will save you enough money to buy a better CPU cooler if you're wanting to really OC your E8400.
This is a bargain right now in this week only; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...ight Ultra-120A CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775)
You will need to buy a 120mm fan to go with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Zildjian. The price difference between the DDR3 I spec'd and the decent DDR2's is minimal ~£10 which swung it for me. Will I not see much performance gain using the DDR3? Are the latency timings a bigger factor?

That is a beast of a cooler! Will any 120mm fan go with it, such as this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-002-ZA or will I need a CPU specifc fan?
 
robwalks said:
Thanks Zildjian. The price difference between the DDR3 I spec'd and the decent DDR2's is minimal ~£10 which swung it for me. Will I not see much performance gain using the DDR3? Are the latency timings a bigger factor?

That is a beast of a cooler! Will any 120mm fan go with it, such as this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-002-ZA or will I need a CPU specifc fan?
Click to expand...

Ah I didn't realise the difference was only £10. :eek: Which DDR3 RAM is it?

Most 120mm fans will fit it, but you might want to confirm before ordering it. You don't need a specfic CPU fan.
Search the forums for 120mm fan threads, there have been quite a few recently. I personally like Scythe fans but they are quite expensive. Yate Loon fans are excellent value for money.
 
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