PC Setup - Your opinions please!

Barrington

Barrington

Barrington

Associate
Joined
21 Oct 2006
Posts
68
Location
Scotland
Hi,

I'm looking for some help from you guys on some specs to build a machine. My budget (minus a gfx card) would be about £700.

This computer would be used for gaming and LAN parties and of course, be overclocked :) I have a rough guide of something that i would like, but i would like your opinions and ideas of what i could change or what might be a better alternative.

  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz
  • Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2
  • 2Gb DDR2 Ram PC5300 (No clue what brand)
  • Thermaltake Tsunami Black Case (with window)
  • Swiftech Ultra+ Watercooling Kit
  • PSU (any suggestions?)

ATI CrossFire is not a must have, just so happened to be bundled in with the MB i saw. Anyway, those are the specs i would like to roughly keep to. Money comes before performance, so anything you think would be good for £700ish, i would like to hear too! My budget as stated above would be about £700 possibly a tad more - or less ;)

Thanks in advance,

Stuart.
 
Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6400 2.13GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C5 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-039-OK)
  • Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-127-IN) 1
    Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-092-CS) 1
    Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI) 1
    £382.97
  • Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultra+ Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-021-SW)
    £171.95
  • Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
    £54.99
  • Thermaltake VA3000SWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Silver (CA-011-TT)
    £65.99

Subtotal £675.90
VAT £118.29
Total £794.19

Looking for a system roughly £700 exc. VAT

I know PSU is a little over the top, but it looks cool.. is this any good?
 
Welcome to the forums m8!!

You could save some cash by not going for watercooling, these cpus seem to clock very well even on air. Then you could pump the save £200 into another part of the PC :)


Good people here could help you out more :D

C'mon guys!
 
Indeed, welcome to the forums, sorry, I must have missed this the first time round. I probably wouldn't bother with watercooling either, it is more hassle for comparatively little gain. Something like this ought to be fine, I've changed the PSU as I don't personally think Hiper are particularly good, the Ram has been changed because it has a better specification than the Corsair and I've included a heatsink and fan instead of the watercooling. :)

HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£12.99 £12.99
CP-127-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-127-IN)
£142.99 £142.99
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£89.99 £89.99
CA-012-TT Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-012-TT)
£60.99 £60.99
CA-005-CS Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) (CA-005-CS)
£74.99 £74.99
CA-011-TT Thermaltake VA3000SWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Silver (CA-011-TT)
£65.99 £65.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£164.99 £164.99
Subtotal £612.93
VAT £107.27
Total £720.20
 
You've posted 2 cases there :p

Thanks for the response.

So with that Thermaltake case (picked it for size and weight for portability) and that heatsink, air cooling should be ok? I've got a Thermaltake Xaser III just now, so going back down to a Midi tower with a few fans instead of twenty six on this.. ok 7 fans. Just a little hard to judge for me cause i don't know much about the heat that the Dual Core 2 Duo produces.

Someone also mentioned to me about the Ninja. Noise is not an issue just performance :) Would the Ninja be any good here or is that a bit over the top?
 
Nice looking case. Im guessing you mean the Thermally Advanced Side Panel? I'm a little confused with this case, does it INCLUDE the fans in the front and rear? All it says is that its "Desgined for 120mm fans.."

The Ninja looks like a monster of a heatsink. I'm hearing the stock fan is a little weak, is it much of a problem? If so, can you suggest another fan.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Barrington said:
You've posted 2 cases there :p
Click to expand...

Oops, I wondered why it had suddenly jumped so much in price but I was in a bit of a rush :o

The Eclipse is a better case overall, it doesn't include the fans, just the fan filter for 120mm fans.

The Conroe chips are supposed to be even more efficient than X2s so I wouldn't be too worried about heat but if the fan that comes with the Ninja is too weak maybe an Akasa Amber? I don't know too much about fans, my PC runs with only the CPU, graphics card and PSU fans, no extras. :)
 
Hehe cool. So i'm guessing i've to add 2 x 120mm fans then, shouldnt be too much hassle. I could always get another fan if the stock one isn't up to the job i guess.

The Heatpipe looks so big its almost appears not to fit in the case :eek: Sure it will though!

Cheers for the input.
 
I would buy the Scythe 1200rpm fans for the case, you do not need 2500rpm things that make about 40db to have a cool computer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom