Sorry for another spec check before purchase!

TheSwede

TheSwede

TheSwede

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Hi everyone!

I will be going away in a week or so and just before I come back I will be ordering this and just want to make sure it is all compatible and also if you think I should change anything so please don't be shy with your suggestions! :p

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM x2 - £133.92
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM - £19.96
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard - £93.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail - £176.24
Noctua NF-S12 800RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin x 3 - £42.27
Akasa Rounded Floppy Cable (0.45m) - Black - £2.34
Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive - Black - £23.49
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-5400C5 Dual Channel Vista Upgrade Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2VU6674GK) - £93.99

Sub Total : £498.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £88.87

Total : £596.71

I already have the following:
PSU - Corsair HX 520W
Case - Silverstone TJ09
Graphics Card - Gainward 8600GTS
Monitor - Acer AL1913 [Might upgrade to a 22" later on, either a HP W2207 or a Acer 22"]
Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers I will keep from my old system.

I do have some questions I hope you can answer for me.

I am hoping this system will last me at least 2 years, maybe with minor upgrades.. therefore I have decided I wont be OC it.. which is why I gone for the E6850, but considering that the Q6600 is the same price should I go for the Quad instead? I am not a heavy gamer, mostly Civ, SimCity and maybe Doom3.. Except from some light gaming I will also be using the machine to watch movies, normal Office stuff and the Net.. some DVD rendering but nothing heavy.. so, Duo or Quad? [Or should I skip both and go for a E6750 and save myself about 50 quid!]

I know that the RAM is the minimum range for the E6850 [or the E6750], but considering the price for 4GB I am inclined to go for it.. will be using XP [32 bit] for a while but probably upgrade to Vista end of the year [64 bit version].. Should I still go for the PC2-5300 or just get 2GB of a PC2-6400 and maybe upgrade with another 2 sticks when I get the Vista?!?

Is the Samsung DVD Re-Writer good? I have a LG at present which is nice and quiet but will be going with my old system when I sell it, so do need a new DVD, should I keep the Samsung or do you have any other suggestions?

Lastly, I am going to change the fans in the TJ09, will the Noctua be quite and will they generate enough airflow to keep my machine cool and healthy? I have no clue about Fans, been reading about them but not made me much wiser! :o

Sorry for such a long post, but as some of you might already know this will be my first build and I am rather nervous, so want it all to be sorted out before I order! :rolleyes:

Thank you in advance for all your help and suggestions!

Cheers
Tom

Edit: Ops, forgot to say I would rather not go over £600 in total if you do have some changes that you think would suit me better! :rolleyes:
 
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Personally, if i was planning on spending that amount of money on a processor id get a quad core, especially if your not planning to upgrade for 2 years. I think itd be far more user friendly, and by the sounds of it you possibly dont need such a fast clock speed anyway.

Id also buy the 2gb, then buy a following 2gb when you upgrade to vista.
Seeing as ram prices are generally always dropping, this would save money aswell as avoid having redundant ram floating around in your PC.

Other than that, the spec seems fine.
 
DavidB said:
Personally, if i was planning on spending that amount of money on a processor id get a quad core, especially if your not planning to upgrade for 2 years. I think itd be far more user friendly, and by the sounds of it you possibly dont need such a fast clock speed anyway.

Id also buy the 2gb, then buy a following 2gb when you upgrade to vista.
Seeing as ram prices are generally always dropping, this would save money aswell as avoid having redundant ram floating around in your PC.

Other than that, the spec seems fine.
Click to expand...
The only thing that worries me a bit about the Quad, and which I forgot to ask about in the first post, does not the Quad generate much more heat and draw more power then the Duo? I might be totally wrong though so if someone could enlighten me there I would appreciate that! [And would 3 fans be enough to cool it all down?]

shine said:
Agree with the above. I have the samsung drive and I'm very happy with it.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I can stop "worry" about the DVD drive now! :)

Anyone else have any suggestions or pointers?

Cheers
Tom
 
First sorry for bumbing up my thread but got another question..

I have decided not to go for a Quad and instead go for a E6750 saving me some £££.. but I have been looking at some PC2-6400 RAM and something that I can't get my head around is the C4 or C5 thing.. I can see it reflects different timmings like 4-4-4-12 or 5-5-5-15.. if not OC which one would give me best performance? A RAM that says C4 or C5?

Thanks for your help!

Cheers
Tom
 
Lower the better where latencies are concerned - so C4 is better than C5.

As you are going to be using XP 32bit I would not recommend going for 4gig RAM as you won't be able to use all of it properly.
 
Thank you for sorting out the latencies for me, HangTime! :)

And as DavidB already suggested, I will be going for 2GB and instead of the PC2-5300 I will get some PC2-6400 instead.. I was just not sure which one but I think I will be going for this one now..

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) - £66.96

Now, if anyone could tell me if the Fans I picked is good or not I would be a happy camper! :p

Cheers
Tom
 
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