Spec Check, please

redzep

redzep

redzep

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Joined
5 Aug 2004
Posts
117
Hi all, have a budget of about £1200 for a new rig, will be used mainly for gaming on a 24" Dell monitor. Would be grateful if anyone could check the following spec ? of course if I can save a few quid and get similar performance all the better :p

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £174.99
(£205.61) £174.99
(£205.61)
Lian-Li PC-60 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
BFG 800W UK/PFC Approved PSU £94.99
(£111.61) £94.99
(£111.61)
BFG nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £234.99
(£276.11) £234.99
(£276.11)
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
NEC AD7170S Serial ATA 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Sub Total : £1,084.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
Vat : £192.13
Total : £1,289.99

thanks :)
 
Are you going to be overclocking it? If you are, and you certainly should, you'll need something better than the stock Intel cooler. Something like the Scythe Ninja, Tuniq Tower or Noctua should see you up to in the region of 3.6 GHz. ;-)
 
Also the Raptor is expensive for what you get. Get a Hitachi Deskstar, Seagate Barracuda or Samsung Spinpoint and save yourself a wedge instead.
 
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I can't help but think that

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)

and

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)

Is a bit of a waste of money... there's cheaper alternatives that I bet you really won't notice the difference with :)

EG, get:

Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A32728)
£38.76
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)
£117.49

That's £156.25 total. In comparison to £337.20, you're saving nearly £180. And if you really want a performance increase, change the GTS for a GTX with the saved money ;)
 
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Any particular reason for the BFG 800w? A Corsair 520w or 620w would be more than sufficient and comes in at around half the price.

The BFG NForce 680i is a nice motherboard but the 680i chipset is very expensive considering something like the Asus P5N-E 650 SLi contains most of the features but at around half the cost.

The Ram may also be able to be changed for something cheaper that will perform as well but I don't know enough about Ram to advise fully. :)
 
^ I agree about the PSU too :D Personally I'd go for a gigabyte DS4 or something, too, saving £60. But I understand people need different features from their mobo's, so that's up to you.
 
Raptor and Dominator are both a waste of money.

A Seagate or Samsung drive with 16MB cache will be more than fine.

Also I would go for the 620W Corsair PSU.
 
masslac said:
Raptor and Dominator are both a waste of money.

A Seagate or Samsung drive with 16MB cache will be more than fine.

Also I would go for the 620W Corsair PSU.
Click to expand...

Once again agree with the Corsair PSU...
 
Hi all, sound advice, much appreciated ;)

With regards to the Corsair 620W PSU, having checked the spec properly it seems a very capable PSU and appears to have enough power for a couple of 8800 GPUs in Sli? which is what I would like sometime down the road, this right ?

In terms of the RAM memory, I must confess I chose Corsair purely on the fact I've had Corsair RAM for the past 30 months and it's been as good as gold, but I'm up for any other alternatives if it keeps some change in the pocket ;)

In terms of the western dig Raptor, again I've currently got x2 74GB western dig raptors in Raid 0 and albeit loud seem blistering in performance. However I've had reliability issues and would prefer to have just the one drive for games this time...so i thought why not another raptor!. However if the other drives suggested are close enough in terms of performance not to justify the extra out lay on the rap, then thats all good.

Overclocking I will look to do, but I'm a bit of a novice :o so may well leave things at stock to start with, as my money would not stretch to replcements for a bit if things went pear shaped!!

still got to think more, so :cool: any more advice welcome
 
Please do go for a good 7200RPM drive. Also the GeiL and OCZ 6400 RAM kits are very good for the money.

As for the PSU, the 620W Corsair can handle two 8800 cards with no problems.
 
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £164.99
(£193.86)

Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £99.99
(£117.49)

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £136.99
(£160.96)

BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96)

Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £84.99
(£99.86)

Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £55.99
(£65.79)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44)

Sub Total : £948.89
Total : £1,130.16

Hi all, what do you think?! am I ready to hit the buy button? any thoughts are most welcome thanks ;)
 
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