Spec confirmation please.

SH4RKY

SH4RKY

SH4RKY

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Joined
28 Aug 2004
Posts
766
Location
b'ham
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black)
(£91.64)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
(£132.76)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
(£17.61)

Abit IP35 Pro XE Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£93.99)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939)
(£75.19)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ)
(£68.14)

Coolermaster Real Power 700w Modular Power Supply
(£86.94)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR10664GK)
(£76.36)

Leadtek GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£164.49)

Asus DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black/Silver) - Retail
(£22.31)

Total : £829.43
(free shipping)


I would like a sound card, but that can wait for now.

The ram I originally had in the list was the Dual Channel Platinum Series stuff, but the reaper stuff is the exact same price with the same specs but what looks to be better cooling. So went for that, assuming it will fit (physically).

With the price of the q6600 rocketing I thought about swapping it out to a yorkfield q9450 or a q9550…. But unsure if it’s worth the 100 quid extra cost and even if the rest of the parts fully support the chip… (ram/mobo are 1066 – cpu is 1333?) Maybe that can come later. So for now perhaps its better to get the right motherboard…

Is there a mobo that better supports the stuff I have and any possible future upgrades? Eg, one with pcie2.0 for the gx260. maybe the Abit IX38 QuadGT Intel X38??


Planning on running dual Dell 2007FP (1600x1200) monitors. PC use would be a combination of general photography stuff, internet and games. Don’t really want to upgrade too much along the way to my next system. Would give OCing a bash to get my moneys worth out of the cpu and apparently its criminal not to with these intels. :)
Oh, and im going for a quiet system… hence the GX260 and p182.


Any tips and recommendations would be appreciated, or any suggestions about alternative parts that could shave off a few pounds here and there :p
 
The case choice is the buyers.

The Q6600 price is shocking and i would advise either shopping about or waiting it out a week or so, maybe have a look at the E80** range.

The cooler is great for the price but there's better.

Now the motherboard, P35 is becoming old tech now, i would advise looking at the P45 chipset for the same price range, have a look at the Asus P5Q Intel P45 it's had some great reviews.

In regards to the psu, it's the most important part of your build, i have no experience with it, i would advise checking some reviews, corsair are a safe bet for being quality and quiet.

The ram is a bargain but OTT unless you're aiming for high clocks, you can get a 2 x 2GB set of 6400 for £58.00.

With the money you could save on a non-modular psu, slower memory and a better / cheaper mobo you could aim at getting a HD4870 instead of the GTX260.

EDIT: just had a quick look, hows this :)

spec-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Ok

First off, change your Mobo to this, much better and supports faster stuff, (including the Q550 should you upgrade) and is all roud faster
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Change your HDD to either the 640gb or the 1tb, they are a lot faster.

If you want quiet why don't you get a Be Quiet! PSU. Might want to read up on them a bit but I understand they are suppose to be pretty bloody quiet

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show...wer Pro 550W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant PSU

I'd advise chaning your GPU from the GTX260 to the ATI 4870 as it is a lot better for exactly the same cash

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show...5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Nice spec tho. Overclock that baby up to 3.6ghz and your laughing :)


Edit, Sod it, beaten to the punch :P
 
Thanks for the replies so far :)
(need all the help I can get, little out of it at the mo (939 amd 4000, ddr1, 6800gt etc))


I had a suspicion the mobo would need updating. 2 votes for the P5Q straight off the bat has got to be a good sign.


The ram is a little overkill, but had in my mind that the 1066 stuff would be good for a quicker cpu later on… if I was to upgrade to the q9550 or what ever... or is that ram overkill for that too? Happy to go with the 800mhz ram if ill never use the 1066 capabilities!


I picked a coolermaster PSU as I have one in my current rig. It’s silent and has never let me down. So thought I would stick with a brand I know. As you say, the PSU is quite important so thought its worth spending a little extra on it. I do need to check the CMaster reviews though, things could have changed since I got mine 4 years ago… haha


The cooler was chosen because it was cheap, quiet and kept things cool. At least that’s my experience with a friends one on his P4 system. Thought there was better but happy with that for the price and the limited overclocking ill be attempting. Well, unless someone suggests something better for a similar price. :)



Interesting comments about different F1 sizes being faster… I hope the F1s don’t vibrate like my old spinpoint does. I’ll probably go with a 640 for now as I have other drives for storage.




I’m unsure about the different GPU. Is a 4870 actually noticeably faster than a GX260 at 1600x1200 rez?
I picked the GX260 as I have read its cooler is very good; it shifts air outside the case, the GPU runs cool and the fan on the cooler is actually very quiet. That and im unfamiliar with ATI products as of late. Maybe I need to go find some comparative reviews.
Oh, and im very happy with the way nvidia cards handles dual screens… how does ATI get on with dealing with dual screens??


Any more info is greatly welcomed :)
 
Coolermaster make good PSU's. Look at some reviews though because there are plenty others, the PC Power & Cooling look good, as do the BeQuiet ones.
 
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard looks good then. Pro version seems to be the same as the non pro version which is about 5 quid cheaper, but the pro supports crossfire, which is a nice option to have if I end up with an ATI card.


Oh, how does the p182 get on with PSUs with bottom facing fans? From the pics it looks like they are given enough breathing room… but cant quite tell.


Still undecided by the 4870. I think I need a little more convincing… It seems to be pretty much, I guess slightly better, than the 260, but pretty much it’s equal. Ok, when those reviews were written the 260 was a lot more expensive than the 4870 and I fully understand why the 4870 was a better buy... but now the 260 is the same price as the 4870 I get the feeling that either would be a fine choice.
Ill try and find some more reviews of both cards. If they are very similar performance wise and price wise then it’s down to efficiency and noise levels… oh and how each card’s drivers handle dual screens.
 
Damn, the P5Q doesn’t have an optical output… ill need a sound card in that case…
Main need for the optical out put is to output to my headphone amp and DAC.
Any recommendations??



Also…. At what point do you need faster (pc8500) ram? If I went for a yorkfield quad would that benefit from faster ram, or only on extreme overclocks (which I wont be doing)?
 
I'm also deciding on a Q6600 or Q9550 and pc6400 or pc8500. I suppose the difference wouldn't be that great unless you oc them.

In terms of sound card, I think it's safe to say Xonar is much better than X-Fi.
 
hmm.. the 60 quid xonar doesnt seem to output optical either >_<

Wonder what happened to the other brand that ocuk stocked... forgot the name now, but they were regarded very highly I believe.


Hopefully the prices of the q6600 are starting to fall again. I see its in this weeks weekly deals. When it was £95 for me there just wasnt a question which cpu to buy... haha.
 
I know this is going to sound typical at the moment but if you say you don't really want to upgrade again for a while after this wouldn't it be more sensible to wait a couple more months and get Nehalem? It will require a new socket so any motherboard you purchase now will be useless, and IIRC it is only DDR3 compatible so you would require new RAM too.

I realise you are prob desparate to upgrade because the system you have does sound pretty old but if you have managed for this long what is another month or two going to matter?
 
Yeah... I have thought about this. I would like to wait for the new chips... but I can’t see it being viable at the moment. Ok, so they are released in a couple of months... but that’s first gen stuff. It will be buggy, it will be expensive and choice of components will be limited. It will be at least another year by the time the better 2nd gen stuff is out and prices have fallen to a reasonable level.

So, while I would like to wait and get the new stuff, my thinking is that if I get a relatively powerful and fairly upgradable system using the current gen stuff I could probably skip the Nehalem altogether and jump into DDR4 and the new new chip in 3-4 years time;)



I built this pc just as PCIE was coming in. It was rare and very expensive, so I got a decent system that unfortunately was literally un-upgradeable (DDR1, AGP, 939). I did effectively skip an entire generation of chips and 3 generations of GPUs though…

With the above spec, I should have an upgrade path in the GPU and possibly the ram. The CPU I will probably be limited to picking up the last (and most powerful) yorkfield or what ever is around then.

This pc is 4 years old now… ive spent very little on upgrading it over that time and yet it still plays HL2 at more than acceptable framerates with very decent settings (thanks to 1280x1024 res) and WoW is fine most of the times too. Ok, I cant play the latest and greatest, but the PS3/360 took over that role as the PC aged. Now its time for a PC boost so I can play some of the latest pc stuff again, but more for just a general boost in windows performance and multitasking ability.


At the end of the day: if you wait for the next gen stuff, you will be forever waiting….
 
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