spec for a mate

m@rty

m@rty

m@rty

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2006
Posts
3,190
my mate is ordering some components and was wondering if these were all compatible with each other.

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.60GHz (Socket AM2) - OEM
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB)
MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

He already has HDD,Monitor and all the other stuff he needs and he will be buying a case and PSU seperate.

Would the PSU need to be ATX2.0 or would any PSU do that's over 400W
 
he's on a tight budget and isn't really interested in overclocking so i think the processor he chose will be suitable.
 
well my budget £420 and thats what this came too
if u can make it more powerful for 420 and below then i would get tht
:) its jst C2D motherboards lookmore expensive :(

(im marty's m8 btw)
 
Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£72.84) £61.99
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 (£115.14) £97.99
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 (£76.36) £64.99
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB (£111.61) £94.99 this week only offer
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (£34.06) £28.99

Total : £420.53 including shipping

Oh, you'll need some Arctic Silver 5, too... that'd put you £7 over budget, but you could swap the cooler for a cheaper one if it needs to be £420 max.

But, if you keep the setup above, you should overclock. You'll most likely get 3Ghz outta that processor, and you won't regret it :D
 
instead of that CPU & cooler, could i get
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

which is (£129.24) inc vat

and Retail means it comes with a cooler?
and OEM means without?

and what is arctic silver 5?
 
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If your not overclocking I recommend the following:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
MSI 965P NEO (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Comes to £397.40 inc delivery
You can bump the CPU up to an E6400
£420.90

You could also go for a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail , but it would push the price up to £438.52

EDIT: I would spend the extra £2.84 & get the mobo Furnace recommends
 
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XILLAX said:
instead of that CPU & cooler, could i get
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

which is (£129.24) inc vat

and Retail means it comes with a cooler?
and OEM means without?

and what is arctic silver 5?
Click to expand...

OEM means just the CPU, retail means it comes with a cooler. However the cooler isn't very good and it's pretty loud, and also if you want to overclock later on, the cooler probably won't let you as it won't be able to cool your CPU down enough. The cooler in the retail box is a bit pants, you see.

I think you're best off with the Gigabyte S3 mobo though...

Arctic Silver 5 is Thermal Grease. It goes in between the processor and the cooler, and basically instead of just having metal against metal without thermal grease, where you're bound to get slight air gaps, it fills in the gaps and makes heat transfer properly from the processor to the cooler. And you get a MUCH cooler computer than you would with out :) You'd have to be silly to not use thermal grease :p But retail coolers come with it already applied to them, hence you don't have to buy it when you get a retail unit.

The thing with the E6300 and the cheap 5300 ram, is that you will end up with an overclock limit of about 333*7 ~ 2.4Ghz.

But if you get the 4300 with cheap 5300 ram, it will have a limit of 333*9 ~ 2.99Ghz.

So you'd be able to overclock the 4300 further before your RAM is getting stressed. So I'd recommend getting the 4300 + Cooler, as you will get faster speeds and cooler temperatures, if you're prepared to learn a little bit about overclocking.

However with the 6300, you'd have the retail heatsink. So you won't be able to overclock much at all, as the retail heatsink you'd get with it won't cool it down so much. Also, as the CPU has a multiplier of *7, basically maxing you out at 333 (the speed of the RAM) * 7 which is 2,400Mhz. In comparison to the 4300 having a *9 multipler, giving you a max speed of 2.999Mhz...

You could run a RAM divider on an E6300, but I think you'd get better performance with the 4300 as the RAM:FSB would be at 1:1...

What does everyone else think? :confused:

EDIT: oh, and if you're not overclocking and you don't fancy learning how to... then I'd go for a retail E6400 if you can!
 
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Van Diemen said:
Furnace, If he wants to OC Im with you all the way. If no OCing then go for the best CPU he can get within budget.
Click to expand...
Yeah defo :) If you're not OC'ing, do what Van said and get an E6400 - then you can forget about the cooler and use the retail one (which is fine if you're not overclocking)
 
Hi, whats better about this gfx card:

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

over this one:

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

i see the MB's is bigger, but what else is better? its jst the 512 one is like 50quid more, and the spec's look the same except the Mbs

if only the MBs is better, then can som1 tell me what difference 512mb makes

Thanx

EDIT: hey, i couldnt find tht Tuniq cpu cooler or somthing, so which one should i get instead?
 
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Tuniq Tower:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-SB

Between the two cards..

The Connect3D has a 20Mhz higher clock speed, which will make things a tiny bit faster (read 3 FPS if that)...

But the 512mb will allow you to run games with higher resolution textures, or at a higher screen resolutions (e.g. over 1280x1024). For example, Doom3 prefers a 512mb card for its highest setting as it uses much higher resolution textures which take up more memory :)

Personally would get the 512 or a 256mb X1950 XT, if you have the cash.
 
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