Spec me a Core2Duo system

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 17:53

Hi all,

Been out of the loop for a little while (current rig is Opty 146, MSI Neo2 Plat, 1Gb Ballistix, 6600GT.)

I have £300 to spend in order to bring this up to date. I've already got an HDD (320GB 7200.10) and a decent-ish PSU (OCZ 420W) so I'm really just looking for a mobo and CPU, RAM and GFX.

What do people think of the below spec? I've had to skimp quite a bit on the graphics and RAM to get it within budget - my thinking is that by buying a single 1Gb stick of RAM now, I can buy another later when I have a bit more money. The GFX will probably also be replaced with an 8600GT(S) later in the year.

Gigabyte DS3 (£72)
E6300 retail (£111)
1Gb Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667), CAS 4-4-4-12 (£50)
256MB Palit 7600GT Sonic, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1500MHz, GPU 575MHz, 12Pipes, D-Sub/Dual Link DVI/HDTV SLI (£67)

Total £300

How well is this RAM likely to clock? What is the performance penalty for running a divider on a C2D system? Assuming I'm gonna need to use one to get the most out of the CPU.

Is running single channel memory going to hurt my performance significantly?

Also, views on the graphics card? I'm not a massive gamer but would like something which can handle most modern games on 1280 res with at least medium detail. Main uses of the system will be Folding, a bit of vid encoding, some gaming and general monkeying around.

Thanks guys.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 18:51

Thanks mate. With any luck I'll have some overclocking room on the RAM - I was looking at this article which suggested that DDR2-667 is pretty overclockable, though I dunno if the RAM I chose above will do that well.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:30

Thanks for the help, Edward. The 7300GT might be worth looking into as I'm planning to upgrade later and I doubt it'll be much worse than my current 6600.

What makes you recommend the AB9 over the DS3? I don't really know much about C2D motherboards, the DS3 was just the name I'd heard.

As for the RAM - I'd like 800MHz RAM but the problem with the 1GB kit is that it's 2 sticks, making it harder to upgrade to 2GB later. If it were available as one stick I'd definitely have a look at it.

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 20:51

Energize said:
Surely the mobo has 3 or 4 slots?

My cheapo asrock mobo has 4 slots.

True. I'm still living in the A64 era where having four sticks of RAM had quite a large performance penalty. Is there no penalty at all with C2D? What about in terms of OCing? I have much to learn

(lol at multiple ninja-editing!)

Mattus · 14 Mar 2007 at 22:58

Have updated my spec as I've discovered a Palit 7600GT at £67 - nicely overclocked from reference speeds too

Mattus · 15 Mar 2007 at 23:44

Kk, looks like the message is pretty clear about the RAM! With the low multi on the 6300 you guys are all right. Looks like it's gonna be some Geil 6400. Get the feeling I should buy ASAP, as the prices on RAM always change so much...