Spec me C2D pls :)

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 10:59

Well, its time for an upgrade for the festive period and Im looking to upgrade my current system (A64 3200+ S754, 1gb DDR, 9800Pro). Im looking to go C2D

A few questions first though.... I do plan on overclocking the system, as people seem to be getting real nice results, but I wont be going for every last Mhz I can get, so absolute latest / greatest stuff isnt needed. With that in mind, is the extra £20(ish) for the E6400 worth it over the E6300 to get the higher multiplier? or will I get more than enough of an OC from the E6300?

Also, I have an Enermax 480w ATX2.0 PSU, will this run the system ok (im not thinking dual GTX's or anything here, just a Single PCI-E card like a 1950pro or similar) will I need any kind of adapter to connect to the newer (ATX 2.2) boards?

With all that considered, Can someone spec me for:

(My Budget is probly around £400-£450 (maybe £500 at a squeeze, if the performance increase was really worth the extra)

C2D CPU (E6300 or E6400, depending on peoples opinions)
Motherboard (Again, depends on peoples opinions, but most people seem to like the P5b(?) or the DS3/DS4 (whats the difference?)
Ram (2GB would be nice, with overclocking potential, I see lots of people saying Geil or Crucial PC6400 2gb kits i think?)
GFX Card (Well, my current is a 9800 pro, so anything is gonna look fast, but I dont wanna spend an absolute fortune, so perhaps something that is mid-range but clocks very well)

Thanks all.

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 11:41

If you are ocing then I wouldn't go for anything lower than this:

OcUK GeForce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£99.99 (£117.49)

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£84.99 (£99.86)

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
£93.99 (£110.44)

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

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)
£149.99 (£176.24)

Sub Total : £442.95
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £79.08
Total : £530.98

With this setup you should get a very decent OC.

But if budget really is tight then you can save £40 by going for the Gigabyte 965P-S3 (Same as DS3 but without all-solid compacitors) and the Geil 2Gb PC5300.

Yes your PSU will handle this setup just fine.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 11:51

Ok thanks... I was thinking about the XFX 7600GT (the really high clocked one), how would that fair against that 7900GS?

Also, any idea what the P5B is like compared to the DS3? (or do you know what the difference is between the DS3 and the DS4?)

So I wont need any special connectors / convertors for my PSU? i thought the old ATX 2.0 ones wouldnt fit (different plug)

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:45

P5B is good and highly OCable too, but you will have a hard time if you want raid, as one of the connectors is situated at the rear I/O as an eSATA port. It is a little bit more expensive than DS3, too.

DS4 has the same board layout as the top-of-the-class DQ6, has better quality VRM, second PCIE 16* (that operates @ 4*) for crossfire or second display card, and ICH8R south bridge that has RAID support (DS3 has ICH8 and supports raid through Gigabyte's own SATA2 chip that only provides 2 ports, so you're limited to RAID 0 or 1).

Not sure what ATX2.0 includes but the mobo will require 24pin + 4pin connectors, if your PSU only has 20pin + 4pin it will still work just leaving the 4 pins out at the right, but a 20pin - 24pin converter is recommended.

Here is a good interactive GPU comparisons chart from tomshardware, although not 100% correct it will give you a rough idea of how the cards compare.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html?modelx=33&model1=584&model2=529&chart=196

7900GS performs a lot better and has a lot of headroom for OC, too. All for £20 more than the top-of-the-class, heavily OCed 7600GT.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:57

ok thanks.

Any idea how I would get on with just 1gb of ram for now? is it possible to buy a single 1gb stick the same as geil do in their 2x1gb kits? (so I could get a 2nd later) as I dont think I can afford to stretch to all that at once, but if it was only 1GB I could probly do it no problem.

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:11

Yeah 1Gb will do just fine, you will just have to wait a little longer for games to load and maybe some stutters depending on which game.

The thing is though I can't seem to find any manufacturer that provide single 1Gb stick, all I can see are dual channel kits so you may have to settle for 2*512Mb instead and change for a 2*1Gb kit later.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 14:46

Well thats kind of a bad thing, cus I get disk caching problems in WoW now with 1gb of DDR400 on my current system....

Perhaps I can put my LGA 775 3.0gig Prescott in there for now, so I can afford the 2gb of ram and get the E6300 after Xmas (where I may even afford a E6400, for the higher Multi, although I dont think it matters much)

Will the Arctic Freezer Pro still fit my LGA 775 Prescott ok, or will it need a different cooler again?

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:12

No no the Arctic Freezer 7 pro will fit just fine as long as it's a LGA775 proccy.

That's a good idea, you should be able to oc your P4 quite nicely, too.

Although if you are saving up for C2D, aim high and save for an E6600, 2.4Ghz and twice as much cache as the E6300 / E6400. Depends on you really.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:19

Well my main game is WoW, which I do suffer from some disk-caching with 1GB of DDR, its possible the increased speed of DDR2 will alieviate (sp?) my problems in wow anyway, and after just looking the DS3 has 4 ram slots, So I guess I could go with 2 x 512mb and get a second kit later on.

I only really game at about 1280x960 (17 CRT still lol) so I dont need huge ammounts of cache etc... like the E6600 has and from waht I have read, if your not going into real high res gaming, A E6300 clocked like hell is just as fast as a E6600 (well, so close that it doesnt matter and certainly doesnt justify the price difference)

Wonder what I would get outta my 3.0gig Prescott (yeh its definatly LGA775 hehe)

Margaret · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:25

Highly reccomend Corsair Value Select DDR2 5300 ram for OC'ing or Crucial Tenth Anniversary which is 4200 I believe (533 Mhz?)

I'm using Corsair Value Select 5300 currently running it at 944 Mhz which is a fair bit faster than PC6400's default speed which is 800 Mhz.

Have got my 6300 at 3.3 Ghz Orthos stable so far, will be pushing it more tomorrow when I get my Freezer 7 cooler

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:34

Well I think I'd prefer to get 2Gb now and get the CPU later. Because games are still largely dependent on graphic card.

I'm not sure about Intel but AMD A64s really do have problems taking 4 memory modules at the same time, by that I mean it will still work but you have to loose the timings for better compatibility. That's why I suggested either 2*512mb or 2*1Gb.

I reckon with the Freezer 7 Pro you should get 3.6~3.8Ghz no problem, maybe higher depends on steppings - E0 is the best.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:42

Well my old Clawhammer rig only has 3 ramslots anyway, which is why I only had 2x512mb kit in there.

I think I will probly get the gfx, mobo and 2gb of DDR2 and grab the C2D after Xmas.

steve258 said:
I reckon with the Freezer 7 Pro you should get 3.6~3.8Ghz no problem, maybe higher depends on steppings - E0 is the best.

That figure for the C2D or the LGA775 Prescott? I was more interested in short term (that is to say, what overclock I would probly see from the prescott), Cus I already know the C2D's clock like mad anyway ^^

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:47

LOL sorry that's for prescott!! Would love to see an E6300 @ 3.8Ghz!!

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:52

So Im guessing that a prescott : 3.8gig with 2GB DDR6400 and a 7900GS (overclocked) would still be pretty spirited?

jongeeone · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:57

I have the 7900GS OCuK (512mb) and i was very impressed, overclocked to 600/1450 stable etc and runs very cool, around 40degrees load because of the big fan and heatspreader on it. The mem wont budge past 1450 with out giving it more volts but thats complecated

- Its much better than the XFX 7600 XXX, uses less power aswell

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 16:59

jongeeone said:
I have the 7900GS OCuK (512mb) and i was very impressed, overclocked to 600/1450 stable etc and runs very cool, around 40degrees load because of the big fan and heatspreader on it. The mem wont budge past 1450 with out giving it more volts but thats complecated - Its much better than the XFX 7600 XXX, uses less power aswell

Given the resolution I game at etc.... is the extra 256mb of memory really needed? Cus it probly adds a bit to the price (havent checked yet)

jongeeone · 11 Dec 2006 at 17:01

its like £120+ vat, not sure if the mem makes any difference, probably does. I went for the 512mb as it had a higher clock speed stock and 512 sounded better

i only run games at 1024x768 as thats all my crt will take.

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 17:03

No, 512mb is not needed for anything less than 1280*1024 in DX9 games. But DX10 games might be a different story though.

Devilman · 11 Dec 2006 at 17:37

steve258 said:
No, 512mb is not needed for anything less than 1280*1024 in DX9 games. But DX10 games might be a different story though.

True but If I remember rightly, the 7900 isnt DX10 compatable anyway?

However I will admit that eventually I will towards changing my monitor for a 19/20 inch TFT so I will probly go up in resolution a bit.... would the extra ram be worth it then?

Also, with the rig im planning to build, could I put 2 of these cards in (go SLI later maybe, depends how the DX10 cards turn out)? I realise I would need a different board, but Im not too clued up on the difference between SLI / Crossfire etc....? Anyone fill me in? :confused:

steve258 · 11 Dec 2006 at 18:52

Devilman said:
True but If I remember rightly, the 7900 isnt DX10 compatable anyway?

No it isn't, what I was trying to say was get the 256mb DX9 now, when DX10 becomes the norm then get a 512mb DX10 card.

Devilman said:
However I will admit that eventually I will towards changing my monitor for a 19/20 inch TFT so I will probly go up in resolution a bit.... would the extra ram be worth it then?

Yes 512mb definitely will make a difference then, especially when you have all the eye candies on.

Devilman said:
Also, with the rig im planning to build, could I put 2 of these cards in (go SLI later maybe, depends how the DX10 cards turn out)? I realise I would need a different board, but Im not too clued up on the difference between SLI / Crossfire etc....? Anyone fill me in?

SLI = Nvidia
Crossfire = ATI

Both achieve the same thing but work slightly different.

Yes you will need a new board with 2 PCIE 16* obviously. However no one mobo will support both SLI & Crossfire. Current Intel 975 / 965 and the upcoming ATi RD600 chipsets will support crossfire and the Nvidia 590 (stable but rubbish ocer) and the Nvidia 680i (brand new just released, great features & great ocer but expensive as hell) chipsets will support SLI.

Also note that the new Nvidia 8800 series will require 2* full speed PCIE 16 lanes in order to SLI, instead of the conventional 1* 16 lanes split into 2* 8 lanes method that most SLI mobos are using atm.