Spec needed - £500-£600ish.

[spr33ness]

Hey guys,
Currently looking for parts for a new build.

Current System:
Dell 2407 + Viewsonic VX2025wm
AMD X2 4400+
2gb Corsair 3200DDR
Radeon X1950 Pro (512mb AGP)
Corsair HX 520w
Lot's of hard drives (mostly IDE)
.. and the usual hardware.

Looking to go down the Intel route this time (first Intel system in a long time). I have around £500-£600 to play with, a bit more if required.

Things that I don't need:
PSU
Monitor
Hard Drives
DVD-RW
Keyboard/Mouse
Speakers
Sound Card

I've been looking at getting the Q6600, looks like it has good overclocking potential..but overclocking isn't essential but more than welcomed.

System will be used for gaming (running at native resolution where possible - 1920x1200, photo editing and video playback (high res).

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[spr33ness]

I do actually have an old IDE Controller lying about somewhere, guess it'll come in handy again. I'd also need a new case, I was looking at the Antec NINE HUNDRED case, my girlfriends dad has it and it looks pretty nice. Also, I wouldn't need shipping as I'm just around the corner from OCUK

How is that RAM for overclocking? I'd probably rather get 2gb and have some headroom for overclocking potential. Also, I've just read reviews saying the CPU cooler you listed is pretty hard to install, or has issues when trying to install. I'd probably go for a Freezer 7 or a Zalmon.

Nice spec though. Thanks

This is sitting about near the middle of your budget and should offer a very capable system, however you should note that almost all motherboards now only come with one IDE port so if you have mainly IDE drives you might need an IDE controller card, just pick up a cheap one if it is mainly for storage.

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GV-NX88T512H-B) £164.99
(£193.86) £164.99
(£193.86)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
Sub Total : £467.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £83.46
Total : £560.36

 

[spr33ness]

Thanks for the info. I think i'm going to wait a little longer before I make the purchase, impulse buys have not got me far in the past

More specs would be helpful

 

[spr33ness]

Ok, I've narrowed it down a little bit now:

Intel Q6600 95W
Abit IP-35 (not sure which is best to go with - IP-35E, IP-35 or IP-35 pro.. if this board at all)
2GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 (*shrugs*)
XFX 8800GTS 640MB (it's not much more expensive than the GT's)
Antec 900
Freezer 7 pro
320GB Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 (thought it'd be best to buy new for this build).

Does the Abit support regular SATA or just SATAII? I'm a little behind on the newer motherboards.

And I want to try and push the CPU to 3ghz+, 3.4ghz if possible.

 

[spr33ness]

Thanks for the replies guys. I took to plunge for the bits I listed before, I couldn't get a 8800GT on the site I purchased from. I'll probably end up ebaying it and getting the new 8800 G92 when it comes out (I'll probably lose a few quid but hey, money lost, performance gained).

I wasn't too bothered about the ram's pricing to be honest, I think my current builds ram cost £200 a stick (1GB) when I got it a few years back. But overall, the Corsair is just as good as the OCZ and the Geil?