Unplanned upgrade after power problem

topgun06

topgun06

topgun06

Soldato
Joined
24 Mar 2006
Posts
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Basically due to whatever electrical reason i lost my HDD Mobo and RAM. I was planning on upgrading soon anyway but i figure that i may as well go for it now.

Was planning to upgrade to a C2Duo rig and i'm a little off the pace with the C2Duo chips and motherboards and not sure which is best, especially it comes to RAM.

I understand that the DS3 and DS4s are quite good. Are there any Intel motherboards which support SLI, bearing in mind i have 2 7800GTs at the moment?

Could any of you spec me up RAM, CPU, Mobo and a HDD with £500 as a max. I am planning to overclock. Any pointers, ideas, specs etc would be appreciated as, like i said, i am not sure which is best at the moment.

Thanks
 
While I admit, I dont have this system, I will be getting it soon:

Asus P6N-E (works with SLI!)
Conroe E4300
OCUK DDR2 6400 RAM

That is the "basic" setup I will be going with, along with an 8800 GTS and a corsair PSU.

The conroe could be changed to something faster, as well as the RAM, but the CPU/Ram are good for a budget. CPU is available on the 22/23rd of this month.

(this lot will cost you around 350) which leaves you with plenty for a hard drive.

IF you wanted to spend that bit more, you could get better ram and maybe an E6300.
 
Code: 
        Product	                                                                        Price
CPU	Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz	                                £217.36
Mobo	Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard	        £88.11
RAM	GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit	£176.24
HDD	Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM	                £37.59
		                                                                 Total: £519.30

How about this? Any good? Its a little over my budget, is there any way of keeping to budget by changing the RAM and not loosing performance? I want to keep the CPU and i want an SLI mobo... :confused:
 
Dark_Angel said:
Asus P6N-E (works with SLI!)
Click to expand...
While this board seems to be the only C2D SLI board available at the moment, a review in Custom PC says it is a poor overclocker and is very slow. Looks like it would be a bad idea for me to get this as i am planning to overclock but i do have two 7800GTs :(

You would really think there would be more C2D SLI boards as C2D is the most popular CPU chip and with these new 8800s... grrr
 
What about the Asus 650i Sli board? That should be a decent clocker. Other than that you are looking at one of the 680i boards which cost loads more.
 
The only 650 board i can find is the 'Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard' but it has poor overclockability. Maybe i should look for a 680 board??
 
Yeah you are right, an extra £80 is a lot. I am still a little wary of getting this board even though that thread does make the board look very promising.

What are other people opinions on this board?

Edit: I'm sorry, i'm not careful enough, the one reviewed in Custom PC was an Asus P5N SLI whereas this one is a P5N-E SLI.
 
P5N-E-SLi is your best bet on a budget imo not much difference in speed from the 680i chipset and half the price the only downfalls are....

4 Sata's V's 6 on the 680i ( do you have more than 4 sata drives ? )
SLi mode = 2 x 8x ( 16x in single mode ) V's 2 x 16x on the 680i ( only 2 x 8800 would utilise the 2 x 16 )
lots of overclocking toys in the bios on the 680i's that are lacking in the 650i

i myself love the look of the EVGA 680 board but i'll wait till its a reasonable price :D

Edit just to add....

680i has two ethernet ports on board ( 650i has one ) and 2 more USB sockets than the 650i too
 
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On VR-Zone, they have the board running 2 8800 GTS cards. THey say performance is a little lower (especially at high res) but its a great way to get SLI on the cheap.

*EDIT*

A link Review
 
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Dark_Angel said:
On VR-Zone, they have the board running 2 8800 GTS cards. THey say performance is a little lower (especially at high res) but its a great way to get SLI on the cheap.

*EDIT*

A link Review
Click to expand...
Thanks for the review, as im on a budget and unwilling to wait for prices to come down looks like ill be going for this board. Seems a good overclocker in the thread refered to above, and it seems ok with 2 x 8800s in SLi. This was my only worry, if i was to go SLi with two 8800s i didnt know what performance to expect as it has only two 8x slots in SLi.

hp7909 said:
Don't need a PSU?
Click to expand...
PSU survived, tested it in another system...
 
topgun06 said:
{snip}PSU survived, tested it in another system...
Click to expand...
How? Because it shouldn't have, even cheapo ones would die with the system :confused: Or what was the 'electrical reason', static?

IMHO better include a good/reputable PSU in that budget or same thing might happen :)
 
hp7909 said:
How? Because it shouldn't have, even cheapo ones would die with the system :confused: Or what was the 'electrical reason', static?

IMHO better include a good/reputable PSU in that budget or same thing might happen :)
Click to expand...
I don't know how it survived. :eek:

Like i said, i've tested the PSU and it seems fine.

I pressed the power button on my PC, powered up, then 1 sec later it turned off. I couldn't turn PC on for a few secs after then it powered up again and thats when i saw something was wrong,no fans spinning etc..... My S12 is a tough nut :)
 
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