what would you do? new rig...

[keithgillis]

what would you do? my rig that i built four years ago is dead. fried motherboard +/- cpu:

OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel £29.99 2 £59.98
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £149.99 1 £149.99
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99 1 £69.99
Lian Li PC-A16B Aluminium Full-Tower - Black £79.99 1 £79.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3320620AS) £46.99 1 £46.99
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £35.99 1 £35.99
Scythe S-FLEX 1600RPM Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £10.99 1 £10.99
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum - Fatal1ty Champion Series 7.1 Sound Card £99.99 1 £99.99
Corsair HX 520W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99 1 £57.99
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £154.99 1 £154.99
Samsung SH-S203P/BEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM

was waiting for ivybridge to push down prices as a no longer really need top of the range gear. just for internet, work, hobbying. but have mostly just been confused by the whats out there now.

what mb/cpu/ram would u guys get to fit the rest of the gear?

 

[opethdisciple]

Thats a pretty broad question dude. If you dont need top of the range stuff then your options are wide open.

Price range?

Decide what cpu you want and every thing else will follow.

I see you have DDR2 ram, you want to reuse it?

If so then your limited to mobo that take DDR2.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there and welcome to the forums

When you say the motherboard and CPU fried - are you certain the CPU is dead? As often a motherboard will die, but the CPU is still OK - plus your Q6600 is a nice chip.

Also, do you know whether the fault was caused by the motherboard or the PSU?

If the CPU can be recovered and you already have the DDR2 RAM then the cheaper option would be to buy a second-hand LGA775 motherboard (even a nice one using the P35, P45 or X48 chipset shouldn't cost much more than £40 - and one of these would allow you to overclock your CPU).

The Thermalright heatsink is a nice unit - I would recommend you buy a LGA 1155/1156 bolt-through kit for it (~£5) so you can use it with a modern intel system.


As for which new mobo/cpu/ram to go for - I would be tempted to go for a i5 3570K Ivy Bridge quad core - since it is very fast, quad core, overclockable and will keep you going for ages. If you want to spend less then I would recommend either a Sandy Bridge i3 2100/2120 dual core or if you willing to go second-hand - an i5 2500K quad core(which is only a few % slower than the i5 3570K and overclocks fantastically).

As for the motherboard- if you can afford it I would go with a decent Z77 chipset board (like this one) - this will give you the ability to overclock compatible CPUs, support PCIE gen3 (with an ivy bridge CPU) and features SATA3, USB3, RAID and on certain models SLI/CF.

If your budget is much tighter then a H61 board (like this one) will support any LGA1155 CPU - however it doesn't support CPU overclocking, SATA3, RAID or SLI/CF.

As for the RAM, I would go with this kit as 8GB 1600Mhz should be plenty, though if you really want to keep costs down then this slightly slower kit should be fine. For £23 you can get a 4GB kit - but I would personally pay teh extra £7 for double the capacity.

 

[crinkleshoes]

As the Q6600 price is £150... In your position, I would be inclined to pay the small extra for an i5 3570k & motherboard combo.

It will be less that £50 extra and give you twice the speed (you may not need it, but it's nice to have )

I also wouldn't buy an 8800GT for £155 - there are better options for the same money.

Where you have:

OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel £29.99 2 £59.98
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £149.99 1 £149.99
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99 1 £69.99
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £154.99 1 £154.99

Total = £434.95

I would instead get:
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail 179.99
OcUK GeForce GTX 560Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card 159.95
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard 84.98
Samsung Green 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) 53.99

Total = £478.91

So an extra £43.96 for a system with a CPU that's twice as fast at stock speeds, a better graphics card and 4x as much RAM that's also faster.

Or perhaps this graphics card for an extra £40 if you would like to do more gaming:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-007-KF

You could also compromise on the graphics card to bring the price down to match or even be cheaper than the parts you quoted.

 

[subbytna]

I think that was his OLD system when he bought it....crinkle

 

[cmndr_andi]

As the Q6600 price is £150... In your position, I would be inclined to pay the small extra for an i5 3570k & motherboard combo.

Sorry man, I don't quite understand what you mean.

The OP already has the Q6600 + 8800GT system - it is just that something has blown. I don't think he is considering replacing it all with the same components - as that would be madness (especially considering that stuff hasn't been made for years).

The i5 3570K system you specced is a good one. However, if he can recover the Q6600 then he would just need a new motherboard (£40-50) and possibly some new RAM - so total cost of up to £70 (plus maybe a new graphics card).

 

[crinkleshoes]

Ahhh... duhhh... I mis-read

I was wondering where the Q6600 and 8800GT prices were coming from... haha

 

[keithgillis]

wow , thanks for the responses guys - u chaps are awesome. crinkes - if ur offering to buy them for that price

after it broke (blue screen of death etc), i took it to a shop and the guy told me it was the mb that had blown and maybe the cpu too - he said he couldnt tell if the latter was good or not. thats why ive been a bit vague i guess. have had a look for a second hand mb which would fit my Q6600, but could only find microatx, which i dont think would suit the rest of my gear.

thanks cmndr andi , thinking of upgrading to the i32120 that you suggested....now the hard work of a full re install begins....

 

[keithgillis]

and yeah the spec/prices above are just copied from the oc page when i got it ! times change huh?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Ah, then most likely your CPU does work - it is a shame you aren't able to test it

It may be worth buying a cheap LGA775 motherboard second-hand just to see if you can get it up and running. You should be able to buy a basic second-hand board that supports a Q6600 for ~£20. If you do find it works then the Q6600 G0 stepping CPU is worth ~£50 on it's own. So you could either keep it or sell it with the motherboard to pay for your new system.

The i3 2120 is a nice CPU and does well in games - especially considering its low price. However, just to ensure you are aware - this i3 is a dual core CPU and it can't be overclocked, so for future longevity it probably isn't as good as a quad core that can be overclocked (like the i5 2500K and i5 3570K) though admittedly these CPUs do cost a fair bit more.

 

[the_director]

I have my socket 775 stuff on an certain auction site, so you can buy replacement parts easy enough. I would really consider moving to 1155 though, it is much better value than buying old parts for over the odds.