Which is better? Advice thread?

mattyy

mattyy

mattyy

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3 Dec 2008
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491
Okay, so I'm planning on building a new PC for graphics and web design work, also a bit of gaming.

Looking at the current prices I need some advice on whats better:

CPU

A Core 2 E8400 or a Q6600?

Memory

I want 4GB of memory and I'm a budget this month, although I cant wait so I want to get the best ram for my money...

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2
Timings - 5-5-5-18
Speed - 800mhz
Price - £37.94 inc VAT

or

Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory
Timings - 5-5-5-18
Speed - 800mhz
Price - £40.99inc vat

or

Patriot 4GB PC2-7200 C5 Viper Extreme Performance (2x2GB)
Timing - CL 4-5-4-12
Speed - 900mhz
Price - £49.39 inc. VAT

or

Kingston 4GB PC2-8500 HyperX (2x2GB)
Timing - 7-7-7-20
Speed - 1066mhz
Price - £49.39 inc. VAT

or

OCZ 4GB PC2-8000 Platinum XTC (2x2GB) EPP (Nvidia Approved)
Timing - CL 5-5-5-18
Speed - 1000mhz
Price - £51.69 inc. VAT

or (Last one)

Patriot 4GB PC2-8000 C5 Viper Extreme Performance (2x2GB)
Timing - 5-5-5-15
Speed - 1000mhz
Price - £55.14 inc. VAT

The way I see this I would be better getting one of the two bottom ones, although it seems that the two top ones are popular. The two bottom ones have the same or close timings and a faster speed.
I may have a shot at overclocking but surely if i buy some 800mhz ram to oc to 900+mhz id be better of buying some 1000mhz ram to start with?

So recommendations please!

Max budget for ram is £55, and I want a choice of the two CPUs listed...
Thanks. (Oh and I know nothing about timings btw, just figured the ones closest to the most popular would be best!)

Matty
 
Personally i like Patriot ram. I have found it to be fast, stable and very overclockable. I would go with either of the Viper Extreme kits but as the pc2 8000 kit is only an extra £6 i would go with that. Don't touch the Kingston kit as the timings are appalling.

The CPU will depend on if the software you use can make the use ot the extra cores of the quad. If so then go for the quad. If not then the E8400 would be a good choice. More power efficient and cooler running. It would also make better use of the high speed ram.

Welcome to the forums by the way. :)
 
Thanks for the reply. I think I'll be going for the E8400 untill I can afford to upgrade to a better quad, TBH I probally wont make much use of all its cores as you have stated.

I see that the OCZ PC26400 kit is pretty popular, what will the OCZ PC28000 XTC kit be like?
Im leaning towards the Patriot 8000 ram at the minute, the only thing putting me off is that you hear so much good about the two 800mhz kits but not a lot about the Patriot. Will I notice much between the three, bearing in mind I doubt I will be overclocking much (only enough to match my E8400 to a E8600 or similar)

Thanks for the welcome! :)
 
How much of an overclock will you be gunning for? As any 800MHz kit is going to allow for a 3.6GHz clock speed at the kits stock speed (400 x 9)...

I always stick to OCZ or Corsair for my systems :)
 
Don't know if you're going to be using Adobe Creative Suite for web/graphics work, but it takes advantage of multiple cores.
 
I'm using CS2... Not sure if thats too old or not.
Still, I think the E8400 will suit me fine for a good 6-12 months anyway, have been using an AMDx2 HP laptop for the past year due to lack of space.

So whats the reccomendation?

OCZ/Corsair 800mhz
or
Patriot 1000mhz?
 
All down to you bud, depends if you want the increased headroom for oc and as tight/tighter timings and whether the x amount of pounds saving is that important
 
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