Yet another spec check!

Micropanic

Micropanic

Micropanic

Associate
Joined
4 Aug 2004
Posts
73
Location
Bristol, UK
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Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.67GHz (1066FSB) - £197.39 inc. vat
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler - £51.69 inc. vat
AcoustiFan DustProof Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin - £18.79 inc. vat
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £7.04 inc. vat
Asus Blitz Extreme Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard - £199.74 inc. vat
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit - £176.24 inc. vat
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - £346.61 inc. vat
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache X2 - £150.38 inc. vat
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 Soundcard - £211.49 inc. vat
Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter - £21.14 inc. vat
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) - £78.71 inc. vat
Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply - £105.74 inc. vat
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838) - £115.14 inc. vat

Total: £1680.10
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Any tweaks needed?
 
Everything is compatible apart from having a DDR3 Motherboard, although i will make some suggestions.

I'd either get a E2160 and overclock it to 3-3.2GHz which it will fairly comfortably or fork out for the Q6600.

Also the motherboard you chose is widely over expensive, your paying for the name tbh, plus i think its a DDR3 only motherboard so your need to change it anyway, I'd suggest making getting an;
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£114.99
£135.11 inc VAT

will offer the same performance and overclocking potential and for a lot less.

Theirs a few other things you could do to save money yet offer the same performance, cheaper 8800GTX and Vista Home Premium for example, also do you really need such an expensive sound-card?
 
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I can see a few things I'd change. Why the E6700? You can get quad core cheaper or if you really want dual core then either the E6750 or E6850 offers better value for money and the same or greater performance.

The Asus is a good motherboard but rather expensive for what it offers and as mentioned requires DDR3 which doesn't really offer any notable benefits over DDR2 currently, you can get a motherboard for a lot less than will offer 95% of the performance at least.

I'd buy a cheaper 8800GTX and overclock it to save around £50.

You could pick the Corsair HX620w PSU instead of the Seasonic, basically the same PSU but built to even higher quality standards and with beefed up modular connectors plus it is cheaper.

Do you have an absolutely amazing sound system? If not then that soundcard is overkill and even if you do it is still probably overkill.

Finally if you don't need the Media Centre part of Vista Ultimate then you could just buy the Premium edition and save cash - there are a couple of other more minor changes but that is the most noticeable. :)
 
This is what I'd get:
spechg2.png

It includes 8 GiB RAM, a very overclockable motherboard, a superior CPU, a superior case, a superior PSU, hard drives that offer pretty much equal performance for less money since they're on sale, a more sane sound card (do you really need all the features of the Elite? At that price you're experiencing SERIOUS diminbishing returns), and a superior fan for the cooler. Do you really need Lightscribe? If not, I'd get the Samsung SH-S203BEBN

EDIT: Whoa, some other folks have been posting while I was spec'ing. :p
 
Micropanic said:
==========================================================
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.67GHz (1066FSB) - £197.39 inc. vat
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler - £51.69 inc. vat
AcoustiFan DustProof Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin - £18.79 inc. vat
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £7.04 inc. vat
Asus Blitz Extreme Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard - £199.74 inc. vat
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit - £176.24 inc. vat
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - £346.61 inc. vat
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache X2 - £150.38 inc. vat
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 Soundcard - £211.49 inc. vat
Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter - £21.14 inc. vat
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) - £78.71 inc. vat
Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply - £105.74 inc. vat
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838) - £115.14 inc. vat

Total: £1680.10
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Any tweaks needed?
Click to expand...

Change the E6700 to a Quad Core.

Also change the motherboard, that Blitz motherboard is way overpriced = its DDR3 only which isnt worth going into at this point in time.

Get this motherboard:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-135-AB&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=913

Another thing, do you really need that uber expensive sound card, £200 for a soundcard is crazy.

Lastly will you actaully use all the features of Vista Ultimate, if not or you dont know about these extra features go for Home Premium.

Other than that good spec.
 
billy's spec looks (and is) better. better quality components and a high spec for money.

Billy for the win!
 
semi-pro waster said:
Great specification again. I only hope that Micropanic has at least a 24" monitor and preferably a 30"+ screen to make use of it properly. :) And no soundcard either, bad Billy. :p
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tweaks guys, I don't know what I'd do without all your expert input :D

I currently have a Samsung Syncmaster 930B (19"), but I will be buying a new bigger monitor to compliment the new box of tricks :)

And I was thinking about buying an expensive soundcard since the one I'm using now is the one I bought with my first ever computer... and I believe that was about 10 years ago.

Ah, and I forgot to mention that I'm a game addict and my pc will help me with the new video games... at present I'm having problems with playing Bioshock with everything tuned down to the lowest as possible. (Which is extremely distressing considering the screenshots I've seen)
 
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If that's the case you'll find that integrated audio has improved greatly since then. £200 is a hellova lot to spend on audio. Intel 7.1 is quite good. If you find that that's not enough down the line, add an Xtreme Music, a card that is a good balance of price and performance.
 
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