You go away for a little while....

[MutlehPom]

... and everything might as well be chinese when it comes to buying a new system.

last system I built was a SN45g Shuttle (nforce2), quite a while ago - i've built a few systems over the years, but I've been away globetrotting the past year and a half and have come back worldy wise ( ) but I feel like a newbie when looking at the way technology changed!

I want to throw some money in to getting a new system that will last me a good while from here out.

So I've been looking at the following for a base...

Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
2GB G.Skill PC2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-038-OK)

Essentially, I want to transfer as many bits out of the shuttle to the new PC for now, and upgrade them as and when possible.

I was going to put these in to my old OCUK badged Globalwin 802 (lots of fans, super noisy, ATX case) - can anyone see any issues in that? I was thinking a 400w-ish power supply? like the
OCZ ModStream 450w ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-016-OC), I don't really care for the looks of cases so not fussed about UV shiny malarky but its on special and seems decent enough spec?

For HDD one of my 160gb Maxtor from the shuttle + DVDRW, both are old type IDE connectors but this will suffice for now.

My old Radeon 9800 Pro will have to remain in the shuttle as its AGP, kind of hoped AGP would still be supported! but never mind. I can probably stretch to £200-ish for the graphics card, I really havent kept up with this, I'll probably spend most of my time playing Battlefield 2, eventually BF2142 presumably. I want something thats going to last a while in any case.... it seems to me that the price modifier is down to how much RAM a lot of these cards have currently (and understanding that RAM prices have surged a bit!)..ie newer chipset but 256mb ram comparable to older chipsets but more RAM, ??? am I right in thinking that im better off going with an ATI card, given the Asus board support for crossfire, i won't be crossfiring any time soon, so just looking at one decent card, do I need to be looking at minimum 512mb versions? I've seen my mates pc run BF2 fine on an X800 card, but please don't think i am just going for this pc purely for Battlefield! I'm using my iiyama VM Pro 453 and dont really have any intentions of changing this (supports VGA/DVI)

I think that covers most of my questions, your help appreciated!

Thanks,
Mart

 

[Murzo]

Probably best that you post up your max budget then it will be easier for us to help, but your on the right lines with the components you have selected.

 

[Raikiri]

I would get an E6300 along with the Gigabyte DS3 and Geil 800mhz DDR2, use the money saved to buy a new case such as the Eclipse which is great for quiet cooling.

As for graphics the x1800xt at about £135 is a bargain, as is the x1900xt. The 512mb 7900GS is a decent card for silence but can't match the x1900xt speed wise.

 

[t31os]

I would get an E6300 along with the Gigabyte DS3 and Geil 800mhz DDR2, use the money saved to buy a new case such as the Eclipse which is great for quiet cooling.

As for graphics the x1800xt at about £135 is a bargain, as is the x1900xt. The 512mb 7900GS is a decent card for silence but can't match the x1900xt speed wise.

No point getting an eclipse for silence if you're gonna stick a jet powered video card in there, is there?.....

Bit of a contradiction wouldnt you say....

 

[The $6m Dan]

Stick a Zalman VF900 on the GFX card and they're quiet enough.
It keeps my overclocked X1900XT-X around 70c under load, the only probalm is that the northbridge takes most of the blast (from the heated air off the GFX cooler) and that then spins up and makes noise :/
If the northbridge is out of the way of the GFX card or you have better case flow than me (I've only got a single 120mm exhaust in the Antec Sonata) then it shouldn't be a problem.

Edit - Or get the HIS card, as that has a better cooler that than the stock cooler, and it exhausts the heat out of the back of the case.

 

[Raikiri]

No point getting an eclipse for silence if you're gonna stick a jet powered video card in there, is there?.....

Bit of a contradiction wouldnt you say....

Get a HIS graphics card then, or better yet read all of my post including the bit about the 512mb 7900GS which has a zalman cooler stock

 

[t31os]

Get a HIS graphics card then, or better yet read all of my post including the bit about the 512mb 7900GS which has a zalman cooler stock

Meant that with a bit of humour mate... hence the winky smiley guy ...

I have an eclipse and my x1800xt clearly drowns out what would otherwise be pretty much silence.