Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Advice

[MDMMike]

Hi

In the first week of jan I will be building a new system for use at home primarly for my work and for gaming, I have decided on a Core 2 Duo CPU namely the E6600 or possibly the E6700 if the budget will stretch, I allready have a Tagan 700w PSU, 2x Raptor X 150gb SATA drives and a ThermalTake Armour Case (one with 25mm side fan).

Im currently looking at what motherboard to purchase for this CPU and obviously from here I can then work out what memory is required. Graphics wise I have always prefered ATI but can be swayed either way, anyway I have been looking a bit more into these 3 boards, are these any good? or do you recommend another board?

I wont be heavily overclocking, possibly just a small overclock to gain a little bit of a speed boost, pci slots etc isnt really much of a difference to my as I will only have one card inside the machine (graphics).

Some advice would be greatly recieved.

Possible Boards
------------------
Gigabyte GA_965P_DQ6 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Abit AW9D-MAX Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Also out of your choice of motherboard, what memory would you suggest?


Thanks in advance for any advice.
Mike

 

[jaded25]

I'm actually in the same boat. I recently purchased an E6600 and am going to be mainly gaming and was wondering the same exact things. I am also wondering if anyone preferred any other motherboards besides the ones listed.

 

[soydios]

As a good all-around board, I would recommend the Asus P5B-E. It can overclock pretty far, though not as far as the nVidia 680i chipset. Be sure to get the "-E" version, as it has integrated Firewire support. It has only one PCI-Express x16 slot, so you are limited to single-GPU graphics, but it has three PCI-Express x1 slots for the future.

I have the P5W-DH, and it's a great motherboard, but I don't think you need all it has to offer. I use the DH feature set (remote, namely) a fair amount, I plan to use the WiFi if I get to college and my dorm doesn't have WiFi, and I wanted to keep the option of an upgrade to X1900 CrossFire open (my current thoughts, however, are to wait for G90/R700). It also overclocks just as far as the P965-based motherboards, such as the P5B. But, again, for the core features you're looking for, I don't think you need to look at the 975X-based motherboards, such as the P5W and its $70 additional cost over the P5B.

--------------------------------------------------

For RAM, a good question is whether you want 2 gigs or 1 gig. If 2GB, I have this RAM: OCZ Platinum Revision.0 2GB(2x1GB) DDR2-800 4-5-4-15 2.1V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227089).
The RAM is performing superbly; I have it running at 4-4-4-15 timings at DDR2-800 (negligibly faster than stock) at only 1.8V (far below the stock 2.1V). DDR2 prices jumped up by $50-$80 like two weeks after I purchased this RAM four months ago from Newegg at $200, though.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: MDMMike
Hi

In the first week of jan I will be building a new system for use at home primarly for my work and for gaming, I have decided on a Core 2 Duo CPU namely the E6600 or possibly the E6700 if the budget will stretch, I allready have a Tagan 700w PSU, 2x Raptor X 150gb SATA drives and a ThermalTake Armour Case (one with 25mm side fan).

Im currently looking at what motherboard to purchase for this CPU and obviously from here I can then work out what memory is required. Graphics wise I have always prefered ATI but can be swayed either way, anyway I have been looking a bit more into these 3 boards, are these any good? or do you recommend another board?

I wont be heavily overclocking, possibly just a small overclock to gain a little bit of a speed boost, pci slots etc isnt really much of a difference to my as I will only have one card inside the machine (graphics).

Some advice would be greatly recieved.

Possible Boards
------------------
Gigabyte GA_965P_DQ6 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Abit AW9D-MAX Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Also out of your choice of motherboard, what memory would you suggest?


Thanks in advance for any advice.
Mike

I would go with the Gigabyte DQ6 or the Asus P5W DH Deluxe with my preference leaning towards the Asus board.

As far as RAM goes, cheap DDR2-800 RAM will probably be your best bet as it will get you to nice overclocks without even overclocking the RAM. I'd go with reputable brands such as Crucial, Corsair, Mushkin etc, or any other company that offers a lifetime guarantee that you think might still be in business in the next couple years, heh.

If you want to go for nosebleed-style overclocks then buy some expensive RAM otherwise the cheap stuff will do just fine.

 

[MDMMike]

Hi

Thanks for the comments so far, preferably I would like to stick to Corsair RAM primarily because its really the ram I use the most in all my builds and I have never had a problem with their products of their after service.

What extra functionality does a 975X offer over the rest seeing its a fair chunck higher in price? I really want to future proof this board as eventually it will need to be running around 5 HDD's as it will be streaming over 1.2tb of mp3 data through Music DJ and Video DJ software for work.

Basically the machine needs to be cabable of intense mp3 streaming and searching via DJ software, on the fly video mixing (currently works on a amd 2400xp, 1gb, geforce 4 ti46 but gets a tad choppy on anything above 640*480). Secondly it needs to be able to play games as best it can as I do like my games during non working hours. Lastly Im a computer programmer for a living so require it to be able to render images in photoshop and handle large files easily (RAID?) partly the reason why I own raptors.


Thanks again for any new advice, keep it coming

Mike

 

[Roguestar]

Corsair are overpriced for their mid-range stuff. Read this thread.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1966035&enterthread=y

 

[MDMMike]

Hi

I dont know what you would class as midrange but I was looking into the Corsair Dominator RAM, namely the 4-4-4-12 C4 PC6400 2x 1gb kit.

Mike

 

[Roguestar]

The Dominator is handpicked Micron D9GMH iirc, so you haven't too much to worry about there other than the price .