New System Specs

[JE78]

I'm going to either be ordering this before or right after Christmas. I work for UPS so right now even if I did order it I wouldn't have the time to build and set it up, so I will probably wait till after the holiday.

This system is going to be used mostly for web surfing, multitasking and gaming. I'm not worried about running eveything at MAX settings, i've never had a systems that allowed me to do that so i'm not worried about it now. I'm looking for something stable that will allow me to do some little overclocking. Here are the specs.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
ASUS P5B-E Socket T
Patriot Signature 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s x2

I will be using my DVD/RW from my old system and my video card a ATI x800XL PCI-E. My question is will that card bottleneck this system down a huge amount? I plan to upgrade the video card after a few months. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[KeithTalent]

Depends what games you are playing and what resolution you will be gaming at. If you are fine at reduced settings you should be fine until you upgrade down the road.

Looks good otherwise.

KT

 

[JE78]

Thanks. I mostly play BF2, RCT3 and rFactor.

 

[excalibur3]

If you have 2 hard drives will you be doing a RAID or no?

 

[JE78]

honestly I have no idea about RAID. I don't know what the benifits are or if I should or not and if I do I don't now know how to go about setting it up. These will be my first SATA drives.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: JE78
honestly I have no idea about RAID. I don't know what the benifits are or if I should or not and if I do I don't now know how to go about setting it up. These will be my first SATA drives.

not much performance gain (lower load times, and probably not noticeable), and at a much higher risk of data loss

 

[JE78]

is this if I use RAID or don't use it?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: JE78
is this if I use RAID or don't use it?

If you do. But there are many types of RAID.

Even an E6300 would be good enough (I assume you will not use 8800GTX SLI for some time.)

 

[JE78]

I probably won't use RAID then. No, I won't be going for the 8800 anytime soon, I'm looking at the 7900GT as an upgrade in a few months.

 

[JE78]

anyone else?

 

[Roguestar]

An E6300 and this RAM will get you a 2.8Ghz overclock fairly easily.

 

[JE78]

Thats a little more than I wanted to spend. What about this suff? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231098

 

[trOver]

cant skimp on memory... i would go for the patriot

 

[JE78]

Which patriot? The 667 or 800? The 800 is a bit out of my price range, plus I dont plan on overclocking that much. Just want something stable with a little flexability.

 

[Roguestar]

The 667 I linked.

Basically, stuff in this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1966035

 

[Boyo]

Don't bother with RAID. You don't need it, and it's not worth the hassle. I do agree on not skimping on your memory, although no Corsair was listed in that thread, I believe it should be.

 

[Roguestar]

The Corsair have recently been sent to reviewers with D9 memory and then the stuff available to the average joe has been using Promos chips because it's cheaper, iirc. Very disappointing from a company I held in such high regard as Corsair (I used to use them for all my RAM) but given there are more reliable, cheaper, better performing sticks out there the Corsair needn't be the choice anyway.