Opinions on new system build please

[Energizer Bunny]

Hi Guys

A few months of procrastination down the line, I think I have arrived at my planned new system.

- Core 2 Quad 6600 (plan to clock up to 3ghtz or so)
- Thermaltake Ultra 120 Cooler
- Gigabyte GA P35C Mobo
- 2gigs of Ram
- 8800 GTS 320 Graphics Card
- 750gig HDD
- 520w Corsair PSU
- Antec 900 Gaming case
- Vista 64 Premium

I had originally intended on 4gigs or ram, but had to compromise to keep the cost down

The other major area I had to cut down on was the graphics card. I have a 24" monitor so my needs are quite high (1900x1200 native). I had originally intended to go for a GTX, but cut down for cost reasons and in the knowledge I may need to change cards in the next year or so once DX10 gets properly established.

Can anybody see any areas where I'm clearly skimping or bottlenecking my system? I'll be picking up a G0 stepping of the 6600 so it should have no issues whatsover clocking up to 3 or 3.2g

Any thoughts or comments much appreciated.

 

[MarcVenice]

Wrong forum I'd drop to 500gb HD and perhaps invest extra money into gpu or ram. Besides, looking pretty hot.

 

[sgrinavi]

Hi,

I saved about $50 bucks going to the tuniq tower (it was $44 with the fan) ; at 3 ghz that will be way more than enough.

You can buy 4gb of value ram for the same price as 2gb of performance RAM - depending on what you are doing with your system it may yeild better performance.

Unless you plan on adding ddr3 then you can save a bit on the board by going with the lower end GA-P35-ds3r...

 

[Dainas]

As someone who just switched to an OC'ed Q6600 vista x64 rig, I concur with the above ideas as they have served me well. You're gonna want 4GB of ram, preferably 2x2 for flexibility and alteast DDR800 for future proofing. Switching to a 500GB to give you enough money for an 8800GTS 640mb is also another sound suggestion.

 

[RussianSensation]

As others said, I'd go with 500gb drive for now and dump the savings into 640mb 8800GTS for that resolution. Also I have a plain vanilla Gigabyte DS3L for $95 that has 4 SATA ports, HD audio and lets me clock Q6600 G0 to 3.5ghz on a Tuniq Tower. Higher end boards are only worth it for features and high FSB if you have a low multiplier processor like E6300. So make sure you want the extra features of the P35C board like DDR3 support and 8 SATA ports. If you aren't gonna use them, you are simply wasting $$$ as any P35 board will let you overclock Q6600 to 3.0ghz (that's stock 1333FSB performance for P35 chipset).

 

[Energizer Bunny]

Thanks guys

I'll take your advice about the graphics card and the RAM.

Regarding the cooler.... It might just be where I live (UK) but the Tuniq Tower is just as expensive as the Thermaltake Ultra here (both about £35, which is about $70)

New build is now as follows:

- Core 2 Quad 6600 (plan to clock up to 3ghtz or so)
- Thermaltake Ultra 120 Cooler
- Gigabyte GA P35C Mobo
- 4gigs of Ram
- 8800 GTX Graphics Card
- 500gig HDD
- 520w Corsair PSU
- Antec 900 Gaming case
- Vista 64 Premium

I looked at the 640 GTS and the price difference between that and the cheapest GTX was pretty minimal, so I just went for that in the end

 

[RussianSensation]

If you are going to get $70 coolers, might as well get the Ultra 120 eXtreme version as it outperforms the regular Ultra. The reason I went with the Tuniq over the Ultra because it was only $45 with the fan.

Also, GF 9 is rumoured to come out this year so if you spend $500 on a graphics card, dont' be upset if something is 50-100% faster in 3 months.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Energizer Bunny
Thanks guys

I'll take your advice about the graphics card and the RAM.

Regarding the cooler.... It might just be where I live (UK) but the Tuniq Tower is just as expensive as the Thermaltake Ultra here (both about £35, which is about $70)

New build is now as follows:

- Core 2 Quad 6600 (plan to clock up to 3ghtz or so)
- Thermaltake Ultra 120 Cooler
- Gigabyte GA P35C Mobo
- 4gigs of Ram
- 8800 GTX Graphics Card
- 500gig HDD
- 520w Corsair PSU
- Antec 900 Gaming case
- Vista 64 Premium

I looked at the 640 GTS and the price difference between that and the cheapest GTX was pretty minimal, so I just went for that in the end

Replace board with Gigabyte P35-DS3P

Its almost identical to the P35-DQ6 in layout. And trust me on this. DQ6 will wipe the floor on any gigabyte series.

Stick with DDR2 ram. No need to go DDR3 unless you really have money to toss. Then your looking at the complete wrong stuff.

I would look at getting a beefier PSU. 200W draw on the QuadCore Overclocked. And 189W Draw on the GTX. Ummm.... i love the that PSU, but you should get the 630W version if your dropping in that much hardware.

I would personally RAID my system with 2 x 300 gigers. Or 2 x 500 gigers. You'll see the benifit of RAID, when you multi task, encode, and other stuff. Wont see much of a super difference with games besides load times.

Ram: i would look at crucial ballastix PC6400. They overclock very nicely, or hold very tight timings.

Thermaltake Ultra 120 Cooler? did you mean Thermalright?

 

[Energizer Bunny]

Crap - yeah I did (although I'm also considering Scythe Ninja)

Re: Motherboard - advice taken. Its a bit more expensive but if its that much better. Check

Re: Power supply - Crap, didnt factor in increased power draw for GTX. I'll look at the 620W version

Re: the Raid thing.... hmmmmm.... not disagreeing with what you say but I have no experience of setting up RAID on systems. Is it easily done? I assume RAID 0 is the way to go?

Will look into it

Thanks again for taking the time to lend your expertise

 

[Deporange]

$10/$20 rebates on Corsair 520/620 at Newegg and Directron through 8/31 (Directron about $10 cheaper after figuring in shipping)

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Energizer Bunny
Crap - yeah I did (although I'm also considering Scythe Ninja)

Re: Motherboard - advice taken. Its a bit more expensive but if its that much better. Check

Re: Power supply - Crap, didnt factor in increased power draw for GTX. I'll look at the 620W version

Re: the Raid thing.... hmmmmm.... not disagreeing with what you say but I have no experience of setting up RAID on systems. Is it easily done? I assume RAID 0 is the way to go?
Will look into it

Thanks again for taking the time to lend your expertise

i believe with vista all you do is setup the raid array in bios. MAke sure you enable raid on all sata ports connected to hard drives. This is the most common mistake newbies will make when trying to get raid working.

Then vista will do the rest.

 

[nyker96]

I like your build except would go for a bigger PSU for a bit future proofing since you might go to higher end g-card later or put in more equipments like HDs etc. Might even upgrade to a new SLI m.b. and do SLI later. Just gives ya more options to go with a bigger PSU like 700W+ Silencer or 620HX etc.

 

[Energizer Bunny]

Thanks guys - I'll amend to the 620W Corsair for now and look at picking up 2 x 500 gig HD's