Suggestions on build before final purchase

[CVSiN]

hey gang been gone a while..

anyway my Rig thats in my sig finally went the way of the dinosaurs and I'm gonna go back to the Intel side of the house.

Of Course I came back here for final advice as ya'll have never let me down.

anyway rough plans so far are
Asus P5KC 1333 $154
C2D E8400 (found in stock at local frys boxed $275 bucks)
Patriot DDR2 PC8500 4 gig kit $159 x2
Vista Ultimate system builder X64 $120

all new parts..

now the carry overs..

my trusty 7900 GT till the 9800GTs come out..
Antec truepower 500 PSU

I know as soon as I get a new card that 500 has to go...

but other than that..
please post suggestions for MB/CPU combos or makes that may be better..
after coming from the AMDX2 side of the House where the only real choice was Nforce Im a little intimidated by all the choices of chipsets.

 

[Markfw]

I don't know about the P5KC, but I hate my P5K....

I personally like the gigabye boards today. I would check compatability with the E8400 and get one.

I just checked. DS3R !!! Less money and better.

 

[CVSiN]

Thanks Mark exactly the kinda feedback I'm fishing for. I will research that board as well.

 

[v8envy]

If you're willing to settle for a 7900GT until you can get a 9800 consider a short term CPU -- an E2180 for ~$50. That will easily hold you over until you get your 9800. Maybe even further. Get a nice cooling solution and crank the OC while waiting for your real parts.

I'm loving my E2180 + Gigabyte DS3L combo. By the time the CPU isn't cutting it I expect 45nm quads will be nice and affordable. You could also go the $60 Abit P35 board route and make the jump to Nehalem in a year or so. It's a very, very cheap platform that'll be 20-30% behind the E8400 (unless you get a monster OC) at a fraction of the price.

 

[Denithor]

Yeppers--

IP35-E + e2180 + 4GB cheap DDR2-800 (G.Skill or Mushkin is only $90 at newegg)

= best bang for the money by far.

OC to ~3GHz and you're set until either you pick up a Q9450 late this year or else wait until Nehalem launches in volume and becomes affordable.

Also you should know that the 9800 series look like they are going to basically just be the current 8800 series with slightly higher clock speed (675 core versus 600 [GT] or 650 [GTS]) and faster DDR4 memory for a small bandwidth increase. So it might make sense to pick up the MSI 8800GTS OC for $220 after MIR and be done with it (sell your 7900GT while there is still a bit of value remaining).

 

[kalster]

fry's this week has the E8400 & Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for 309, that is a good combo I think

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Yes it is, I dunno why you would be buying a E8400 at $275, that's more than a Q6600. (no quad vs dual arguments)

If you want asus, you should probably get the P5K-E. But that frys combo looks good.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: kalster
fry's this week has the E8400 & Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for 309, that is a good combo I think

That is a really good deal...but do DS3L's really handle the high-FSB those E8400 need to reach their potential?

Granted my experience with DS3L's is limited to Q6600's, but the whole passive NB tiny-ass aluminum heatsink just seems way overly anemic to me for anything serious you might want to do with an E8400.

 

[kalster]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: kalster
fry's this week has the E8400 & Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for 309, that is a good combo I think

That is a really good deal...but do DS3L's really handle the high-FSB those E8400 need to reach their potential?

Granted my experience with DS3L's is limited to Q6600's, but the whole passive NB tiny-ass aluminum heatsink just seems way overly anemic to me for anything serious you might want to do with an E8400.

how does the ip35-e fare with the e8400

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: kalster

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: kalster
fry's this week has the E8400 & Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for 309, that is a good combo I think

That is a really good deal...but do DS3L's really handle the high-FSB those E8400 need to reach their potential?

Granted my experience with DS3L's is limited to Q6600's, but the whole passive NB tiny-ass aluminum heatsink just seems way overly anemic to me for anything serious you might want to do with an E8400.

how does the ip35-e fare with the e8400

I have no experience with the ip35-e, nor the e8400 for that matter. Was just putting 2 and 2 together from my experience with the ds3l and what it seems to take to push a P35 NB to 450FSB and higher.

It was more a question for current owners of that combo, curious people would like to know, but certainly was not trying to jade anyone from pursuing it.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: kalster
fry's this week has the E8400 & Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for 309, that is a good combo I think

Yah I just saw that Im jumping on that combo today.

thanks you everyone for your inputs. It is all valuable information and was not taken lightly.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Yes it is, I dunno why you would be buying a E8400 at $275, that's more than a Q6600. (no quad vs dual arguments)

If you want asus, you should probably get the P5K-E. But that frys combo looks good.

thats pretty much the going rate down here in Houston even at Directron.com

I have never seen one lower except mail order which I refuse to do.
Q6600 is same price here.

these are not OEM chips BTW box kit..

 

[aigomorla]

guys... trust me on this...

You seriously want to wait for yorkfields if you want a quad.

Trust me on this, its not even funny compared to a kent.

 

[CVSiN]

The Idea of a quad really attracts me.. but being that nothing uses it yet makes me say wait.

 

[chuckm]

Originally posted by: v8envy
If you're willing to settle for a 7900GT until you can get a 9800 consider a short term CPU -- an E2180 for ~$50. That will easily hold you over until you get your 9800. Maybe even further. Get a nice cooling solution and crank the OC while waiting for your real parts.

Where you get the E2180 for $50? Tigerdirect had them, but they are sold out.
Do you know of somewhere else?

 

[hnzw rui]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
guys... trust me on this...

You seriously want to wait for yorkfields if you want a quad.

Trust me on this, its not even funny compared to a kent.

I was waiting for a yorkie (Q9450), alas, it's taking too long for it to become easily available. If Newegg doesn't stock it by March 26, I'm getting myself a Q6600. I do HD video transcoding so yeah, I need a quad.

 

[MrUniq]

I have a quad...really..other than running a few more apps at once....I don't notice any significant speed difference in Vista from my old 4600+ setup. But it's good to know my system is more than capable for the next 3-4 years. I have the MB you are looking at too....it's not bad has it's quirks but otherwise it's stable and does the job. It does some strange detection of USB HID devices on boot and the IDE is in the worst area ever though. I'll be looking forward to 45nm and DDR3 in 2010 (when prices should finally bottom) with this same setup though . I have a truepower 2..it's great but if I were you I'd get a Corsair or if you have money..Enermax Modu instead.

 

[CVSiN]

Well I went and got the Fry's Deal and pretty happy overall.. no bad parts from the factory always a good thing.

looks like my Vid card died somewhere in the process though.

had a pretty darn nice windows performance index with the 7900GT though 5.6 not to shabby.

went and got a temp card from Fry's to troubleshoot with (8400GS) and system worked like a champ.. but PI went down to 3.1 haha..

So trying to send my XFX7900GT back to XFX still in lifetime warranty and maybe hope they dont fix it and send me an 8800 instead =D