Gonna build a new comp take 2

[Lusted]

Making a new thread so you guys can discuss my 2nd go at parts for a new comp.

Case

PSU

Mobo - needed to change it so it would work with the Conroe.

CPU - gonna overclock it

GPU - wned for the ati recommended by Shaun

HDD

RAM - cheaper ram to try and keep on budget

Sound card

DVD

Coming to a total of £699.14 inc vat. About £100 over my budget but parents are going to help pay for it.

[Spartan19]

Thats going to be a very nice Comp. I upgraded mine a few months ago with AMD 2.2ghz, 2 gig RAM(not DDR2 though)and ASUS 1900XT, and it is VERY fast. The only thing, look to get some better cooling. Either some more case fans to improve circulation, or a PCI fan or something to either blow on GPU or exhaust air from it. The GPU under load it get very warm.

[Lusted]

I know i've gor experience of that. Ill see if i can nab a fan from somewhere.

[Shaun]

Making a new thread so you guys can discuss my 2nd go at parts for a new comp.

Case - went for one with a bigger power supply

Mobo - needed to change it so it would work with the Conroe.

CPU - gonna overclock it

GPU - wned for the ati recommended by Shaun

HDD

RAM - cheaper ram to try and keep on budget

Sound card

DVD

Coming to a total of £632.79 inc vat.

A so far very good PC, although I wouldnt skimp on RAM, with a processor and GPU that fast your RAM might be a bottle neck. Get a GIG of Better RAM now then when you can afford it go for another GIG.
And you found the X1900XT for that Price! What a bargain, 7800GTs dont do for much less. I am definetly getting mine from there!

[jegui]

A so far very good PC, although I wouldnt skimp on RAM, with a processor and GPU that fast your RAM might be a bottle neck. Get a GIG of Better RAM now then when you can afford it go for another GIG.
And you found the X1900XT for that Price! What a bargain, 7800GTs dont do for much less. I am definetly getting mine from there!

Be careful with that VC 'cause it's not crossfire ready... I bought my rig from that shop a week ago and I didn't go with x1900xt because of that... instead I got a xfx 7900gt for £170.00 and additional 1 Gig of dual memory DDR2 (Corsair) with the extra money...

[Lusted]

Well my budget was between £500-£600 quid so im already over that. Another gig of ram is something ill get when i have more money. Im having some doubts about the case though and the reliability of the PSU.

EDIT:thanks to the help of fatsheep, first post updated with new case and psu choice.

[Lusted]

What do you mean not crossfire ready?

[Shaun]

What do you mean not crossfire ready?

Crossfire is the ATI equivalent of nVidis's SLI. But with crossfire you need both a crossfire motherboard and crossfire edition cards. I am currently unsure as to wether its one or two crossfire edition cards that you need. I will look it up.

[Lusted]

So may i have to go back to the 7900gt i had in the other thread?

[Shaun]

So may i have to go back to the 7900gt i had in the other thread?

Well it depends really. If you want a dual GPU set up in the near future you may have to go for a crossfire edition of the card (A bit more expensive, however). But if you only want one ultra high end card, and thats more than overkill for todays and tomorrows cards, then just go with the X1900XT that you were planning on.

The system requires a CrossFire-compliant motherboard with a pair of PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards, which can be enabled via either hardware or software. Radeon x800s, x850s, x1800s and x1900s come in a 'CrossFire Edition' that has 'master' capability built into the hardware. One must buy a Master card, and pair it with a normal card from the same series. Radeon x1300s and x1600s have no 'CrossFire Edition' but are enabled via software. ATI currently has not created the infrastructure to allow FireGL cards to be set up in a CrossFire configuration. Another point to note is that the 'slave' graphics card needs to be from the same family as the 'master', regardless of whether the 'master' is designated by the hardware or by software.

This quote from wikipedia suggests that only one Crossife edition card is needed, and the other card could be just a normal version (but same GPU, eg they both must be X1900XT's) If that is the case, then buy the X1900XT that you posted earlier, and when you have the cash, buy another one, but the crossfire edition. That is, ofcourse, if you really want such a beast of a PC.

But I think you should wait for one of our tech monkeys first, that quote from wikipedia might be innacurate.

[Lusted]

Yeah im only going to have 1 gpu, my first upgrade for the new comp once i've built it and got some more momeny is an extra gb of ram.

[Shaun]

Yes one killer GPU is currently enough.

Although you are planning to over clock you E6300, apparently they are rubbish for overclocking.

Well it turned out this CPU really sucks at overclocking. Usually this thing idles at 40C, and on load it goes up to about 52C, which is not a good sign. At first I thought its the heatsink, but after double checking it and reinstalling it many times, it still gets really hot. When I put the FSB to 285 windows instantly bsod on me. Oh well, its probably just a bad batch. Untill I get my E6400 I'm saving up for, hopefully it won't be as crappy this.

from the TWC Overclockers thread .

[Lusted]

Hmm i read a gaming website review of it where they said they got it up to 2.59ghz OC using the normal fan without any problems.

[jegui]

Hmm i read a gaming website review of it where they said they got it up to 2.59ghz OC using the normal fan without any problems.

I also read several reviews reporting the ocing performance of E6300 however beware of the mobo selection 'cause those numbers (2.59) were achieved with Gigabyte and Asus chipsets 965/975... this review gives you an overview of different mobo selctions for Conroe and how they performed with ocing...

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797&p=12

This other review mentions that the Asrock CONROEXFIRE-ESATA2, i945P is not the recommended one for overclockers but it is a trade off to have crossfire capability

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3779

But it seems to be a good mobo anyway

[Lee1026]

Hmm i read a gaming website review of it where they said they got it up to 2.59ghz OC using the normal fan without any problems.

On the gaming sites, they also tell you that they have squeezed out a good 2.8 GHZ out of the sempron 2600+, with the stock fan. (The record on this site is 2.6GHZ, with the best air cooling money can buy) Also, they generally used 200 dollar mobos.

So may i have to go back to the 7900gt i had in the other thread?

Well, it grounds down to price for performance, really. However, do keep in mind that Nvidia have awesome support for OSs other then Windows, and ATI have next to none.

[Lusted]

Well im not too worried about OC the E6300, its a good cpu on its own, overclocking wil be something for me to try so i can learn more about it.

Im gonna stick with the ATI card as it gives better performance.

[Freddie]

Making a new thread so you guys can discuss my 2nd go at parts for a new comp.

Case

PSU

Fairly standard choice of case, can’t really knock it or praise it. As for the PSU you have made a good choice I believe. Antec have a good reputation, when you get your rig up and running can you let me know how noisy that PSU is, as I’m considering which PSU to get for my new rig in September.

Mobo - needed to change it so it would work with the Conroe.

Yikes! I mean that in a good way, Conroe ready, Crossfire ready all for under £70! My only concerns is how well the motherboard lets you overclock the cpu as the best results have been coming from Gigabyte mobo’s.

CPU - gonna overclock it

The Core 2 chip is the best mainstream product Intel have launched since the original Pentium. Even the lowest Core 2 can beat anything AMD can through at it (within the same price range!). The only thing that will hold that back is the 2MB cache. The E6600 which everyone is wetting themselves over has 4MB cache which gives it a really boost, especially for memory intensive applications.

GPU - wned for the ati recommended by Shaun

Never trust a Scotsman . LOL. I can se were you going with this. You have cut back on the CPU so you have a better GPU. The X1900XT is a good choice, and will give great performance in any game. I would advice you however to find one with a ICEQ3 (whatever it is find it on overclockers.co.uk) cooler as the standard HSF is very noisy by all accounts.

HDD

These days its hard to buy a bad Hard drive. Personally I would have brought he Samsung Spinpoint range of HD. But either way you’re getting a HD.

RAM - cheaper ram to try and keep on budget

If your on a budget why are buying extreme performance ram? Corsair does a budget range of that same memory and the performance difference is small in fact very small.

Sound card

I wouldn’t bother with that soundcard. The only sound card worth buying that makes a difference is the X-Fi range from creative. The only advantage that will give you is it will take the load of the processor that the onboard sound uses up but again your only talking about a few % points if that.

DVD

Coming to a total of £699.14 inc vat. About £100 over my budget but parents are going to help pay for it.[/QUOTE]

I have that model and it crap. I would recommend Liteon as I have used their drives in the past and have had no problems with them. Also look out for 18X DVD drives, 16X is now old hat.

[Lusted]

So how about this for the DVD drive? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=432787

Didn't notice the budget corsair memory part on the site, so how about this for RAM? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=232553

[Freddie]

So how about this for the DVD drive? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=432787

Didn't notice the budget corsair memory part on the site, so how about this for RAM? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=232553

That Ram isn't much cheaper I would go with the originanl XMS memory.

That's a better Drive + its 18X speed, 18X media should already be on the market.

Is noise an issue for you?

[Lee1026]

It is excellent. You are going to buy 2, right?