Upgrading the backbone my PC - Advice Welcome...

[CK1]

I currently have a PC which I have been steadily upgrading for the last few years, but now it needs a new backbone, i.e. CPU, mobo, RAM & gfx card.

My current system is as follows: -

Athlon XP 3200+
2x 512MB Crucial RAM PC3200
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
MSI Nvidia 6600GT 128MB Creative X-Fi Music
Leadtek Winfast Freeview TV Card
2x 250GB Samsung Spinpoint HDD
1x 250GB Maxtor Onetouch External HDD
Asus DVD/CD writer
Sony DVD ROM
Dell 2407FPW Monitor
Antec P160 case
Antec 440W PSU

As you can see the backbone of the system is in need of a refresh as the of the rest of the hardware is pretty much up to date.

I have a budget of around the £600 mark and am thinking of the following items

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - £192.69
Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i SLi - £75.66
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 - £129.24
320MB XFX 8800GTS XXX - £223.11

This comes to about £635 inc delivery

I have not really overclocked in the past but am willing to give it a go, but do require a stable system as my wife works from the computer and won't be happy if it locks up / reboots all day while I am at work.

Should I buy a separate HSF, if so is it worth buying an OEM CPU instead of a retail one (if they're available)?

My purposes for the PC are for playing games mostly RTS & FPS, watching TV & DivX files, movie editing, email, internet etc etc.

I am also thinking of upgrading the case to the P180 but not sure if I would need to upgrade the PSU?

Is a new mobo with the new integrated Intel sound card better/worse or no different than the Creative X-Fi? Depending on the answer I might sell the X-Fi.

I am not sure about which memory is required for the best or most stable overclock though. I am guessing an overclock of between 3 & 3.5 Ghz would be possible here, but would like further advice on the memory.

Any help is gratefuly received.

CK

[Steve B]

Clunk is the man to speak to about this.

Personally, I would downgrade the 6600 to an E4300, spend a little more (circa 130) to get some nice OCZ ram, change the board to a 965 chipset and that should give you some headroom to upgrade the PSU, something >= 550W should be perfect
You should also have a little more to get an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, which is an ace cooler for the C2D chips

[GrahamGarside]

Your xfi will be far better than an onboard sound chip, only problem is vista compatability at the moment.

I'd say get a better than stock cooler for it, you will benefit from better overclocking and quieter operation.

As for the psu, if it's an ATX 2 unit it should be fine, though with a P180 you need to be sure it's cables reach due to the none atx layout.

[Clunk]

E6600 CPU = excellent, but the E4300 can be had for about 99 quid, and the overclock to make it run at 2.4ghz (same as the e6600 but with 2meg cache), is stupidly easy, with pretty much any half decent board.

Motherboard wise, the P5B boards will serve you well. If you dont NEED SLI, dont bother with an SLI board. I would recommend the P5B deluxe, especially if you go with the cheaper E4300, but ask for it to have the latest bios pre flashed onto it.

Ram=fine

Graphics = I'm sure that there are cheaper alternatives of the same model

Edit: Yes, grab an aftermarket cooler for the cpu, the Intel ones are rubbish, noisy and inefficient.

[fisnik]

I have the Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i motherboard and it's a very good mobo imo. So far no problems at all and nothing to complain about. I haven't tried overclocking yet though so I can't help you in that regard.

The p5b is probably a better motherboard overall and a proven overclocker so if you can afford that then you should probably get that one. I chose the p5n-e cos of the lower price.

[Gerrard]

Probably a little bit late, but Scan has that graphics card for £176 on Today Only. It's normally less than £190 anyway. I second the E4300, having ordered it myself. Definately get a better cooler as they don't cost a lot, but do give a good performance boost. I agree with Clunk, and use the money saved to get a better motherboard.
In regards to the PSU, the PSU calculator gave about 350W for that system, but you should check whether it has the 8 pin connector for dual core CPUs. You can order an 4P-8P adaptor if it doesn't, although upgrading it wouldn't hurt.

E4300 - £100
Asus P5B Deluxe - £125
2Gb Corsair Memory - £130
XFX 320Mb 8800GTS - £180
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro - £20
Total = £555

[Marcvs]

I might also be interested in taking the 4 components you listed off your hands - as I need to do a very cheap build for a family member..

get a regular P5b though you will have to flash it its quite good - though have alo heard good things abotu the P5N-32 - also beware of the issues when installing xp onto sata II HDDs

aftermarket coolers are great - much quieter

[DecomposingStar]

Use a P5B motherboard.
The RAM is fine, but you could get some OCZ stuff for a similar price if you wanted.
I'd personally wait for the R600 to come out but if you're an nVidia type person, get a good overclockable model.
If you can afford the E6600, then go ahead, but if you are thinking of downgrading, get an E4300/E6300 and not an E6400.

[CK1]

OK - thanks for the feedback guys. Let me check a couple of things out though.

It seems to make sense to buy the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro and use this instead of the Intel HSF.

If I buy an E4300 instead of a E6600 and overclock it to 2.5Ghz it will give a similar level of performance as the E6600. However if I overclock to the E6600 to 3Ghz (or more) I will still get a faster machine, and it has more cache. Wouldn't this be a better option?

Are the overclocked 320MB GTS much better than the standard ones? Can these cards be manually overclocked to the same extent with the supplied fans?

Motherboards are a confusing matter, what I need from a mobo is as follows: -
As many USB ports as possible & Firewire
Minimum 4x Sata
1x IDE
Ethernet
2x PCI slots
1x PCI-E

I'm not really interested in SLI/Crossfire as I would rather sell my current card and buy a newer one that to buy a second identical card.

[Clunk]

The chances are, the E4300 and the E6600 ***should*** overclock to roughly the same speed (see below), wether the extra cache makes a difference to you, will depend on what you use the pc for, but the difference is minimal really, and not worth twice the price in my opinion, unless you dont want to overclock at all, ever.


***no guarantees with any overclocking. You could buy an E6600 that does 3.6ghz at stock volts, or you could be really unlucky and get one that takes a shedload of voltage to hit 3ghz. Same with the E4300, but its half the price, and the chances of it NOT hitting 2.4ghz are minimal to none

[Clunk]

Motherboard, P5B deluxe wifi.

[DecomposingStar]

I agree with Clunk, however i feel that if you can easily afford the E6600 then go for it, but if buying the E6600 causes you to spend less in other areas, don't bother.

As for the Graphics card, pretty much all cards are well overclockable, you'll have to weigh up what you save on getting a "stock-speed" version. You might be able to buy an awesome Zalman GPU cooler for the money you've saved, and this will give you a bigger amount of overclocking headroom.

[CK1]

I am hearing rumours that new Intel processors are out next month.

Is it worth waiting for these to come out so that I can either get one of these or buy one of the current ones as I'm guessing that they will come down in price?

I'm not in a hurry to buy the new bits as I want the components to last several years, my old bits have!

[kalniel]

You can always wait for the next price cut or speed bump that's just around the corner. That said.. yeah, I'd wait

As for my 2p's worth, I'd consider an intel based chipset over Nvidia's. The NVidia northbridge is fast, no question, but it also runs hot, usually requiring noisy fans or huge heatsinks.

[CK1]

Another quickie...

Is there a motherboard that is the equivalent of the Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP, which seems to be held in high regards by just about everyone, without the WiFi and with SLI & not Crossfire?

For the wifi I cannot see the point of this as my wireless router is about 2 feet away from the PC and a cabe is much quicker / more stable.

As for SLI, even though I said I wouldn't do it, I would rather have the option of SLI than Crossfire as I'm more likely to buy an nvidia card the an ATI one.

[shaithis]

Only the Asus boards seem to have that kind of following at the moment, that isn't to say that there are bargains elsewhere.

I would take a serious look at the Abit IB9 if it isn't too lacking in the features you need.

I can't see any reason why you wouldn't have an E4300 clocked at 3GHz almost immediately.