New Build, can't decide

[thestjohn]

My old Athlon XP2800+ workhorse died on me last week in a spectacular fashion, and I'm facing a week in and out of bed from Monday as I'm due to go in for an operation. So.. having £400 to spend on a replacement, I find myself torn between old loyalties and new technologies when it comes to working out what I want. I freely admit I haven't kept up to date with the ins and outs of Core 2 kit, and found myself pricing this up at Scan.

LN15182 AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4200+ Dual Core 2.2GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail Energy Efficient (£47.88)

LN11596 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 (£67.73)

LN17073 512MB Sapphire RX1950Pro, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1400MHz, GDDR3, GPU 580MHz, 36Pipes CrossFire Master/Slave (£96.81)

LN19089 500w Seasonic S12II-500 PSU, 12Cm fan, active PFC RoHS +80% (£66.33)

LN14937 160 Gb Seagate ST3160815AS Barracuda 7200.9, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.0 ms, NCQ (£33.14)

LN18104 DFI INFINITY CFX3200-M2/G, ATI Xfire Xpress 3200, S AM2, PCI-Ex16, DDR2 667, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX (£80.69)

..which all comes to £404.24 all in. But would I really be better off by replacing the 64 4200+ and CFX3200 with something like...

LN18699 Asus P5K, iP35, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800/1066*, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX (£81.02)

LN17304 Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1.80 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail (£74.01)

which changes the total build price with delivery to £429 (I think).
I know there's no such thing as future proofing in this game, but I'd like a bit of confidence that I have a half-decent upgrade path, and despite AMD stating that their newer processors will fit into an AM2 socket, they aren't on the market yet, and Intel's are. I would really appreciate any opinion people have, as I'm a bit stuck. I'm not really looking to overclock at the moment, and my usage is a mix of graphics and web design apps, mid-range gaming and the like. Nothing heavy duty. Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

[GSte]

The P35 board and C2D would be your best bet imo. Good overclocking capacity from the CPU should you want it, and the P35 boards will be compatible with the next Intel CPUs (penryn). Don't think they'll be compatible with Nehalem which are the CPUs after penryn, but that's 2009 were talking about, so....

[Biscuit]

The C2D machine would overall be faster and probably the better buy however the differences would be minimal if you want to save yourself some cash. I think DFI motherboard can be quite picky about ram and if you chose the x2 route i would maybe go with asus or abit just to be ont he safe side.

What size monitor do you have? 512mb is maybe a bit overkill for graphics card especially if ur not a big gamer. Would maybe even get a lesser card and put more into CPU

A 500w psu is probs more than you would need aswell Unless your planning on futureproofing a bit

i priced up
256MB Sapphire Radeon X1950Pro £90.96
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) £67.73
160GB Samsung HD160HJ SpinPoint T166, SATA300 £32.51
Asus P5B i965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800 £64.97
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420, Socket 775, 2.13 GHz £115.02
380W Tagan TG380-U01 Whisper quiet 20db £37.47

Total £420.32 (with delivery)


EDIT: out of interest... what spectacular fashion did it give up in?

[master811]

A 500w psu is probs more than you would need aswell Unless your planning on futureproofing a bit

i priced up
256MB Sapphire Radeon X1950Pro £90.96
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) £67.73
160GB Samsung HD160HJ SpinPoint T166, SATA300 £32.51
Asus P5B i965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800 £64.97
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420, Socket 775, 2.13 GHz £115.02
380W Tagan TG380-U01 Whisper quiet 20db £37.47

Total £420.32 (with delivery)

If you are going with that though, would you not be better with one of the new Core'2s
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 4MB Cache, Retail £118.19
and perhaps a P35 board such as the cheapest Abit or Gigabyte boards on scan? (around £65) Works out at only a few £s more.

[Biscuit]

If you are going with that though, would you not be better with one of the new Core'2s
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 4MB Cache, Retail
and perhaps a P35 board such as the cheapest Abit or Gigabyte boards on scan? Works out at only a few £s more.

edit:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550, S775, 2.33 GHz, 1333MHz FSB £105.97
Gigabyte GA P35-S3, iP35 Express £65.55

New total £411.86

My bad...

Also can someone confirm that the 380w tagen would be ok?

[thestjohn]

Thanks for the replies! So that's a vote for C2D then! I'll have a look at the P35 boards and see which take my fancy.

I only have a 21'' CRT, so I could go without the extra 256MB on the gfx card, but I figured it wouldn't hurt too much as the price difference wasn't astounding.

The 500w PSU, yeah, I was thinking of future proofing, and I've heard that Seasonic PSUs are quieter than some, and I'm willing to spend more on the PSU to ensure stability when i need it. But as I'm not thinking of OC'ing right now then perhaps a unit with a lower wattage rating would be ok.

Spectacular? There were flames. God knows what started it, but the PSU and MB have scorch marks on them, I've had to clean soot from the inside of my case. I did have a crap PSU though...

[amjedm]

...God knows what started it,... I did have a crap PSU though...

You may have answered your own question

[Pob255]

One thing I would add is a differnt cooler to replace the intel stock one. (although this can wait a couple of months)

The Arctic freezer 7 Pro is cheap, quieter and better than the stock cooler.
Although Scan is out of stock atm, but they do have Akasa AK-965, LN18949, £12.33 which looks like an Akasa copy of it.

The main reason is that I've found stock design to be flawed, the fins are too thick with flat tops, so after a couple of months a mat of dust & fibers builds up on top of it between the fan and heatsink which causes the fan to constantly go into overdrive and it's very noisey on max speed.
But saying that is cash is tight, you can probably leave it off and stick with the stock cooler for a couple of months.

[Biscuit]

Most coolers have that problem regardless of thier design. I have had a zalman flower type one, various AMD & intel stock fans and my big typhoon. These have all suffered from the same issue of dust building up over time and having to scrape a carpet of it off every couple of months. Best way to avoid this is to put filters by any intake fans and cover any unused back ports.

[silentvoice]

An alternative to the video card is an EVGA 7900GS KO Edition 256MB at £89.99 including free delivery. The 10 year warranty and 90 day upgrade path may be of interest.

For a few more pounds you up the HDD from 160GB to 250GB, e.g. £37.87

Also bear in mind the E6550 is ~£105 and the E6750 is ~£118. It depends on how long you intend to keep the system but at only £13 more, the E6750 may be worth getting.

A 430W Seasonic would be fine to power the system and should be fine with a 8800GTS down the line too.