New System spec advice

[BirdyRob]

Hi All! my P4/AGP system recently went belly up and am looking to build a good midrange system for around £400 that will get me through another 5 years!! I don't intend to overclock.

Intel Core 2 E8200, £117.29
Asus P5K, iP35, £73.78
512MB Asus 9600GT £112.78
2GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-8500, £61.09
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro £15.26

Reusing -
akasa 400W quiet PSU (?)
2x 120Gb SATA HD
DVD-RW

Items from scan - £397 Including VAT&Delivery.

Does that seem a reasonable setup? Regarding the RAM - is the PC2-8500 ram the correct
speed for the E8200 processor or just needed for overclocking?

As you can probably tell (!) well out of the loop with hardware so any comments or suggestions for improvements would be greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks!
Robin

[hermeticist]

PC8500 is overkill unless overclocking. FSB of the E8*** is 333MHZ x 4 = 1333MHZ.

Ram @ standard is therefore 2 x 333MHZ = 667MHZ (both using "computer maths" that is).

2GB of PC6400 (400MHZ) ram is approx £30 - so you can buy twice as much!

[BirdyRob]

Brilliant Thank-you! I think I'll stick with 2Gb and save a few pennies for the moment!

Intel Core 2 E8200, £117.29
Asus P5K, iP35, £73.78
512MB Asus 9600GT £112.78
2GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-6400, £38.76
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro £15.26

Total £374.86

Thanks!
Robin

[hermeticist]

You might also like to look out for the Abit Darkraider `board often seen on Scan/todayonly for £58-60. Good `board & lots of features and saves you a bit more.