What To Get?

[handscombmp]

I'm just planning on upgrading my pc and already know what parts i'm going to be getting and have the money. What this is about is what to get with my next upgrade after xmas so i know how much money to start putting aside.
Once i've finished with my next upgrade i'm going to have these parts which i will definatly take over to my next pc.

Q6600

WD 640GB Caviar Blue HDD

Asus Xonar XD PCI-E

Nvidia EVGA 8800GT 512MB

Corsair HX620W PSU


So what i now need is these parts..

New Case (Drawn to the Thermaltake Soprano for some reason but any better ideas will be greatly welcomed) Max £65

Mobo Max £80 (ideal £70)
This is where i really don't know what to get but i'm planning to overclock the Q6600 to around 3Ghz

Memory (don't even know a price but im drawn to Corsair)
Problems again as i don't really know how much to get 2gb vs 3gb vs 4gb.

New HDD
Looking for around 250GB as this will just be my system drive but would ideally like a single platter one

Optical Drive
Just planning on getting a £15 sony or something

Vista 32bit vs 64bit
Leaning towards 32bit unless anyone can convince me other wise.



I think thats it unless i've forgotten something. Thanks in advance

[staffsMike]

New Case
Coolermaster CM-690, great cooling, noise and cable/drive management, jsut a shame its not £45 anymore.

Mobo Max £80 (ideal £70)
Either of the DFI P35's. Bloodiron is the cheaper of the two but i would have this one
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=787775

Memory
Corsair PC6400 XMS2 (£46 on scan today only..dive .. dive .. dive)

New HDD
Samsung are easist to find, 320GB ones.

Optical Drive
Samsung again for me.

Vista 32bit vs 64bit
64bit has no issues with most new software I have cared to try. A lot of old stuff works too

[PeterStoba]

Case: just excellent http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=644041

Mobo: over budget but great, could also go for a Gigabyte P45-DS3/DS3L/DS3R http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=818511

Memory: 4GB for £50 is great http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632574

HDD: Fast cheap & quiet http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=567854

Optical Drive: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=862663 cheap and cheerful

OS: 64bit Vista Home Premium to use all of your 4GB of RAM

[mediaboy]

I can't comment on the rest of it, as I don't build know that much about parts, but I can say that 64bit Vista is much better than 32bit Vista.

Is one of my regrets NOT getting 64bit vista, as now I'm stuck with a mere 2gb RAM, and am unable to go above about 3gb due to various system thingies and my 512mb GPU...

[handscombmp]

Thanks for all the input guys i'll probaly go for 64 bit. The problem i still have though is the mobo. I really am stuck. This will be my first overclock so i want to be able to overclock easily. I was going to get a 750i/780i but i realsied they were overpriced and weren't that good at overclocking. The DFI ones seem ok but so do the Gigabyte ones. But surely though if i have a board that supports an fsb up to 1333Mhz i could overclock a Q6600 up to 3Ghz before i start overclocking the board. (am i right or i have i got the wrong idea.) I would chose my own mobo but when i go to scans website and look at them theres just so many. p35, p45 and then theres about 10 in each category that look like they all do the same thing! AHHH!!

[PeterStoba]

Gigabyte use a special system for naming their motherboards. For example the GA-P35-DS3R. The first segment, GA, simply denotes that it's manufactured by Gigabyte. The second segment indicates what chipset it is using, in this case Intels P35. The third part is the most interesting one, it shows what features the motherboard has. This segment mostly contains a number of abbrevations.

Available 2nd segment abbrevations:

* E - Energy saving features
* T - Only DDR3 support
* C - Both DDR2 and DDR3 support

Available 3rd segment abbrevations:

* D (durability) - Indicates that the motherboard uses only solid state capacitors
* UD (Ultra Durable 3) - introduces 2 ounces of copper for both the Power and Ground layers.
* S2 (Smart, Safe) - Various features such as Q-Flash BIOS etc
* S3 (Smart, Speed, Safe) - Same as above, but includes overclocking features
* S4 (Silent Pipe, Smart, Speed, Safe) - Same as above, but uses heat pipe cooling
* S5 (CrossFire, Silent Pipe, Smart, Speed, Safe) - Same as above, but with CrossFire support
* Q6 (Quad BIOS, Quad Cooling, Quad E-SATA2, Quad Triple Phase, Quad-Core Optimized, Quad DDR2 Slots) - Indicates quad-core optimiziation

Available 4th segment abbrevations:

* R - 2 extra SATA2 ports and possibly RAID, no firewire, no crossfire (ie P35-DS3R)
* G - Solid capacitors for the CPU Volt Regulator Module
* H - HDMI port
* L - Probably "Lite". Less SATA2. No raid, firewire, crossfire. Heatsink cooling. (ie P35-DS3L)
* P - Silent pipe, Raid, Extra pci-e, extra sata (ie ep45-ds3p)

DFI has alot of options = higher clocks, but they can be daunting for a fist time user, so I reccomend gigabyte or ASUS, P45 are getting higher clocks, so look at some around your budget and check the features

[Webby]

You are indeed correct a motherboard with a native FSB of 1333 you will be able to overclock a Q6600 to 3GHz without overclocking the motherboard equally most (1333) motherboards will push up to 400MHz FSB (3.6GHz) easily enough (as in with no tweaking).

[handscombmp]

Spent more time looking at the mobo's and just wondering what people think of this one.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=866077
I know it doesn't have firewire but i've never used one so it doesn't effect me.

[staffsMike]

Looks basic but functional. Check out the manilla P5Q as well.. similar features.

[Webby]

And £15 more, if you fancy a few more features you can save £5 and drop to the P43 chipset and get this http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=825208 not sure exactly what the differences are between P43 and P45 but I would expect minimal apart from crossfire support at 8x

Oh and it doesnt have the 24 pin power in a stupid place!

[handscombmp]

This is what my pc will be once its had all the upgrades. I changed the mobo up to a non value one and it has Xfire if i want it at some point in time.

[staffsMike]

Looks good to me

[Webby]

You are going to need a 120mm fan for that CPU cooler.

[handscombmp]

You are going to need a 120mm fan for that CPU cooler.

I'm planning on getting a 120mm fan for the heatsink i just didn't add little things like those. eg thermal paste .etc


Thanks for the help you guys have given my so far. If you think theres anything wrong with this though don't hesitate to say.

Just wondering if we know how much of a price drop the mobo will get once i7 is released.

[Webby]

Realised you had them so edited my post before you posted obviously not fast enough!