Help needed

[cleaverlch]

Hello.

I'm considering getting a cpu, motherboard and ram but I wonder whether I have chosen the right ones.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=21631 £144.51
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=25075 £88.71
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=21486 £36.41

[Will404]

RAM is great, what I have in my PC. As for CPU, it too is great, but expensive for what it is (I got one in July for about £115). This is 45nm at a similar price, and I think a bit better - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...ache-7x-Retail
As for Mobo, I have the pro, and got it for about £80 in July. That is too much for that mobo (afank), go for something like http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

[Webby]

If you plan on overclocking then the Q6600 will be a lot easier than the Q8200. Unless your target is 3GHz in which case either will be good and the Q8200 maybe slightly better. If you want to go to 3.5GHz then you will struggle with the Q8200 the low multiplier is a real pain, and you will need faster memory.

Motherboard wise I would go for one of the biostar boards either http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...-SATA-RAID-ATX or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...-SATA-RAID-ATX

If you can spend a bit more the DFI DKP45 T2SR Plus is very good as is the Biostar Tpower I45 but these will cost you a little bit more.

[cleaverlch]

I suppose adding another £10 to the budget for the motherboard won't kill me... but what's the difference between the Q6600 and Q8200 at 3GHz?

[Webby]

Well the Q8200 has SSE4, and the 45nm chips seem to have about a 5% performance boost over the 65nm at the same clock speed. The 45nm chips also run on a bit less power (depending on voltages). So if your only aiming for a small overclock to ~3GHz then the newer chip is probably the better choice although it will cost you £2 more and you wont get your free speaker phone!

Also you will need to overclock the memory by ~50MHz this should not be a problem but you need to be aware of it.

[cleaverlch]

Does anyone actually use speaker phones?