Spec Advice - £850 Budget

[JSamson]

Hi Everyone!

I'm hoping to upgrade sometime next week, I have a £850 (£900 max) budget so unfortunately not enough for a i7 system. I'm wanting to OC the CPU to around 3-3.2GHz but since the Q8200 only has a 7.5x multiplier is the Q6600 still a good choice as an alternative?

The build needs to be quiet (not using watercooling though) but still perform well. It'll be used for programming/modelling and gaming, at the moment I spec'd in SCAN:

• Antec P182 Advanced
• 520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, SLACR G0, Retail
• Noctua NH-U12P CPU Heatpipe Heatsink with NF-P12 premium fan
• 4GB Corsair (2x2GB) TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), CAS 5-5-5-18
• 896MB EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked, PCI-E2.0, 2106MHz GDDR3, 55nm GPU 626MHz, 216 Cores, DL DVI-I/ HDTV
• 2x 500 GB Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint F1
• Asus P5Q PRO, iP45, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16)
• Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±R, 12x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM

I went for the 260 over the 4870 because I need to do some programming using CUDA.

Any advice on what to change, or a complete re-spec would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[staffsMike]

There are cheaper coolers out there and the stock antec fans will be obvious above the noctua if you want silence, that said they are extremely quiet and certainly good enough for me. The 260 is a good choice for noise though.

I'd go with 640GB drives since they are faster and just as quiet for very little extra usually.

Looks like a very good build and the Q6600 is a good way to go for overclocking to those sorts of speeds. The only thing to consider is the release of AMD Phenom II which do look very good.

[burtie]

First time i have ever seen someone recommend an AMD build over a Intel Quad.

[staffsMike]

Yeah? .. WELL GET USED TO IT!!!

[matty-hodgson]

First time i have ever seen someone recommend an AMD build over a Intel Quad.

cos it's the first chance anyone's had to recommend an AMD quad that is actually close to an Intel quad, maybe?

[aidanjt]

Actually, AMD Quads are about on par with Intel's when running a 64bit OS.

[staffsMike]

Yep my 9950 seems pretty nippy in vista 64 Phenom II should be a healthy jump.

[burtie]

This is the reason I've just brought a new AMD motherboard. I could of gone the Intel route when my other board died but no it's Phenom II for me. Should be a nice jump from my 5000+BE.
Pop another 4850 in my rig and I'll be flying

[Blitzen]

I would get rid of the Corsair PSU and go for the Enermax MODU 82 instead.

The Corsair unit is OK, but for £80. it is plain and simply a complete rip off!!!! Its an old unit that has increased in price by nealy £30 over the last 6 months and just isn't worth thta kind of cash.
(The 620W version is around £110 now....what a joke).
I actually think Corsair are starting to believe their own hype now)

The Enermax is a far better unit in EVERY way.
-Quieter
-Better quality connectors
-More connector cables
-High efficiency
See here: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/525W-...uard-SafeGuard

and its £7 cheaper.

[Mossy]

there is Very little difference betwen the Corsair and the Enermax personally between the 2 suggested I would pay the extra £7 for the extra 2 years warranty which I may mention is returnable to Scan.

In fact the Corsair is actually underrated in regards to wattage compared to the Enermax but both are very good PSU's

Overall though your selection of products suggests to me you dont need help as it seems pretty spot on!

[staffsMike]

I'm sort of with both of you on this. The enermax is superb but if the corsair 450W HX has been the same as the Enermax 425W I would have bought that instead recently. I had a bit of trouble cabling it in the P180 mini due to cable lengths. This is mainly being forced to mount it fan up rather than down though (which is the cases fault not the PSU).

The P182 being a bit taller however may cause a few difficulties. I got a 4pin extender from maplins for a few quid to sort it out but really I shouldn't have to. So for the sake of spending more I wouldn't bother as I know the Corsair works well in the P182 as it's what is in mine

[kosgi]

Hi Everyone!

The build needs to be quiet (not using watercooling though) but still perform well. It'll be used for programming/modelling and gaming, at the moment I spec'd in SCAN:
[

If you will be modelling (3d I presume) then I would suggest a beefier PSU and perhaps bigger hard disks. It's best skimp on anything else than the PSU.

In my opinion the PSU, case and monitor are the three things that will last you many years, and considering that you may be adding more hd's or a better gpu later on you would need a strong one.

[Blitzen]

there is Very little difference betwen the Corsair and the Enermax personally between the 2 suggested I would pay the extra £7 for the extra 2 years warranty which I may mention is returnable to Scan.

In fact the Corsair is actually underrated in regards to wattage compared to the Enermax but both are very good PSU's

Overall though your selection of products suggests to me you dont need help as it seems pretty spot on!

Do you not have the nod with Enermax now then? I thought you bought that onboard.

The 5 year warranty is only worth its salt if you dont plan on upgrading in that 5 year time frame aswell. I would expect any serious user that spends over £60 on a PSU would upgrade ever 2-3 years at least anyway.
In three years, the PSUs around now will probably not even be compatible with new hardware.

Whichever it is, there is no denying that the Corsair 520HX and the 620HX are extremely overpriced now and whatever vaue they had is now gone.

[staffsMike]

Whichever it is, there is no denying that the Corsair 520HX and the 620HX are extremely overpriced now and whatever vaue they had is now gone.

This is true but the seasonic PSU's themselves still represent good value especially if you ask themanwhocan very nicely

[JSamson]

Thanks for the replies, I swapped the 500GB drives for 640GB ones and I'll look into changing the PSU.

[vincent.m]

be sure to post piccys to show off when you have built it