Check My Spec (Conroe 6600)

[Carlm]

Im just putting together a new pc my first in 3 years to replace a Athlon XP 2600

Ive spec'd up the following from Overclockers :

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI)
£104.95 £104.95
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£48.95 £48.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£89.95 £89.95
HD-103-WD Western Digital Caviar RE 320GB 3200YS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-103-WD)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
MY-014-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBNR) (MY-014-GS)
£106.95 £106.95
GX-009-EA EVGA GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 HDTV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (E592-AX) (GX-009-EA)
£334.95 £334.95
Subtotal £993.60
VAT £173.88
Total £1,167.48

A few questions, ive heard people are having problems with gskill ram + gigabyte is this true. Going for a 7950 to drive my 24 inch dell at top res.

I need a PSU to power this lot and id prefer a quite one, any suggustions? Any general suggustions about what I could change/improve about this setup? I would ask over at the OcUk board too but ive lost my pass and the pass retrevial says to email a mod which i cant do unless im logged in!

Thanks in advance

[kempez]

If you can get into the BIOS and set the higher volts and timings then the GSkill should be ok

Mebbe add an extreme value slow stick of DDR2 to get it to boot??

[Clunk]

nice setup, but do yourself a favour and buy it from somewhere other than overclockers.

not sure if the NR ram has the problems, i know the HZ does, but you can work round this by grabbing the cheapest stick of ddr2 that you can find and using that to boot up and change the voltage to 2.2v, then stick the G.Skill back in

edit : kempez beat me to it

[Shmee150]

Scan Scan Scan Scan Scan - probably cheaper as well.

ShMeE

[chuckskull]

Nice setup, wish I had the cash floating about for a conroe. Firstly good luck findging a E6600 in stock anywhere in a next few weeks, secondly buy from scan not overclockers, as their customer service is terrible, when something goes wrong, you dont want that happening on a grand+ of hardware.

[Carlm]

Any sugguestions on the PSU, how many watts should i go for with a Conroe and 7950?

[kempez]

Something pretty beafy for the 7950. SCAN do a totally lush Tagan 900w

[ExceededGoku]

900W lol, might aswell go for the full bazonka at that sort of wattage It is not silent however :S

[jimborae]

For a PSU I'll say what I always say, Seasonic S12 600w, near silent and very efficient. And just to re-iterate what everyone else said use Scan or somewhere else reputable, basically anywhere other than Overclockers. You'll appreciate it if you ever have to RMA something and you get free shipping to boot too.

Finally unless you have a specific reason for it I wouldn't bother with the Raptor. Normal drives aren't much slower, at least not at the desktop level where you'd notice it, and they're a damn sight quieter and cheaper. I'd look at either Samsung Spinpoints (very quiet) or Hitachi/IBM Deskstars (very fast).

[Carlm]

Yeh I havent used Ocuk in a good few years they never were the cheapest, but for things like Cases's and HSF's they usally have a good range that you cant find most other places. And they have 6600 in stock, But yeh I will split the order and get what I can else where.

Thank you for you PSU advice, the seasonic takes my fancy ill have to research it a bit 900w seems over kill for a lower power conroe? Altho the 7950 im guessing is a power monster.

The idea behind the raptor was to use it as a OS drive get that as fast as possible, I look into the noise level tho, thanks for pointing that out

[pmanington]

You should be fine with the 7950 and the seasonic, it easily has the capacity

[shaithis]

novatech.co.uk currently have E6600 in stock and shipping

But please stay away from ocUK! They really are grossly incompetent.

[kempez]

Ye agreed with OCUK - unless the product has manufacturers warranty

Novatech do have them in stock too - and they're pretty decent

[chuckskull]

The idea behind the raptor was to use it as a OS drive get that as fast as possible, I look into the noise level tho, thanks for pointing that out

I have two raptors and was expecting quite a lot of noise, but obviously the boot disks are rarely spinning, only when you load programs/windows/hammering the pagefile(rare). The rest of the time you run from RAM.

[Carlm]

Im trying to source the components from others sites now, not ocuk, but im stuggling finding alternatives that are in stock.

PSU :
Hows this one Hiper Type-R 530Watt 14db BLACK ATX

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/....tml?HYP-4M530+

Its half the price of the seasonic, its in stock, will it be enough watts? and at 14db is quite.

Lian-li case alternative, reqirements are black or silver ( no beige ), quite & easy access.

Ram 800mhz DDR2, the OCuk Gskill is cheap compared with what i can find else where any suggustions? Novatech have OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) 240Pin PC2-6400 800MHz Dual Channel Special Opps Edition in stock at £150 ex vat £45 more

[Snaga]

For a PSU I'll say what I always say, Seasonic S12 600w, near silent and very efficient. And just to re-iterate what everyone else said use Scan or somewhere else reputable, basically anywhere other than Overclockers. You'll appreciate it if you ever have to RMA something and you get free shipping to boot too.

I agree. Have recently bought a 600w seasonic as my last hiper one melted. It has been rock solid in all this heat, powering a newcastle core 3800, 6 hdd and a 6800 ultra.