Need help for a conroe system

[marcster]

Hi guys,

i have just come back from a holiday and need to build a system to be ready in 2 weeks!

I have decided i want the e6700 cpu. I am also going to have one nvidia 7600 gt graphics card.

What i need help on is deciding what mobo to get and what ram to get. i am getting so confused with other threads relating to this!

As you can see im not going to need dual graphics cards but i will also be having a sound card, network card etc. also having 2 hard drives and 2 dvd drives.

I would like to be able to overclock too!

So if you could enlighten me on what is out there towards the higher end, then that would be brill.

Thankyou in advance.

marc

[Clunk]

at the moment, the motherboards arent all that good, but out of the ones that ive had, i would say that the asus p5b deluxe is best bang for buck/less fatally flawed. if you are overclocking, go for pc2-6400 or 8000, avoid ocz at the moment, corsair works nicely with the p5b.

also, i would save the money and get a 6600 if you want the 4meg cache, or even a 6400 if you arent fussed about the cache, both will overclock well..maybe the 6400 might hit better fsb on the p5b, but it seems to be luck of the draw.

[marcster]

would you say the p5b deluxe is the best out of the following asus selection?

p5b deluxe
p5b-v
p5w dh deluxe
p5b-vm
p5b

what about abit and gigabyte? do they have anything that rivals asus?

[markspeed]

would you say the p5b deluxe is the best out of the following asus selection?

p5b deluxe
p5b-v
p5w dh deluxe
p5b-vm
p5b

what about abit and gigabyte? do they have anything that rivals asus?

From what I've read I believe the P5B Deluxe is the best board out there. If crossfire or SLI is not a priority then go for it.

If you fancy Crossfire/SLI on the other hand the Intel D975XBX is worth a look. The ASUS P5W DH Deluxe seems to be highly thought of by many, but after reading its review in CustomPC magazine I see no reason for it. Its overclocking potential falls far short in comparison to the P5B Deluxe.

As for Abit and Gigabyte, at present no.

[marcster]

thankyou so much, that helps!

what about ram? im going to go for corsair as i think they are one of the best out there. could you point me in the direction of which i should go for?

thanks

marc

[markspeed]

Corsair's TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 or A-Datas DDR2 6400 Vitesta CL4 Dual Channel kit should do the trick.

I'm building a system around a E6600 processor and these seem to be good options.

[marcster]

cool thank you

[markspeed]

Another point I thought I'd mention is that I agree with clunk - save your money and buy a E6600 instead of a E6700. With a little bit of overclocking you can save yourself a fair bit of money!

[marcster]

il take that into consideration!!

Now i am so confusing myself in deciding what corsiar ram.

i am looking at this page:

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/xms2.html

i believe its the right one but i dont understand what all the numbers mean, espec the latency.

what would you get for this board and why? also what other options are there?

thankyou again and sorry!!
marc

[markspeed]

There aren't too many options with regard to decent Core2Duo motherbords.

The latency timings are the command rate of the memory. In other words how long your computer has to wait for the memory to be in a ready state before data is fetched or received. Essentially your looking for fast memory with tight timings.

That may not make sense but the memory you're looking at is good try looking arond the forums or on search engines for reviews

[marcster]

so basically i can pick anything from that page and it will be compatable?

[shaithis]

BIOS 0607 for the P5B Deluxe fixes OCZ RAM issues.

Can be grabbed here

[Clunk]

BIOS 0607 for the P5B Deluxe fixes OCZ RAM issues.

Can be grabbed here

have you tried it yet mate? any improvement on voltages needed to reach high clocks or what?

[Pie_uk]

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2822&p=1

take a read, this bios v will unlock he multiplier downards for conroes

[Clunk]

the 0507 bios does as well, but i cant see much point to it at the moment because of the amount of voltage it takes to get any kind of high overclock.

edit: that article is an old one about the 0507 bios.

[shaithis]

have you tried it yet mate? any improvement on voltages needed to reach high clocks or what?

Only got the link this morning, as well as my RMAed RAM from OCZ.....both on the same day, whats the betting that the replaced OCZ RAM will not work with the new 'fixed' bios?

Anyway, set for some REAL overclocking attempts this evening