E6600 build, come share your suggestions with me.

[Indi75]

So, it's time to finally give up my old Athlon and get meself a 'dirty' intel processor

Got my mind set on the following, but would like any better suggestions people might wish to share?

Currently buying:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 Dual Core Processor (2.40GHz,4MB Cache,1066MHz)

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB) 1066MHZ FSB

2 x 250 Gb Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ (for the RAIDing thereof)

Where I'm stuck is 'cos I prefer ATI to nVidia, so I've got 2 boards in mind:

ASUS P5N32SLI SE Deluxe NF4 SLI (for Nvidia)
or
MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition (for ATI)

I'd appreciate any suggestions as to alternative boards that might better those above, and also what graphic cards, for less than £250, you might recommend.

Any thoughts or advice?

Thanks

[Clunk]

save your cash and get 6400 ram, and avoid both of those motherboards, the msi is UBER kack, the nf4 is...well nf4, doesnt clock well Have a look at the asus P5B deluxe.

graphics wise, i would say the x1900xt is a good buy.

[Indi75]

Thanks Clunk, had noticed that a lot of Mesh/Scan bundles had the 6400 4-4-4-12. So might well go for that.

Does the lower Bus Speed not matter?

Also, if I may be so bold, why the P5B? It seemed an older board? You do mean the Asus P5B Deluxe?

[Clunk]

Yep, even if you are overclocking, you can still hit 3.6ghz without even overclocking the ram with 6400 stuff, and save a shedload of money in the process. Dont worry about the rated speed, pc2-6400 is 800mhz ram, the E6600 has a 9x multiplier (stock is 9x266), so 9x400fsb = 3600mhz and 400fsb x 2 = the ram speed of 800mhz.

thats assuming that your processor will in fact do 3600mhz.

The P5B is a current board, plenty of features and it overclocks like a good un

edit: yeah, the P5B deluxe wifi

[Indi75]

Cool. Not really worried about overclocking, just want a nice stable system.

I'm also looking at the P5W DH Deluxe,which will allow me a nice X1900XT, and isn't much more expensive than the P5B.

I've just been looking at your system, OC'd to 3210, out of interest then, what would the non-overclocked settings be? (dumb question I know)

[Clunk]

If you arent going to overclock, then pc2-5300 value ram will do the job as good as the expensive ram for a fraction of the cost.

You can run an X1900XT on the P5B, i have one and it runs great. I didnt like the P5W-dh to be honest, but mine was a real duffer. For running your cpu and ram at stock speeds, you'll see no difference between the p5b and the p5w, apart from the fact that you get a little remote control with the p5w.

Non overclocked, it would be 2400.

[owen1978]

If you prefer ATI then you might as well wait for the RD600 mobo

[Rys]

You might be waiting some time.

[shaithis]

If you want Crossfire (or may do in the future) the P5W 64 WS Pro may be the better choice.

Not a huge amount more then the P5B......and you can cover the extra cost by buying slower RAM as had been mentioned. If you feel the itch to overclock (and its well worth it), a lo tof the 6400 RAM will run at upto 1000MHz with very little effort.

[Indi75]

If you want Crossfire (or may do in the future) the P5W 64 WS Pro may be the better choice.

Not a huge amount more then the P5B......and you can cover the extra cost by buying slower RAM as had been mentioned. If you feel the itch to overclock (and its well worth it), a lo tof the 6400 RAM will run at upto 1000MHz with very little effort.

Yeah, I'm looking at an HIS ATI Radeon X1900 ICEQ3 SILENT Heatpipe Crossfire Edition 512MB on an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe, I'll likely go with either Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x512MB)800MHZ FSB or the GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit.

I'll not be overclocking it initially, it'll more than do the job, and I'm not in need of an e-penis of any sort.

If I pick up an Antec P180, is there a power supply you'd recommend? It'll need to have front and rear 80mm fans as opposed to my current Hiper 580W which has 80 rear but 120 in ther bottom.

[Clunk]

Im guessing that you are building this for gaming, by the X1900, so really, you want to stick 2gb of ram in there, if you can stretch to it.

Tagan have front an rear fans, pretty quiet and solid. How come you cant have a 120mm in the bottom of the psu?

[Indi75]

The P180 sits the fan in a separate bottom chamber with HDD in the front (optional) and PSU at back with a 120mm Fan in middle to pull air through.

The PSU will make less noise, and be more functional if it pulls through from front out of back as opposed to suck air up.

That said, inverted, it might still pull heat from the graphics card. I'll need to go inspect the case.

If I keep my existing Antec SLK3700BQE I need not change. If I do go to the P180, I might get another Tagan. I used to have TG480-U01 480W.

Whatever I go for will need to be modular anyway. I can't abide all the tat that hangs off the others.

[dancingmatt]

My top tip for the P180b - make sure whatever PSU you get has long enough cables to reach the connectors on your motherboard. If you get the Asus P5W DH Deluxe you need long leads to get to the 4pin CPU connector, for example.

DM

[Indi75]

Thanks Matt, I've read that in a few places now, and am likely to go for the NeoHE 500W PSU which I understand not only reaches, but also fits the P180 without needing to remove the lower chambers central fan.

RAMGUY @ Corsair was kind enough to assist me with establishing my memory questions also:

"First thing!
DDR2 Memory runs at:
DDR2-533 = 266 Clock Frequency 2 X 266 = DDR2 533
DDR2-667 = 333 Clock Frequency 2 X 333 = DDR2 667
DDR2-800 = 400 Clock Frequency 2 X 400 = DDR2 800
DDR2-1066 = 533Clock Frequency 2 X 533 = DDR2 1066

Intel CPU:
533 MHz = 133 MHz Clock Freq. 133 X 4
800 MHz = 200 MHz Clock Freq. 200 X 4
1066 MHz = 266 MHz Clock Freq. 266 x 4
Bottom line if you are not going to over clock I would suggest VS2GBKit667D2 as the best most economicle choice. And if you want to step up I would suggest Twin2x2048-5400C4 and the fastest choice would be Twin2x2048-6400C4 for that MB."

I'll be going with the Twin2x2048-6400C4 on the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe. Was gonna order it all today, but SCAN are now out of stock on the MoBo. Bummer.

[jimborae]

Yeah, I'm looking at an HIS ATI Radeon X1900 ICEQ3 SILENT Heatpipe Crossfire Edition 512MB on an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe, I'll likely go with either Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 TwinX (2x512MB)800MHZ FSB or the GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit.

I'll not be overclocking it initially, it'll more than do the job, and I'm not in need of an e-penis of any sort.

If you do go with the Asus p5w-dh then DO NOT get the Geil ram, the board doesn't really like it. It's fine at stock speeds but once you start to overclock it causes problems. Stick with the Corsair, I had XMS2-5300C4 in mine for a while and it really like that ram, the EPP feature really helps the board to set correct speed & divider.

[Indi75]

Noted Jimborae, and thanks. Cost implication of avoiding breaking the £1000 mark had me looking at the Geil last night.

I've currently got the following together, but think it's a bit late for staurday delivery now:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 Dual Core Processor(2.40GHz,4MB Cache,1066MHz)
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe SKT 775
Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x512MB) (MY-111-CS) 800MHZ FSB
HIS ATI Radeon X1900 GT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI
Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler
2 x 160 Gb Western Digital WD1600YS Caviar RE, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ
Antec NeoHE 500W Modular ATX2.0 PSU
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case
2 x 120mm NORTHQ Silent Tornado Casefan 12-17db

Just about done - still need some grommets for the extra fans, and have decided to add a second GPU and second Gig of RAM in a few months.