Buying a whole new PC. I have a few questions. (big post sorry)

[acrobat]

Hiya everyone. I am buying a whole new PC in the next couple of weeks and its time I start finalising exactly what parts I need to get before I place the order, and I need some advice from any of you who can help me.

Im pretty good with hardware, but its always good to check things with other people first, especially seeing as I'm spending much more money than I wanted to. So its really important that I double check all these parts are compatible with each other and are going to do the job. I also have a few questions I need to ask.

Anyway, this is what I plan on buying:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - Retail
Asus 8800GTS PCI-E
Two - 320 Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA300 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms hard disks (not in raid)
2Gb (2X1Gb) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 4-4-4-12, EPP
20.1" NEC 20WGX2, Widescreen TFT

I'm pretty sure thats all compatible although I would love to know if getting the cheaper 667mhz ram would be worth it or not? I plan on OC'ing the E6600 to 3ghz so I figured the 800mhz RAM would be best. Am I right? All that stuff is pretty high end and expensive but my justification is that I have been using my current crappy PC for almost 7 years now without a single upgrade. Theres a dozen games I can't play, and the rest I have to run at very low to medium settings. So its time I treat myself I think, and knowing that it could last another 6 years, is enough to justify the cost really.

Anyway, besides looking that over for me, this is what I really need help with:

1) I need a PSU and I have no idea what to get. All I know, is that I need it to supply a steady stream to: a pair of SATA-II drives, a DVD-rom, an 8800GTS (not the high end GTX), a motherboard and any other stuff.. like case fans? I want somewhere above 500W but less than 600W. And I'm hoping to find the cheapest yet most reliable one I can find - preferably one which is also quiet and if its modular, that would be a nice bonus I can just pick one for about £50 or so from Scan's website, but im not sure what I should be looking for, what has a safe throughput of power... and what has the required power connector for an 8800GTS. So please help me choose one if you can. I have burnt myself out researching all this other stuff, so researching PSU's would make me weep I just hope someone can recommend a good one for me.

2) I have no idea what motherboard to buy.... I need to save as much cash as possible. The CPU and GPU and RAM are already much higher end and more expensive than I wanted to get... So im already pushing my budget. So every £1 I can save I will value. So I dont think I could afford one of the new 680i motherboards. But I need one as cheap as possible, but capable of overclocking an E6600 to 3ghz safely. Thats only a small-medium overclock, but thats all I really want to do. Having a CPU that lasts a long time is more important to me than one at say 3.6ghz that gives me an extra 10fps. So these are the ones I have seen at cheap prices, but again, I havn't researched these yet because it will make me tear my hair out. I have spent so long researching all this other stuff, so I need to check which of these (if any) will work, and will let me OC to 3ghz.

-ASUS P5PL2 (cheap! is it ok?)
-MSI P965NEO-F i965 (about £10 more than the ASUS)
-Foxconn P9657AA-8EKRS2H i965 (not cheap but promises fast boot up)
-Abit AB9 i965 (more expensive than I wanted to spend, but has a chipset cooler build in, and generally looks srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy)


3) Lastly, I need a case. Same rules as above really. I want cheap as possible, but quiet as possible, and with the best cooling possible. Looks are very un-important to me. It could look like a cardboard box and I dont care. Price, quietness, and cooling is all thats important. Although, I also want to make sure it has plenty of room to fit all my stuff in without me having to pack stuff tight and ruining the air flow like my current case. And I also would rather get one without lights or LED's because I play games and films in the dark and dont want to be distracted. I did some exploring on Scan.co.uk, and these are the ones I found that seemed ok and had 120mm fans which are quieter right?:

Xclio-II CS-3060 Midi Tower Case 250mm Side Fan Super Cooling (anyone know anything about it? Can't find reviews online Its really cheap! And it has that big fan which I'm thinking is fairly quiet and would keep my stuff cooled well)

Coolermaster Centurion RC-534Cheap too! But this one gets good reviews. Although it doesn't seem to have alot of room inside. I think it should be enough for a 8800GTS but I might have to go with an e-ATX case or something.

Would either of those do? If not, can anyone recommend a good one for me? I know a few amazing cases for about £65, but the £30 saving by getting one of these cheaper cases would make me feel better about spending 300 quid on a graphics card... Unless these cases will make me wish I spent that extra 30 quid on a fancy case.

Thanks in advance! And sorry for the long read.

[Chunkers]

Woah, I don't think your first choice of motherboard supports your CPU, its an i945, no mention of C2D on the asus website!

http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1...41&modelmenu=1

If overclocking is important to you go for the tried and tested route and don't try and skimp on the mb. Usual choices are the Gigabyte, Asus or Abit boards with the i965 chipset - need to do your research!

For 3 Ghz overclock you dont actually need PC6400 RAM and could get away with slower PC5400 DDR2 RAM although its probably not worth it for the tiny saving unless money is really tight.

I am sure others will advise on PSU / case combos but particularly with the PSU cheapo ones tend to be a false economy as they often are noisy and an cause trouble.

If cash is really tight maybe spend a bit less CPU / Gfx card and get a decent motherboard and PSU?

Chunks

[Fabula]

If money is tight, don't scrimp on the PSU. Go for one less HD instead. It would be easy to add one later. And the money could also improve your other options. A good name, 500W would probably be ok with that system, so I would put a 600W in to cope with future upgrades, more HDs etc.

Motherboard is probably the most important component as everything else depends on it. Go for a 965 chipset for very good performance and overclocking, at a fairly modest price. Gigabyte DS3/DS4 would be a good choice.

Stick with the ram, it's nice stuff.

The centurion is a good case, and affordable. Maybe ring up scan to ask if the 8800gts will fit in as that would be your main concern.

[tpfoster]

Make sure your PSU is closer to 600W because your setup will require quite a lot of power and it is better to go over the top on power supplies (you will be sure it will cope and you can upgrade components later) than to not have enough power. Also, go with a major brand, e.g enermax, fortron, seasonic etc. rather than a poor quality generic psu.

[acrobat]

Thanks guys! Thats really helpful. I will look into those brands of PSU's and will spend a bit more to get one of those tried and tested motherboards. And i'll double check that Centurion case again and hopefully that will do the job.

I think I can probably just about afford all that. I have been tempted to get the E6400 instead and maybe a Geforce 7950GT instead too, but it would only save me about £150 or so and seeing as im spending around a grand anyway, I just figured it would be best to spend that bit extra and know that I could really treat myself when playing games for the next year or so, and that the PC would last me another 6 years hopefully, without worrying about upgrading again.

Also, I really need 2 hard drives because I have some quite important data I need to keep backed up. So i figured that drive is only about 60 quids and its fast and big, so I could just get 2 of those and then have plenty of room to back anything up twice. I could maybe get 2 smaller ones like 250gig, but I think that would only save me about 20 odd quid, so again, I figured spending a bit more and having an extra 70 gig on each drive would be worth it.

Thanks again everyone, Im getting closer now to being able to decide what to order.

[Boogle]

If you want to save a little cash, get the E6300 and clock it

[EtheAv8r]

PSU is HUGELY important - don't skimp on it.

I recommend Seasonic S12-600, or better still S12-Energy+650, but whatever you chose get a quality one that can deliver stability... and I don't think that will come at ubder £50.

For the Motherboard the ASUS P5B Delux is the current cream of the Core 2 Duo crop - there are other contenders for best, but thay will cost a lot more.

You, like me, appear to keep your system a long time, so if you are willing to pay for a 8800, you should have a PSU and MB to grow with in future, IMHO.

[finlay666]

if you are after a cheap but good non dual card motherboard I would suggest the DS3, maybe even an asrock if you dont plan to overclock

I would suggest looking about for other RAM, nothing wrong with it you might just be able to get some better speed stuff (better for overclocking)

and if you are air cooling dont forget the Arctic freezer 7 pro

[acrobat]

Thanks guys, will check out those motherboards and PSUs.

One question first though. Is that "Arctic freezer 7 pro" much better than the stock heatsink and fan that would come as standard with a retail Core2Duo? If so, I would just get the OEM version of the processor, and then buy that fan. Its only £17.

--------edit--------

Ok, this is going to cost a fortune hehe, but I think I've decided what I should get:

PSU:
580W HiperPower Type-R
(I wont be adding anything to the PC, apart from my DVD-RW and maybe an occasional USB device. So that should be ok?)

MOBO:
Gigabyte GA 965P-DS3 iP965

CASE:
AKASA Zen case
(will call Scan to check it fits an 8800GTS)

Please let me know if you think those things will be ok. The rest of the PC will be what I listed in the first post, which is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - Retail (or OEM with that Arctic freezer 7 pro)
Asus 8800GTS PCI-E
Two - 320 Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA300 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms hard disks (not in raid)
2Gb (2X1Gb) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 4-4-4-12, EPP
20.1" NEC 20WGX2, Widescreen TFT

Only last question (apart from if all that above is ok), would be if you think I would be ok with: 2Gb Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), CAS 5-5-5-15 instead? The 4-4-4-12 equivalent is only £20 cheaper than the good stuff I listed above, so not worth skimping. But the Value Select 5-5-5-15 stuff is about £50 cheaper. So would that make much of a difference? Bear in mind I want to OC the CPU to about 3ghz, but I'm hoping to keep the ram at its default speed. If that RAM would hold me back, I'll just get the DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 stuff I listed above.

So please let me know if you think all that will work together and be ok Thanks in advance! You folks have been really helpful so far and made this alot better for me.

[Boogle]

This should help for the RAM: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...y-guide_6.html
I've skipped past all the synthetic tests, since quite frankly they don't matter.

The 8800GTS will fit in any case that fits an ATX motherboard, since its the same length.

The Hiper Type-R's have almost legendary ripple control (this is good since it extends the life of your hardware), unfortunately their power output on the 12V is definitely lower than average. I think the 580W model has something like 320-370W MAX output on the 12v rails.

You'll need a different HSF (like the AC) if you plan on overclocking any more than a few hundred Mhz.

Still reckon you should get the E6300, clock that, and spend the extra on the PSU. You'll keep the PSU for a lot longer than the CPU afterall. The performance between the two isn't exactly great either.

[acrobat]

Thanks bud and sorry for the late reply. And yes I'm going to invest in a better PSU.

Motherboard is going to be this:
Gigabyte GA 965P-DS3 iP965
£79.99 Ex VAT
£93.99 Inc VAT

And then PSU:
620W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU, ATX, EPS 12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty
£82.00 Ex VAT
£96.35 Inc VAT


How is that looking?


p.s. I'm definitely going to stick with an E6600 CPU because I'm new to overclocking so I might not even do it. And if I do, I would rather just bump it up a bit and know that its a fast enough CPU to begin with anyway. And the £50 extra over the E6400 is worth my peace of mind. Im also decided on an 8800GTX now instead of the GTS. And for a case: Akasa Eclipse-62.

Not going to be a cheap PC But it will hopefully be worth it, and I'll probably spend a few months with my jaw dropped after so many years of gaming on this old steam powered heap of junk I'm currently using.

[colinloves]

One question first though. Is that "Arctic freezer 7 pro" much better than the stock heatsink and fan that would come as standard with a retail Core2Duo? If so, I would just get the OEM version of the processor, and then buy that fan. Its only £17.

Im also waiting for feedback on this subject.


Personally, I would go for the DS4 mobo. Its just that extra bit snassy cooling.

[acrobat]

Im also waiting for feedback on this subject.

Personally, I would go for the DS4 mobo. Its just that extra bit snassy cooling.

You are absolutely right. Thank you for that I'm really terrible at deciding where to draw the line though. But that DS4 is just £15 more.... And it does look alot better. I think I would be crazy to not do that. Thank you I will definitely amend my list and add that instead. It just looks a lot better, the heatpipe is well worth having, but it also has FireWire and I sometimes borrow my brothers camcorder which uses Firewire.... So I'm really glad you pointed that out to me I just need to learn where to draw the line on this stuff because although thats only £15 more, for another £15 on top of that, theres the ASUS P5B Deluxe with WiFi heheh...

I think I should probably just draw the line at the DS4 though. Like you said it has better cooling and I dont really need WiFi. So that seems like a good place to draw the line.

As for that cooler, I couldn't find a comparison of it Vs the stock retail fan that comes with a C2D But I did read a review of it, comparing it to other coolers and it got a very good review. So I think, I'm just going to get it anyway. Again.... problem with drawing the line but £14 has gotta be worth it for a specific cooler like that which gets good reviews.

Although if anyone can assure me that its much better than the one that comes with a C2D, please go ahead, it will make me feel better