Hello people
Well i have finally decided to jump upto dual core. Iv brought a mobo:
Asus - P5W DH Deleuxe
1gb Elepdia DDR2 1066

But now im deciding on what core2duo cpu to buy and what vid card?
Obviously i want to play games yet keep in a tight budget. So for both i have about £200 budget. So im looking at the E6400 -E6700 cpu and either a Nvidia 7900 gpu or as my board surports Cross fire two ATI cards?
So im stuck now can anybody help with my decision or any opinions.
Btw system is to be OC!
Many thansk
Damian Cole

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Since gaming was your priority, you could have gone with a cheaper board, and go for say the E6300 (overclock it) & match that with a card like the 8800GTS

You're messing with the wrong guy

Well im not an extreme gamer so i dont want like top of the range cause cheapest 8800gts i can find is like around £200. Ok then help me just with the cpu cause im going to buy a Titan Amanda TEC cooler so the cpu is going to be ultra cool so the OC should be no problem and mobo have good options so now its just the chip do i got for the e6300 1.83ghz or like the 2.13ghz does anyone know if they OC any more of less. Many thanks
Damian Cole

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.5ghz
1Gb Crucial XMS PC3200CL2
1 X 80GB HDD OS
1X 40GB HDD STORAGE
NVDIA GeForce4 MX4000 Pro
ASUS P4-U800-X
600w PSU 12v 1-14amp
2-15amp
WinXp

Yeah, you should have gone with a board based on the P965 chipset. Hopefully you didn't pay a premium for that DDR2-1066 RAM because it's unnecessary. I doubt you'll ever run the FSB at 533MHz, so you're gonna end up underclocking it. You would have been better off with 2 x 1GB DDR2-800...that will give you plenty of lee-way to overclock a lower end C2D such as the E6300. Crossfire is a waste of money...just get one good video card.

£39.99 for 1gb of ddr21066. And what care do you recomended jam? I would like to stay with Nvidia, any ideas. Also parts are to be brought of ebay. Many thanks
Damian Cole

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.5ghz
1Gb Crucial XMS PC3200CL2
1 X 80GB HDD OS
1X 40GB HDD STORAGE
NVDIA GeForce4 MX4000 Pro
ASUS P4-U800-X
600w PSU 12v 1-14amp
2-15amp
WinXp

There's nothing you can do regarding the motherboard & the RAM since you already bought them but next time asking before you do sure helps with the decision making.

You are free to go for the 7900 but it just seem like misplaced priorities building a gaming system & spending more money on premium motherboard, RAM, cooling & then cutting corners on the video card. FYI, CPU these days do not run as hot as they used to be & as you know people are attaining significant overclock with just the stock HSF especially with the C2Ds.

I know @ ~$250 AR - a card like this just can't be beat, unfortunately you are not in the US so that offer may not be that persuasive to you. But pairing that with an E6300 is a damn good consideration. However, it's all up to you.

You're messing with the wrong guy

Hi
I paid £110 for mobo and £40 for RAM, looking now im spending £90 on C2D E6300 and about £100 on vid card. And £65 for Titan Amanda although considering water cooling for complete system, although motherboard has a passive heatsink for northbridge + voltage vegulators, so i might not
Were do you think i should add money to and take away from and i could always sell motherboard back on ebay. Any ideas and options. Many thanks once again
Damian

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.5ghz
1Gb Crucial XMS PC3200CL2
1 X 80GB HDD OS
1X 40GB HDD STORAGE
NVDIA GeForce4 MX4000 Pro
ASUS P4-U800-X
600w PSU 12v 1-14amp
2-15amp
WinXp

I don't know how it works in the UK but in the US, eBay is generally not a recommended place to buy PC parts from. There are way too many other reputable sources available. The eBay risk factor far outweighs the few dollars that might be saved.

As for your hardware choices, I wouldn't have gone with that board...it's just way too pricey, plus boards based on the P965 perform as well or better.

I don't understand the RAM choice either & I'm wondering if you're confusing effective & actual clock settings? For best performance on a C2D system, the CPU:DRAM ratio should be 1:1. Most C2D's run at 1066MHz FSB (266MHz actual), so if you weren't planning to overclock, all you would need would be DDR2-533 (266MHz actual). To take full advantage of DDR2-1066 (533MHz actual), you would have to overclock the CPU FSB to 533MHz (2133MHz effective)...the chances of that happening are slim to none, so your RAM will need to be underclocked. Also, you should have 2 sticks of RAM to be able to run dual channel mode.

Water cooling is another unnecessary expense but as Sabertooth put it, you have "misplaced priorities" & will probably get it anyway.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6300 = $180

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 = $100

Graphics card: 8800GTS = $250

RAM: PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 = $170

You're messing with the wrong guy

Yeh sadly everything in UK seems to be a far bit more exspensive that the prices your saying. Looking at a 8800gts cheapest i could find overall was ebay at £160 or $310. Although C2D is same price as is RAM and Motherboard. Im now quite considering the 8800gts, although i doubt i could get it straight away and might go for a very cheap card for like 2 weeks while i seel my pc. And then use money from that to buy it?
Anyhow many thanks for ideas and comments. One last thing were are you getting the price for the 8800gts from and do you know if they ship to U.K.
Many Thanks
Damian

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Couple of years ago, there were rumors of Newegg setting up shop in the UK, so far it has not materialized so you are OOL on the $253 AR 8800GTS deal advertised on Newegg ;-(

You're messing with the wrong guy

Do you know what it would cost for to have one shipped over if i got some one to order it out there and send it across obviously cheapest method. Many thanks
Damian

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Still higher than Newegg's listing but a lot cheaper than all of the others & if you had to buy it here & have it shipped to the UK. Email the seller for questions or details.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/X-VISION-320M...

You're messing with the wrong guy

Thats the exact one I found myself on ebay :) Last question cooling? What should i go for to get a good overclock on my soon to be E6300 as im hoping for about 3.2ghz+ OC, do i go with my Titan Amanda (Peltier +air which i was looking to mod with 2 x 120mm) or a good air heatsink? As i feel watercooling is to exspensive and that the cheap units are pretty poor!
Thanks
Damian

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Right guys iv decided with your advice and the great shock when i was double checkign a review to sell my motheboard mainly due to the fact of the FSB only going upto 400mhz which would mean the maximum clock i could get would be 2.9ghz on a E6300. So now what motherboard do I go for its up for sale at £100-120 I was looking at a Asus P5N32-E which uses the 680i chipset. Any thoughts or ideas. My budget is say £110+50 with all cash at the moment? Cashe for CPU + VGA coming in 2 weeks!
Many thanks
Damian Cole

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

The E6300 will do 3.2HGz easy with Intel's stock cooler - no need for an aftermarket solution.

The money saved from scratching the secondary cooler can be used to upgrade the CPU from an E6300 to an E6600 - that IMHO is a better way to spend money. You can start building the rig now & do keep us posted on your progress ;-)

Edit: The (P965) P5B Deluxe from ASUS @ roughly £123 inc VAT is the perfect match for you, no need for the more expensive 680i motherboard. The chipset failed to prove itself as a compelling option over the already time & battle tested 965 despite being a later arrival.

Give it up for MC Rove

Hello
I have found the P5W DH Deleux for £5 do you think it is worth me getting the 680i chipset at just £5 more. Many thanks
Damian Cole

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

If the cheapest P5B Deluxe is only £5 less than cheapest P5W-DH Deluxe then you might as well go for the P5W-DH Deluxe. But I doubt the cheapest P5B Deluxe is only £5 less.

Anyhow, contentment is the key. Hence the reason why knowing when to pull the trigger is easy for some & not so much for others, try not to lose focus.

You must realize once you get to a certain threshold, you aren't getting much *real world* benefits no matter how much more you spend on these components. My best advice (as earlier) is to scale down the budget for the motherboard & put the difference how ever much it is on the video card & if any is still left over, divert it to the CPU. Forget premium motherboard & cooling, a more than average 965 motherboard is sufficient enough for a decent Conroe overclock.

Give it up for MC Rove

Thanks sabertooth yeh iv decided to go for the pricier P5W-DH Deleux because it will be able to surfice any upgardes in future. And I have decided not to buy an aftermarket cooler and spend the extra £65 in getting the E6600 and When i get the £150 to buy a 8800GTS. Thanks for the advice and ill keep you posted on my build.
Many thanks
Damian

*EDIT*
What i meant was the "P5N32-E SLI Plus" not the P5W DH Deleux which i am selling sorry got confused. Many thanks
Dam

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Hello
Finally sold my Mobo for £120, Just before i was about to buy the P5N32-E SLI Plus i read some more reviews to find people claiming the board was a teriblle Overclocker because the passive heatsinks for the Northbridge and Southbridge controllers ran exterenly hot! So now im stuck with what Motherboard to get. Back to square one, so now any ideas or opions on a good Overclocking board for a E6600 i want 3.2-3.4+ ghz?
Many thanks
Damian

Pentium4 3.20ghz@ 3.8ghz
1Gb Corsair XMS
2 x 250gb
PNY 7600GSAGP @450/1000
ASUS P4P800 SE
Thermaltake Purepower 680w
Win XP Home

Well if you still haven't bought a video card I'd suggest a ATI X1300 XGE 512MB 600MHz that's the one I'm using and I did extencive research before I bought it. It is fairly cheap and you get more than some of the more expencive ones!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 1MB L2 per core
2GB Dual Channel ECC 333MHZ
320GB SATA 7,200RPM
10/100/1000 Gigabit Networking
7.1 surround sound
ATI XGE X1300 512MB VC 600MHZ