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Issues? Bottlenecks? Suggestions? Comments?

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I've been waiting weeks for X2 prices to drop and the Core 2's to come out and I'm glad I did. Here's my rig including shipping prices(It seems like a lot of other people on this forum are buying the same components):

Asus M2N-E $103.5

Centurion 5 $66 -- To be modded

SAMSUNG 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write and LightScribe Black ATA/ATAPI Model SH-S162L $33 --Don't know much about optical drives so I just chose one with Lightscribe, dual layer, and lots of good reviews.

Seagate Barracuda 320 GB 7200.10 Perpendicular $95 --Wasn't originally going to go with this until I read reviews that it's faster than the raptors.

Corsair XMS2 2GB 5-5-5-12 $177 --Went with XMS2 because it is supposed to work well with M2N-E


Rosewill RP550-2 ATX 2.01 550W Power Supply 115/230 V CSA, CB, TUV, FCC, UL $68 --Good reviews, good looks, 550W, how could I resist? But I'm a little concerned about Rosewill's PSU's.

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $154.5 --$154.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EVGA GeForce 7600 GT $156

Total $853

I'm not going with Conroe because the only motherboards that are capable of decent overclocking are like $200+.

I'm gonna overclock the cpu. DDR2 has tons of bandwidth that isn't useful unless you pair it up with a really fast cpu, right? So I might as well not overclock it and keep the warranty.

I'm gonna build a watercooling system. (Homemade waterblock, heater core, maybe a pump from a fish store, as cheap as possible)

I want to overclock the processor to as far as I can get it for bragging rights and then bring it back down to 2.5-2.6 (assuming I can even get it past that)

Issues? Bottlenecks? Suggestions? Comments?

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Quote:
I've been waiting weeks for X2 prices to drop and the Core 2's to come out and I'm glad I did. Here's my rig including shipping prices(It seems like a lot of other people on this forum are buying the same components):

Asus M2N-E $103.5

Centurion 5 $66 -- To be modded

SAMSUNG 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write and LightScribe Black ATA/ATAPI Model SH-S162L $33 --Don't know much about optical drives so I just chose one with Lightscribe, dual layer, and lots of good reviews.

Seagate Barracuda 320 GB 7200.10 Perpendicular $95 --Wasn't originally going to go with this until I read reviews that it's faster than the raptors.

Corsair XMS2 2GB 5-5-5-12 $177 --Went with XMS2 because it is supposed to work well with M2N-E


Rosewill RP550-2 ATX 2.01 550W Power Supply 115/230 V CSA, CB, TUV, FCC, UL $68 --Good reviews, good looks, 550W, how could I resist? But I'm a little concerned about Rosewill's PSU's.

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $154.5 --$154.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EVGA GeForce 7600 GT $156

Total $853

I'm not going with Conroe because the only motherboards that are capable of decent overclocking are like $200+.

I'm gonna overclock the cpu. DDR2 has tons of bandwidth that isn't useful unless you pair it up with a really fast cpu, right? So I might as well not overclock it and keep the warranty.

I'm gonna build a watercooling system. (Homemade waterblock, heater core, maybe a pump from a fish store, as cheap as possible)

I want to overclock the processor to as far as I can get it for bragging rights and then bring it back down to 2.5-2.6 (assuming I can even get it past that)

Issues? Bottlenecks? Suggestions? Comments?


Well if you're clocking your AMD64 X2 that high then the 7600gt will most probably be a fairly large bottleneck, if you're into high def gaming (High resolution, high levels of AA etc). Try an x1800xt or 7900gt instead.

If you have decent cooling 2.7/8 is possible with most x2 3800+ i believe (someone can correct me if i'm wrong).

Otherwise it looks like a very nice build!

Looking good, I have that burner: Very nice.

On the memory: Any way to squeeze CL4 or CL3 in the price? CL5 kills DDR2.

I wouldn't go with Rosewill, as I've never heard of any of their PSUs..FSP is good. I've looked around and the MSI TurboStream 600W is only $69 and has 44A on the 12V, which is very good.

The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro is a steal of an amazing cooler, if the WC doesn't work out.

Yeah, sometimes memory bandwidth is pretty big and the other components have some trouble keeping up, but the X2 3800+ is good. If you can get your WC really good, I can imagine you getting FX-60+, maybe even FX-62 speeds.

~Ibrahim~

Quote:
Looking good, I have that burner: Very nice.

On the memory: Any way to squeeze CL4 or CL3 in the price? CL5 kills DDR2.

I wouldn't go with Rosewill, as I've never heard of any of their PSUs..FSP is good. I've looked around and the MSI TurboStream 600W is only $69 and has 44A on the 12V, which is very good.

The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro is a steal of an amazing cooler, if the WC doesn't work out.

Yeah, sometimes memory bandwidth is pretty big and the other components have some trouble keeping up, but the X2 3800+ is good. If you can get your WC really good, I can imagine you getting FX-60+, maybe even FX-62 speeds.

~Ibrahim~


And everything he said.
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Suggested Changes:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300

Motherboard: Abit AB9 Pro <--- Should be a decent overclocker, and under $200.

RAM: OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800 <--- CAS 5 ram doesn't hurt performance on an Intel build as much as it would on an AMD build.

Power Supply: Antec Truepower 480W

Video Card: quantumsheep is right. The 7600GT will be a big bottleneck if you're into high def gaming. If you don't mind the extra costs, grab an eVGA Geforce 7900GT KO, or a Sapphire Radeon X1900XT

With the Core 2, you won't need a water cooling setup to achieve high overclocks, just a good air cooling setup. If you're not going to be taking the E6300 past 2.6Ghz, you won't even need an aftermarket cooler either. When you see how well the E6300 performs, you may not even want to overclock it.....

Quote:
Any way to squeeze CL4 or CL3 in the price? CL5 kills DDR2


ARRGGHH!! For CL4 that's like another $80 for XMS2! I'm not on a budget (I never put myself on a budget) but I still need to save money. So will CL4 make that much of a difference to justify $80?

I've come up with a list of possible solutions:

Get the 5-5-5-12 and tighten the timings to 4-4-4-12 if possible, but lose warranty.

Get M2N-SLI Deluxe in order to buy cheaper CL4 RAM that would not work on M2N-E because of the 1.95 vDimm max. It would still cost more than the CL5 route.

Get 4-4-4-12 DDR2-667 which is a lot cheaper.

Get 1GB (512*2) instead of 2. (I don't like this idea because it isn't half the cost for half the RAM)

Last, and least: go for the 4-4-4-12 XMS@ DDR2-800 for $255.


Quote:
The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro is a steal of an amazing cooler, if the WC doesn't work out.

You don't think I can do it?

Ouch, you are right. But the only thing is that the latency is so high that it negates any performance increases. $80 is too much, CL5 should be fine.

I'm not trying to say you can't do it, just in case you don't have the time to make a homebuild Water Cooling setup or something. Just a suggestion.

~Ibrahim~

I do some gaming, but I'm not after the best of the best at all. 7600 GT will certainly be the limiting factor when gaming, but only in gaming, right? Therefore I think I will stick with it and not go for anything more expensive.

About the memory, wouldn't PC5400 with CL4 be fine? Without an extremely fast processor the bandwidth doesn't matter so much, but the latency does?

Quote:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300

Motherboard: Abit AB9 Pro <--- Should be a decent overclocker, and under $200.

RAM: OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800 <--- CAS 5 ram doesn't hurt performance on an Intel build as much as it would on an AMD build.

Power Supply: Antec Truepower 480W


That'd cost me $100 more, but the E6300 is between 4200 and 4600. Oh and I do need to overclock or else I might experience withdrawal effects. :lol: 

You can overclock the E6300 if you want... it's not that hard. And this would increase the amount of time before needing to upgrade again.... The Core 2's beat AMD setup's in just about (literally) every single category. IMO, the extra $100 is worth it.

I found an article about the X2 5000+, which is about what I want to overclock the 3800+ to.

Quote:
We ran through a variety of memory and system tests using different processors and memory speeds, and had planned to publish them, but to be honest, there was virtually no discrepancy at DDR2-800 and only a slight gap at DDR2-667.


ARTICLE

That was a huge relief because PC5400 is a lot cheaper. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I'm not looking for sheer performance but rather price/performance. Tom's Hardware says that the X2 3800+ is currently $50 under the Intel curve. Also, AM3 chips will work on AM2, so it is a very upgradable path.
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