New Core2Duo PC

[motoohot]

Hi guys, i need to make a new PC but i am very lost with all the choice that is out there, i dont want to pay alienware prices when i could do a job just as good, or near as good for a lot less.

I have been looking around and the new core2duo Processors have cought my eye. I want to build a reasonably powerfull system around the E6600 2.4GHZ processor. my budget is around £1000 but not really an option as i can over or under (under being prefered lol).

The main purpose for the PC would be to Support 2 monitors and good at general multi tasking (i like to multi table on online poker and have a few databases running at the same time) and be able to play a few games like HL2 when ive lost too much money and need to blow things up as well as watch films and stuff (if i can get TV on there would also be great as the TVreception in my room suks).

I have built a PC with my firend in the past but it wasnt a great sucess although it did work, we bought a few non compatiable parts and the bios kept failing every month after 9 months costing me a lot in repair bills. although i can put the system togather i dont know what is compatible and what isnt.

I would like your help in realising the maximum from this processor an what parts would work well with it including
mobo
Gfx card
Cooling
Case + power supply)
Ram (i dont know the diffrence with the diffrent kinds so dont know which is best for the core2duo)
Sound card (although i thnk onboard sound maywell be enough)

Also any recomendations on DVD and CD drives would be very welcome as well as any other things that i may have missed out,

sorry for going on and on, i have left a lot that i need help with and thanks for the help in advance

Mo

 

[zrawas]

Ok I see where you're going. You want an all-around rig. I'm gonna give suggestions from newegg and then you can look them up at a store or an e-tailer in england. I'm gonna assume that you know where to get the E6600, so i won't get into that. I suggest you get a new HDD too, but of you think what you have is good, that's even better to get better parts for the money. I'm gonna put the E6600 as £250.

Mobo (depending on budget): ASUS P5W Deluxe - £143

RAM: Corsair XMS2 PC6400 DDR2-800 CL4 - £134

HDD, get two of these in a RAID 0: Seagate 320GB Perpendicular Recording Tech - 2x£50

Video Card (you can either get top of the line now or wait a bit and get DX10 in a couple of months):
Top of the line: connect3D X1900XT 512 MB - £158
Good and wait for DX10: eVGA Geforce 7600GT KO 256 MB - £79

DVD with lightscribe: Samsung DVD - £17

Case: ThermalTake Armor - £79

PSU: Antec 550W - £42.

Floppy: £6

Total: £850-£930 (E6600 included)

Onboard sound should be good enough unless you're gonna be doing serious gaming. Then get this : Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic - £65

Good luck

 

[zrawas]

oh and get this CPU cooler : Zalman Cooler - £24

 

[bumfish]

Good suggestions from Zrawas although the parts will probably cost you more - you can't just convert dollar prices to sterling as we tend to get charged more for PC-related things here in the UK. For instance, the cheapest that I have seen a 7600GT is £105 including VAT from dabs.com.

I would pay a lot less than that for a case though. I bought a Coolermaster Centurion for my E6600 for £40 from dabs.com and it's a great case. Conroes don't need the monster cooling that can be required for older CPUs.

Unless you want titanically huge storage, want to squeeze a tiny bit more performance out of your hard drive, or worry about your hard drive dying I wouldn't bother with RAID either. Just buy a single drive.

One last thing - if you get bad reception on your TV then you'll get bad reception on a TV card.

Regards

 

[zrawas]

you're probably right, BumFish, but i was kinda going for future-proof but I do agree wth you on the currency exchange. If you want to save a bit, then by all means you can get a single Seagate HDD and a cheaper, but still good case. That will still be a kick-ass system.

 

[motoohot]

Hey guys, thanks a lot. very quick response i didnt expect anythng for a few days atleast. awsome.

Thats exactly what i need, some1 who know to tell me whats best instead of me trying to figure it out from the wide choice avaliable and screwing up... lol

I did some looking up and and found the following parts, could you please tell me if they are appropriate or not.

CPU E6600 2.4 @ ebuyer £240
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=112706

Mobo @ £140
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=113951

Hard Disk @ £60 (is this a bit over the top, can i get a cheaper one without too much performance cost, any recomendations?)

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=113433

PSU @ £70 (again isnt this a bit expensive, is there a cheaper alternative?)
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=90616

DVD RW i found this for £20 i am not sure if its ok or not. (grr out of stock too)
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=110835

Ram: i am unable to find the model that you described to me, can you please help me locate it to a UK Site. The ones i seem to get were 400mhz speed and im not sure if they are the ones i need as the ones you showed had 800mhz

Cases Again i came up against a dead wall, i looked for the £40 cool master but could only find a £80 one, if you have a link can i please ask for it. i did find this case in dabs,
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3LHJ&SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11023&SearchTerms=Full+cases&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=11023
I dont know how good it is so i thought to post it here for your expert opionion, it does have a 400+W Psu with it also, i dont know if its good enough or not, an weather it will be better off if i get a PSU myself as you recomended, advice would be very welcome (though it does look bit naff).

I opted to go for the OK gfx card as i will prob get a monster when the new Dx10 comes out and it all settles down and bugs are removed but they are EXTORTIONATLY overpriced in the UK (i couldnt find anythng under £200) so i am hoping tiger Direct will deliver to UK for the 140$ it has advertised.

As far as the CPU cooling goes, would you guys recomend gettin diffrent cooling then then one in the box as i am not going to overclock or anythng till i know that in MUCH more detail (i know ah heck all atm lol) and is there any other colling recomendation apart from the Zalman Cooler Which is out of stock here and i want to get this beast pumping asap lol. (holidays nearly runing out and i would like to enjoy em fully from now on lolz)

And thanks a Lot for your help you guys have been a great help already!!
Mo

 

[motoohot]

Oh btw The eVGA Geforce 7600GT KO 256 MB has support for 2 monitors? because i would like to use 2 montiors with this build.

Thanks again

 

[zrawas]

Let's go through through this one point at a time.

1. If you're not going to overclock, then the stock fan on the E6600 is more than enough and should keep it really cool. so No Overclock = Stock Fan is your buddy. The E6600 is even known to overclock on stock fan and heatsink really well.

2. For the power supply, don't go easy and cheap and suffer in the near future. If you invest in the antec PSU, you will definitely not regret it. As a hint, a PSU under $50 is a sketchy one and you should research alot before getting it. Antec is known to make great PSUs.

3. For the RAM, you can get it here : RAM but I dunno if it's still in price range. You can look for an alternative if you want. The alternative could be this: Corsair XMS2 PC6400 800MHz CL5. But I always say you get what you pay for, but do what fits your budget cuz I don't want you to be milked dry.

4. You can go with that case, but I can't tell you anything about it. It might be really good or it might be better of as a door stop. The PSUs that come with these kinds of cases is the thing to be aware of. They don't put voltage rating on them so it's a strike of luck if you ask me. Alternatives: TT Tsunami or TT Armor.

5. The 7600GT KO supports two screens ( you can see the two outlets from the card).

6. Hard Disk: you can get the one you linked or this one: Seagate 320GB. It's all up to how much games, applications, documents, movies, etc ... you're gonna have on it.

7. The DVD is perfect.


But let me just say: DAMN, prices are high in the UK. I couldn't help myself. :lol:

Good luck.

 

[motoohot]

Yea thanks a lot u guys for your help, ive just finished ordering all the stuff from ebuyer (gold mine!! found all the stuff reasonable after some of the prices i was gettin from dabs and other places lol).

Thaks again for all your help I ended up goin with this case due to the good reviews, Antec P180 EU Aluminium Super Miditower
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=91721

and since there was no samsung dvd-RW avaliable in stock anywhere i decided on this one instead
HP DVD840i 16X DVD±RW Dual Layer & Lightscribe Internal IDE (Black)

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=98123

Also i went one slightly better on the GFX aswell, as it was only £30 more i hope made a good choice on that
BFG 7900GT OC 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=106641

I found the Ram and HD at overclockers.co.uk no where else was in stock, and price was ok so i went for it.
£144.95 (+vat) x 1 - Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-108-CS)
and
£62.95 (+vat) x 1 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)


Over all it cost me a tad over £1000 but i feel if i get it going it will be money well spent. ive looked around on the internet and am getting priced up to £1500-2000 For this build (on custom Pc makers websites) (with some cutbacks also on the hard ware Some real expensive sites!!!). So all in all i am very please atm.

I would like to thank you guys for all your help and patience with me!!!

I thnk in a few months time when i get the New Dx10 compitable GFX card i may opt to OC the Cpu (with this motherboard i thnk it has a lot of potential!! Thanks to you guys). im gonna b taking some computing lessons to bring my hardware knowledge up to par however before i go and do that lol.

I look forward to the overclockin challenge and any more builds i have to do this will be first place to come for help. thanks a lot

Mo

 

[Mr_Breeze]

Ehh I would have told you to start with this.. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2111243 ... but I guess it's too late lol.

 

[windego]

motoohot, let me know if you encounter any ram/mobo voltage compatibility or bios problems. I'm looking at a similar build, except i'm going with the DS3 mobo, which is £50+ cheaper.

I also found ebuyer to be the cheapest, except that i couldn't find that ram either. Overclockers.co.uk is the only place that seems to stock it for some reason. dabs, microdirect, none of those stock good
DDR2-800 CAS 4

By the way, you are paying extra £50+ for the extra PCI-e slot on that mobo.

 

[motoohot]

wow that tiger direct is very appealing i was looking on that site for parts as it is alot cheaper but decided against it as they charge a silly processing fee and postage is alot nearly making it the same price as UK
I decided against it as if anything does go wrong it will be a real pain waiting for shipping and any repalcement so extra £ i spend is for peace of mind and convinience. Still, £1k is not bad for such specs and potential

Thanks
Mo

 

[zrawas]

You're rig is going to be one you can be proud of. That antec case is very good ( good you didn't go with the cheap case solution, you won't regret it). Overclocking potential should be very good, especially with C4 800MHz RAM.
That video card should hold you very well until you decide to get a DX10 card.

Congrats and hope every thing goes smooth with the build.

 

[motoohot]

Yes windigo i did think 140 was steep for a Mobo but ive looked around on a few sites and forums and the Asus Delux was getting a lot of recomendations, so what they hey, Also the fact that i am not very up todate with the hardware thesedays (1 year is a looong time when comes to PCs) hence me postiing on this forum for help. As long as it all works when it arrives on wed i am very happy

once again zar thanks for all your help.

Ill post again once i have it running

 

[Mr_Breeze]

You have to consider that not everyone overclocks zrawas.

 

[motoohot]

Hey guys, just to let you know Ive put the system togather and seems to be working fine, Couple of teething problems with the case and Psu as there were a LOT of wires to fir through a very small gap they provided, looks very messy.

Also cant figure out where to connect the case speakers on the mobo (the wire are labbled funny) apart from that everythng else plugged in and worked fine.

Couple of points to note, when i put XP SP2 on my DVD drive was unable to read any cds i put in there, i was gettin partially wriiten memory (or smmit like that) Error, To sove this (if any1 else has same problem) to to Device manager click on IDE ATA ATAPI (or similar) controllers find the IDE your dvd is connected to and click avanced setting tab and change the Transfer Mode To PIO only, and then restart, the DVD should now work normally.

Overall i am reasonably happy with the build however not noticed much of a performance boost as of yet, feels the same as before (downloading HL2 to see the real deal (done in 2 hrs :s) lol.) Startup feels a bit slow but maybe i was expecting too much


One question, without OC or anything what should be the CPU and Mobo temps? im gettin 37 (cpu) and 42 (mobo) i have a feeling these maybe a bit on the high side..

But the case is quiet as hell, (sometimes it does make an annying constant buzzing sound (start up) but then onwards is so quiet u dont know its on... )

like to say thanks again zar for all the help. hopefully no problems in the near future will keep you all posted