Finishing up my Core 2 build

[hacker91]

I have been buying parts on a per paycheck basis. I have the following bought.

Enermax Noisetaker 2 600W EPS Active PFC PSU

Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 2x512 C4

Powmax Demon case in black

2 WD 40GB IDE drives(dont use alot of storage)

Still need Mainboard,CPU,vid card.

I am looking at the following for mild OC and almost entirely gaming(WoW,DND online etc.)

Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe or maybe the P5N32 SLI Premium(Nforce 590 chipset version)

E6400 (dont need more then that for a long time) ( mild OC at about 300FSB max)

BFG 7600GT OC vid cards (2 in SLI yes I know a single 7900 out runs them. Its more about price as I will buy 1 then add the second later)

Total budget is around $900USD Have spent $270 on the PSU,memory. So that leaves $630 for the last 3parts.

I have read all the reviews on the Gigabyte DS and DQ series the Asus P5W DH and P5B boards. I need 2 IDE channels and none of them offer more then 1. I have 2 IDE harddrives and 2 Optical drives. I also want SLI so i can change cards to a 7900 or better when i need to.

Thanks for any reccomendations in advance

 

[shadowduck]

I have been buying parts on a per paycheck basis. I have the following bought.

Enermax Noisetaker 2 600W EPS Active PFC PSU

Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 2x512 C4

Powmax Demon case in black

2 WD 40GB IDE drives(dont use alot of storage)

Still need Mainboard,CPU,vid card.

I am looking at the following for mild OC and almost entirely gaming(WoW,DND online etc.)

Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe or maybe the P5N32 SLI Premium(Nforce 590 chipset version)

E6400 (dont need more then that for a long time) ( mild OC at about 300FSB max)

BFG 7600GT OC vid cards (2 in SLI yes I know a single 7900 out runs them. Its more about price as I will buy 1 then add the second later)

Total budget is around $900USD Have spent $270 on the PSU,memory. So that leaves $630 for the last 3parts.

I have read all the reviews on the Gigabyte DS and DQ series the Asus P5W DH and P5B boards. I need 2 IDE channels and none of them offer more then 1. I have 2 IDE harddrives and 2 Optical drives. I also want SLI so i can change cards to a 7900 or better when i need to.

Thanks for any reccomendations in advance

DO NOT under ANY circumstance EVER SLI 7600s. That is a horrible upgrade path, and just a waste of money. Look at the 1800GTO or just a little more money that will smoke a 7600GT. ATI really owns the graphics right now.

 

[The_Prophecy]

shadowduck is right, SLI is a horrible upgrade path and a complete waste of money. Get 1 7600GT, 1 7900GT or 1 X1800GTO.... but don't even think about getting 2 of any of those cards....

Go for the P5W DH Deluxe. It does have 2 PATA channels, you just didn't see the other one.

As far as the CPU goes, drop to the E6300 and put the money you saved into another part.

 

[177ine177ine]

Basically agree with everything just said. Sli is bad. Get the 7600GT and it should play all current games with AT LEAST mediocre settings. The E6300 is better as it overclocks to the E6400 performance, but the difference between bothj CPU's is only 5-6 frame rates anyway. The 7600GT should last you until DX10 hits the market.

 

[angry_ducky]

Like others have said, forget 7600GT SLI. If you already have one card now, then use it until DX10 arrives, then eBay it and upgrade.

You'll also save money by not getting an SLI motherboard. If you're going to overclock, then get the E6300 and an aftermarket cooler.

 

[levicki]

I agree that you should not get SLI. I had a hard time getting nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition to run the RAM you want without errors even at stock speed, and we all know that nF 590 has the same Northbridge as nF4 and thus the same memory controller.

I would suggest spending money on the high quality 975 board.

Personally, I have got Intel Bad Axe but you may opt for whatever suits you best, that one is well enough for me because it allows 50% overclock and when you pay for it you get stability and performance and not some useless features other tend to push in just to be able to claim rip-off prices.

I also have E6300 and the very RAM you are considering.

I managed to push the 5400-C4 RAM to 800MHz CL5-5-5-15 using 2.1V and E6300 to 2.8GHz just by upping MCH voltage to 1.6V.

I haven't tested long term stability at that speed but it passed all benchmarks in Sandra and Everest and worked for more than an hour without any problems. Bandwidth in Sandra measured 7344MB/sec. If you want such speed it would be smart to get aftermarket cooler like say Zalman CNPS9500. I would stay away from tower coolers, they might have better performance but they do not let any airflow on the components surrounding the socket such as mosfets, etc and Intel states radial cooler more or less as a requirement for their boards.

If you do not want to overclock much as you said, then just get E6300, up the FSB to 333MHz and put FSB:RAM ratio to 1:1. RAM will work at 667MHz at CL4-4-4-12 (needs 1.9V says Corsair in the manual) and CPU at 2.33GHz which is pretty close to FX-62 performance.

Good luck building it and enjoy every minute using it as I enjoy using mine.

 

[blade47]

wipe 7600 GT SLI off your mind.
Instead go for a 7900 GT and save the extra money for an upgrade later this year when Directx10 cards come out.

 

[boro169]

think they are right with the graphics card mentioned. about the motherboard i'm also looking forward for a p5wdh. its said that ddr2 667 with good timings can performance equal to ddr2 800 which can be less oc and worse timings. about the cpu i would look for an E6600 rather than a E6400 couse the 4mb cache makes a big deal and in us its price its not too too high about 350 dolars I think (here in spain its 430€ too expensive, even so its performance its worth the price for me).

 

[hacker91]

Okay been reading a few more reviews at Anandtech. They have a good midrange review today on the 7900GS compared to ATI and other Nvidia cards. I am not a real good fan of ATI. All 3 I have tried had issues with one thing or another. Never had the same issues with nvidia on the same systems. The ATI 1900GT and 1900XT 256MB looked real good compared to even the 7900GT. The price is the deal here. I am only playing 2 games ATM World of Warcraft and DnD online. My current system is a P3 1ghz 512mb SDRAM FX5500 256mb card. I can play WoW at low settings with 25-35fps DnD is a lil worse but still playable. I am do some number crunching for making cabinet cutlists and stuff .

For mainboards I have always liked the Asus line up. The i975 boards are solid as granite. I still use a Asus i815E board from 1999 =)

I have been looking at the DFI 975 X/G the MSI platinum V.2 the Foxconn 975 AB and the Asus P5W DH. The prices are very wide-ranged from $270 for P5W as low as $180ish for the Foxcon DFI and MSI. All seem to have good reviews but the P5W seems to be the only one with 2 IDE channels., but its price kinds puts it out of my range Unless I go with a much cheaper vidcard.

So out of these changes some more ideas please

William