I've put quite a bit of research into this, but I would'nt be surprised if I missed something or if there were some better options. I have some lingering questions/decisions so any advice is appreciated. There are some links in here to some very informative sites.
I have a fairly strict budget of $650.
I already have a case, hard drives, floppy, os, and cables.
Not planning on doing any substantial overclocking on this system.
Not planning on running SLI.
A priority of this build is upgradability --> Perhaps a quad core and a single high end video card down the line.
The only reason I'm considering the 805D is that I could use the almost $100 in savings to buy more ram.
At $92 I would'nt have a problem dumping the 805D for another cpu within the next year.
Does anyone forsee the 805D as having any substantial issues handling any current or upcoming gaming titles in the next 12 months?
DDR2 MEMORY: $100 - $250
Of course I want 2 gigs here, but if I go with the e6300 cpu I simply won't have enough in the budget.
My initial idea was to get the e6300 and one 1GB stick of ram. I've come to understand that running it in single channel will result in a performance decrease of 10-15%, as oppossed to running two 512 sticks in dual channel. Input on that is appreciated.
Ideally I want two sticks of 1gig in dual channel. If I went with two 512 sticks now and added more ram later all 4 dimms would be used and I'd like to avoid that (upgradability).
So is it worth going with the 805D for the next 6-12 months in order to have 2 x 1gb sticks now or should I go with the e6300 and run 1x1gig (?) or 2x512mb (?)
Not too worried about what specific ram I'm going to buy until I decide on cpu/amount of ram dilema.
Will probably buy based on compatibility with motherboard and/or mobo manufactuers/forum readers recommendations.
RAM SPEED: I'm thinking minimum 667 for upgrade purposes. 800 probably better if I want to OC mildly.
Quad Cores FSB is 333 so the 667 ought to go 1:1 ratio as oppossed to 533.
800 would be needed for mild OC in 1:1 ratio with quad core.
MOBO: $123 shipped
This is the board I'm leaning towards as of the moment.
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128017 Close to the same board as the DS3 without some of the bells and whistles. DS3 is $33 more.
Definately want a 965 chipset here for future upgrades. (975 too expensive)
This won't be news to those of you that are familiar with "striders", but it lead me to research the company. Turns out Enhance is one of the industrys best PSU makers.
Several of the most respected PSU names are actually using enhance psu's. They just pretty them up and resell. I know this has been going on in many/most industries for years, from smoke detectors to sound cards, but I was happy to find out about this particular situation.
Silver Stones ST50EF-PLUS is basically an Enhance 5150.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/Element500/ ** great site **
This is extrapolation, but I feel comfortable with it.
Wish I could confirm if the 5150 is modular tho.. anyone know???
Using http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp I'm predicting a future quad core upgrade and high end video card would result with this system at about 420 watts peak = 32 amp load. I believe the 5150 has a 36amp max from 12v.
I think I guessed around 140 watt peak for a quad core and used a 1900xtx 130 watt power pig for vid card example.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000662.html
I would say get the E6300 and 1 stick of 1GB RAM. As you stated, there will be a performance decrease, but it should still be faster than the Pentium D 805 with 2GB of RAM. You can save up money on the side like $10 bucks a week so within 3 month's time you'll have money to buy another stick of 1GB RAM.
